Photographer and online TV presenter Amanda de Cadenet recently joined up with Marie Claire magazine to create a survey about women’s use of porn (link). They received responses from over 3000 people, 91% of whom were female. The full results can only be obtained if you join Amanda’s mailing list, which I’ve duly done. I thought I’d post some of the results here because I’m always keen to see new stats on women and porn.
Of the respondents, 83% identified as straight, most were aged between 18 and 35, just over half were in a relationship.
The overall survey seems to suggest that today’s women are mostly comfortable with watching porn, they typically use it alone to masturbate and their tastes are quite wide ranging. When they do have concerns about porn, it often relates to the ethics of porn’s production, or else they worry about the influence it has on men’s technique.
Here’s a quick glimpse at some figures:
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* 31% watched porn every week or so, others were less frequent
* Most preferred to watch porn alone – 66% reported never watching with a partner
* Almost everyone used internet porn – 90%. The next best thing was erotic fiction at 40% ^
* The type of porn being watched was quite variable. 63% watched straight porn, next was lesbian porn at 41% with almost a third saying “it’s a mixed bag”. Clearly women enjoy a wide variety of content.
* 75% got their porn from free sites. Only 2% were prepared to fork out cash for their porn, saying they belonged to subscriber sites. Naturally this figure makes baby Jesus (and me) cry. Come on people, pay for your porn or there won’t be any new porn!
* 62% watched porn on their smartphone and only 12% used a desktop computer. Man I’m old.
* A majority (73%) said they mainly watched porn because it was a quick road to orgasm. Others liked to pick up ideas and felt that porn was a positive aspect of exploring their sexuality. 24% said porn was “no big deal, it’s just part of our culture”.
* Overall, it seems today’s women aren’t that concerned about porn. The question “How has porn negatively influenced your sex life, dating and relationships?” was thoroughly dismissed, with 76% saying “It hasn’t.” And 51% felt porn had been a positive influence on their lives.
I just want to include verbatim a couple of questions from the survey about what women like and don’t like about porn because I always find this question fascinating.
The survey pdf also contained a lot of individual responses. I’m just going to quote a couple here that I personally find interesting:
^ The percentages given are a little confusing, possibly because respondents could answer more than one question in each category.
I read someplace reliable that a lot of straight women also watch gay male porn (not the solo stuff but the men-doing-men stuff). As a straight woman who enjoys porn, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around that.
I’m happy that women are more confident about what they want but it’s actually kind of depressing for me to read that they don’t want to pay for the porn they’re happy to admit to watching.
Female focused porn generally costs more to make and it’s disappointing that there isn’t more support from the potential consumers.
The new censorship laws don’t help the British porn industry either.