Do women watch porn? That’s a fair question. According to Statista.com, Reddit NoFap data, and plenty of other sources — yes, they do.
A common complaint for women seeking freedom from porn is that most information online is from a “mostly a male perspective”. The advice is written by men for men, because porn is mostly a men’s problem. Or is it?
While that was once true, let’s talk about the here and now.
Gradually the silence surrounding women using pornography is being broken. But not to the extent needed as you listen to women commenting publicly in NoFap groups. So let’s look at some data about women and porn use.
Table of Contents
- Has Female Porn Consumption Changed Over the Years?
- Where In The World Do Women Watch Porn?
- Do Men and Women Differ In Their Porn Searches?
- Why Do Women Watch Porn?
- Do Women Who Watch Porn Feel Shame Or Isolation?
- Is Watching Porn Harmful To Women Long-Term?
- Is It Okay For Married Women To Watch Porn?
- How Can A Woman Quit Porn?
Has Female Porn Consumption Changed Over the Years?
The answer again is “yes”. Where better to get our answers than from the porn industry itself? One major porn site publishes a “Year In Review” using their own data. According to massive data tracking systems, women watch porn across every continent (maybe minus one). We’d say porn sites have a vested interest in knowing their market well, so the data should be pretty accurate.
Over the years the number of women watching porn keeps increasing, too, so the gender gap is decreasing.
For example in 2105, 24% of Pornhub’s users worldwide were women.
In 2019, their number of women visitors had grown to 32%.
What is significant? In 2021, that number increased again by 3%, possibly due to the pandemic.
Where In The World Do Women Watch Porn?
First, let’s do a little geography review of the major continents. Just for fun, can you name the one that is missing? If you can, you’ll understand why this continent did not make the porn research list, too. ( Brrr… that’s all the hint you’ll get). We’ve checked out Statista.com, as well as a survey done in Australia.
Africa
Women in Africa watch much higher than global averages of porn — in certain countries. Other African nations watch less than average and some are average. There’s a sharp difference between African nations.
Asia
The vast majority of Asian women watch far less porn than average, according to a major porn site’s data map. However there are a few porn hot spots, such the Philippines, where women watch more porn than average.
Australia
Based on a separate survey done by Australians for Aussies, women in the “land down under” watch more than average amounts of porn.
This survey of 15,000 Australians by Triple J gives us a much bigger (and potentially more accurate) picture of Aussies aged 18-29. About 58% of all the women in this survey watch porn online, compared to 93% of males. [1]
Europe:
As a whole, European women watch average amounts of porn. There are a few northern European countries where women watch a lot of porn. And then, shockingly, there’s romantic France, where women actually watch less than average porn. Maybe that explains the French’s reputation for romance? Porn use often strains intimate romantic relationships. More about that later.
According to a 2019 survey based in France, published by the Statista research department in 2021, 77% of French women aged 18 and up say they never watch porn online. Their research base was extremely limited, based on a total of 1,008 total respondents.
North America
Including Canada, North Americans are uniformly average in the amounts of porn that they watch. Average, yes, but very habitual.
South America
The South American continent rivals Africa for hot spots of excessive porn use among women. Some countries are average, some are above average, and a few are at the top of the scale for watching porn.
Do Men And Women Differ In Their Porn Searches?
Yes. The data shows that men and women differ both in type and frequency of porn searches. The number one type of porn searched for by women is lesbian porn, unlike men.
Do women watch violent porn?
Sadly, the answer is yes according to Fight the New Drug and other sources.
The truth is that according to the porn industry’s own data, women are increasingly searching out “hardcore porn” more then men! One highly popular genre, “cartoon” porn, also portrays a ton of violence against women, and attracts both male and female audiences.
How often do women watch porn?
As a general rule, men still search for and watch porn far more often than women. How often women watch porn also greatly varies by country. An overall average of women in the United States based on a 2020 survey by Menshealth.com says that 15% of women in their 30s watch porn 2-3 times weekly. [2]
The majority — 66% — of female respondents in the Australian study say that they watch porn less than once a week, compared to about 50% of males who watch porn a few times a week. [1]
A French study was less dramatic. Less than 10% of women in this small study say that they watched porn often.
Sometimes the questions surrounding the topic of women and porn are more pressing and mysterious. Answering these questions may help you the most in your quest to quit porn. It’s a journey of self-discovery.
So why do women watch porn? What motivates us?
Why Do Women Watch Porn?
Many reasons that women use porn are gender neutral. Ted Shimer’s book The Freedom Fight makes a case for six root causes of compulsive porn use. He speaks from both a secular and religious perspective.
Both psychologists and trained sex addiction therapists seem to agree on the following common reasons people — including women — use porn:
As an escape mechanism to deal with stress or unmet emotional needs
Compulsive porn use can function as an outlet for exploring sexual interests or unmet needs women don’t feel comfortable sharing with a partner or to avoid relationship conflicts.
“When I first started to realize I had an issue with porn, I was using it as an escape route from stress and emotions that came up that I didn’t know how to deal with in a healthy way,” says Erica Garza, essayist and author of Getting Off: One Woman’s Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction. Garza says she used porn “to avoid intimacy, as an escape route and as a coping mechanism instead of dealing with issues as they came up”. [3]
To soothe past trauma such as physical or sexual abuse
This section might need a “trigger warning”, but let’s rip the bandages off the wounds as quickly and painlessly as possible. If you’ve had any sort of physical, sexual, or even verbal abuse in your background, you’ve likely developed a self-soothing survival mechanism. Trauma makes you more vulnerable to porn which gives a quick, positive dopamine high. Talking to a therapist about your trauma is a vital step towards healing.
Finally, here’s a very common reason why women view porn.
To spice up their sex life or to explore their own sexuality
Only viewing porn with a partner instead of alone is far more likely for women than men, according to this study. While men may watch porn with their partners, they’re very likely to watch porn by themselves, also. One clear reason for porn use overall is that women want to be better at sex for their partner. Femme porn encourages women to explore sexual freedom and power — another way that porn seduces women.
Do Women Who Watch Porn Feel Shame Or Isolation?
With almost 38k members, the Reddit NoFap Christian group undeniably highlights the genuine shame and regret over porn use that many religious people feel. It would be interesting to run a survey among all of the NoFap groups to try to answer this question more accurately.
However, Religion News reports this: “The church’s zero-tolerance policy for porn means those who consume it only occasionally might see themselves as addicts from the first viewing. So even though conservative Christians use porn less than other Americans, they are statistically twice as likely to consider themselves “addicted” to it. Their shame can be soul-crushing”.
Alice Taylor, author of Restored: A Woman’s Guide To Overcoming Pornography, shares her personal struggle with porn,
“I felt I couldn’t tell anybody. Because porn is a guy’s issue, right? Once I finally realized I had a problem, I did what every millennial would do. I googled it. Hundreds of articles… and recovery resources appeared. Some of my searches accidentally led me to more porn, but even more harmful was the complete dominance of male pronouns. If the internet wasn’t talking about women and porn addiction, it must be bad, I thought. Really, really bad. I must be a freak…”
Since there’s more shame connected with females viewing porn as a general rule, soul-crushing shame coupled with isolation is almost inevitable for women with a religious background. Both personal beliefs and the stigma that sexual sins are worse than other sins contribute to this.
Crystal Renaud, author of Dirty Girls Come Clean and founder of SheRecovery.com, describes her own experience of isolating shame.
“I was too ashamed to tell anyone about what I was doing. It was bad enough that I was struggling with this, but adding on the fact that I was a girl? No way could I ever let anyone in on that. In my mind I was the only girl who ever struggled with a pornography and sexual addiction.”
Growing up with a Christian background, she stumbled onto her brother’s porn stash accidentally at age 11, and got hooked. She used porn for eight years before finding help and hope.
Is Watching Porn Harmful To Women Long-Term?
Let’s start with those on the journey to becoming women — our tweens and teenaged girls. By age 16, most teens will have already been exposed to porn. We already know that younger women are watching porn based on the statistics mentioned earlier. So what happens when younger women watch porn?
Porn grooms young women to expect and accept abusive sexual behavior.
What girls see in porn, they normalize. Then girls begin to struggle with false ideas and fears about sex.
Michelle Brock, mom to a teen daughter, writes about her own experience and those of other women in Relevant Magazine:
“Junior high girls are asking the question, “Can I still be popular if I refuse to have porn-star sex?” One mom, in tears, told us her 14-year-old daughter had been asked by several guys in her class for naked pictures of herself (which then get traded between boys during recess). As porn becomes more violent and degrading, so do the real-life requests of boys and men. These expectations carry into healthy relationships and into marriage, requiring us to unlearn what porn has taught us about intimacy.”
This story is not an isolated incident. Data reported by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation also notes the damages done by the false expectations and standards of violent sexual behavior against women set by pornography.
Whether or not you believe using porn is acceptable, even the younger feminist movement is speaking out about the violent sex portrayed in porn.
“We are surrounded by a world that wants to choke, slap, spit, pull, degrade, pound, smash, and destroy us. A world that tells our classmates to pursue and “conquer” us and if and when they do, we are forced to continue living within the same institutions, classrooms, and sitting areas as our abusers.” — says Estelle Lancaster in her article, “The Disempowerment of Adolescent Women”.
Watching porn often lowers women’s self-esteem.
Some women find porn to be “body positive” or supportive of their varied body types portrayed in certain types of female porn. However, therapists treating women who do watch porn frequently report a different story line, including self-image issues.
Women watching a lot of porn are experiencing dissatisfaction with themselves. Add this to typical high school and college experiences of relationships with hyper-sexualized young men. It’s no wonder young women’s self-worth suffers, leading some into depression.
After viewing “sex on steroids,” it’s way too easy for women to compare their bodies and sexual performance to a porn star. This naturally leads to feelings of inadequacy for many. But porn is also creating another vast “deep fake” deception — and porn videos actually do make up most of the deep fake videos, according to CNN.
We say “deep fake” because porn movies are often a deceptive illusion, with many different pictures edited and compiled together to create an impossible standard of perfection.
Porn reduces pleasure in real sex.
An in-depth study by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health discovered that porn use can make it difficult for women (and men) to experience enjoyable partnered sex. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health [4]
“…research and clinical experience suggest that porn, at least in its present incarnation, is not generally good for individuals or relationships because of how it tends to interfere with intimacy and set expectations regarding sexuality,” says Grant Brenner, MD, in Psychology Today.
A 2019 secular study of the effects of porn on heterosexual relationships reported by the Women’s Journal of Health was not porn positive, either. Among the negative aspects noted was “preference for pornography consumption over sex with a partner”. Isolation and porn go hand in hand.
Women’s brains are also overstimulated and rewired by porn.
A 2019 medically reviewed study complete with brain MRI’s of participants reported the brain’s response patterns to visual sexual images. The researchers concluded this: “in contrast to common beliefs and reports of previous studies, our analysis demonstrates that there is no functional dimorphism in response to visual sexual stimuli between men and women”.
In other words, porn affects our brains similarly across gender lines. That means that dopamine highs from porn use also wire a female brain to want more porn. Hebb’s rule, “neurons that fire together, wire together” should be a warning, then.
So, do women who watch porn struggle with unwanted sexual behaviors? Absolutely! Compulsive porn use is as challenging to face for women as it is for men, according to the available research.
Is It Okay For Married Women To Watch Porn?
Secular research is gradually documenting the effects of porn on marriage, which is still hotly debated in some circles. However, we’ll share the cons we know of.
A “happiness deficit” is created in married couples due to porn use.
“And while there’s no evidence that porn use makes for happier marriages for just about anybody, the happiness deficit is worse among conservative Christian couples when one spouse is using porn. Bottom line? Porn isn’t terrific for relationships, as users in general (especially men) report lower relationship quality than those who do not consume it.”
Longevity of marriage is reduced by habitual porn.
A survey conducted between 2006 and 2014 in three different waves reveals a divorce rate that nearly doubles when porn is habitually used in marriage. Women who discontinued pornography use during the survey had lower levels of divorce. Time magazine also found this study notable enough to share.
Porn interferes with intimacy.
The medical community also continues to weigh in on porn and marriage problems.
“…research and clinical experience suggest that porn, at least in its present incarnation, is not generally good for individuals or relationships because of how it tends to interfere with intimacy and set expectations regarding sexuality.” — Grant Brenner, MD, in Psychology Today
Here we circle back to shame as a common reason for porn use and a huge hindrance to intimacy. It’s important to understand yourself.
Robert Weiss, PhD, LCSW notes that based on research and his own clinical experience, people who use porn tend towards narcissistic traits, whether male or female. “Clinically speaking, narcissism is a defense/coping mechanism used to deal with inherent and deeply rooted feelings of shame, inadequacy, and unworthiness. So even though many narcissists are successful in their careers and elsewhere in life, internally they are insecure and fragile.”
Marriage is a partnership. And both partners need to be willing to give, so unaddressed hurts or narcissistic traits are a clear hindrance to a happy marriage. Knowing and naming our enemy inside and out is vital to getting the help needed.
How Can A Woman Quit Porn?
It’s clear that women who watch porn and experience similar challenges men do when they want to quit.
Where do you even start if you really want to be done with porn, you may be wondering.
You are not alone, though you may feel this way. Knowing other women have faced challenges quitting porn helps. Hope ignites action. Here are some hopeful, positive steps if you’re a woman who wants to quit watching porn. Break the silence one step at a time!
First, join a group of like-minded women.
Go check out one of the NoFap Reddit groups for women. You’ll hear several thousand women speaking out about their desire to quit porn. There are also private paid group coaching options like Bloom. If you’re more interested in a religiously-centered group or therapist, you can check out Crystal’s group or Pure Desire’s options.
Maybe you have already desperately tried to pray the porn away, but have been hiding in fear, shame, and isolation. Inside of online or in-person groups, many women are opening up and sharing their stories. Reach out for caring support. Connecting with others is a huge positive step forward. You won’t feel so alone!
Next, become accountable to someone you trust.
Accountability is another positive step. When you’re able to open up to a trusted person, it’s life-changing. Tell someone your struggles — there’s such a sense of relief. Also, share your wins and challenges. You may wonder what accountability look like in practical ways. Here’s what’s involved:
- Ask a safe, supportive person to become your accountability partner. Have them check your internet and browsing history on a regular basis.
- Use an accountability app to make it easy to stay accountable consistently. Filters and blockers aren’t nearly as effective as an app that quietly runs in the background all the time, and sends weekly reports to your accountability partner.
- Be honest with your accountability partner when you slip up. Every human slips up. Your partner will check on you, too, if they see a problem flagged in your report, if you use an accountability app.
- Celebrate wins with your accountability partner. This is so important! If we only focus on the negative, we lose sight of positive progress.
However, this is just the beginning of a journey toward freedom and genuine progress. You can read more in-depth information about quitting porn on our blog. What is that process like? You can also learn what to expect as you go through the process of quitting porn. Porn withdrawal may be difficult to navigate. However many women have found their path to freedom from porn. You can, too!
At Ever Accountable we’ve worked really hard to make accountability easy, reliable, and accessible through our accountability app. Porn harms every life it touches, no matter their gender. We truly wish to help to anyone who wants to quit porn and live life abundantly. We’re in this together!
More Sources Cited:
- https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/heres-what-you-told-us-about-what-porn-you-watch/11442772
- https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/g31912302/sex-in-america-survey-2020/
- https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwmypa/porn-addiction-in-women
- McNabney, Sean M., Krisztina Hevesi, and David L. Rowland 2020. “Effects of Pornography Use and Demographic Parameters on Sexual Response during Masturbation and Partnered Sex in Women” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 9: 3130. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093130
