
What Google searches for porn tell us about ourselves - cgoodmac
https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/6/27/15873072/google-porn-addiction-america-everybody-lies
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look_lookatme
> I think porn is a pretty good measure of people’s sexual fantasies, even if
> they never act on them.

I like watching Jason Bourne movies but that doesn't mean I have a fantasy of
being a chronically embattled amnesiac clandestine operator engaged in half a
dozen or so protracted car chases a week.

~~~
cthulhua
Maybe not that, but I bet a lot of Bourne/Bond/? fans think super-competent
badasses are cool.

~~~
majani
That was his point. You can just watch something edgy cause you think it's
cool, not cause you want to experience it in real life.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Having a fantasy doesn't necessarily mean you want to experience it in real
life.

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Mz
I am reminded of discussions about how "credit card companies will soon know
exactly what we all eat and be able to predict our health because of it" where
people rebutted that with "I pay cash for most of my produce at the local
farmer's market."

There are people who aren't into porn at all. Porn watching tells you
something about people who watch porn. It may tell you nothing at all about
actual sex lives. As I understand it, most porn is consumed alone, as a
substitute for sex with a partner. What people seek out under such
circumstances may not be that representative of what works for them in a
relationship.

~~~
passivepinetree
What source do you have for "most porn is consumed as a substitute for sex
with a partner?" That seems like a pretty big assertion and I'm inclined to
disagree, but I'd like to hear your argument/reasoning/sources.

~~~
adjkant
If you're inclined to disagree, how do you see it being consumed? As far as I
know from my own experience, the vast majority of porn is consumed alone. I
took that to be equivalent with the quoted section because I'm guessing most
watching porn would also prefer sex with someone. It seems like your point is
semantics to me unless you do truly believe that most porn is not consumed
alone, in which case I'm really interested why you think that.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
What? I know lots of couples, gay and straight, that watch porn together.

"I'm guessing most watching porn would also prefer sex with someone." That is
also a bizarre assumption to make. Sure, perhaps in theory, but a lot of
married people watch porn who like to fantasize but have no desire to cheat,
lots of people watch porn who definitely don't want to have to deal with all
the unfortunate risks (STDs, unwanted pregnancies, crazy exes) of actual sex.

~~~
adjkant
A lot of couples don't watch porn together though. Lots of couples watching
porn together does not mean they are the majority.

I don't see how the second in bizarre either. A majority is not the same as
all here either. Married people can also watch porn when their partner is not
in the mood, even when they would prefer sex. I'm not denying all of the cases
you listed exist, only that they are not a majority of porn usage. I feel very
confident assuming that there are lots of single people ages 15-30 watching
porn alone and who would prefer sex, and that demographic alone would make up
50% at least.

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dkla1120
> "Stephens-Davidowitz’s data suggests that there are more gay men in the
> closet than we think..."

> "...that a lot of straight women watch lesbian porn"

Why not a lot straight men that watch gay porn, and more lesbian woman in the
closet than you would think?

Or just people who are hyper-sexual?

I'd be interested in understanding the methods used to determine the
difference between homosexuality and hyper-sexuality, and simply curious.

But I feel that both of those original statements evoke certain stereotypes,
which makes me wonder what biases were applied to the study.

~~~
pdimitar
I am that guy who was always in women company (ever since 16, and I am 37 now)
and almost never did hit on them. I was just much more interested in what
women say, think and do -- compared to 99% of my male peers who were nothing
more than testosterone-filled stupid machos.

My evidence is of course anecdotal, but from what I've seen, men have much
less desire watching man-to-man action. It's related to many's fear of
"turning gay without knowing it" (it's a funny concept but it's extremely
common) and very often it's about them looking less manly if they don't show
active interest in women... (A lot of men are really weird and kind of stupid
in that regard.) That being said, me and many others who aren't ashamed of
openly discussing sex are still not interested in gay action simply because it
doesn't sexually appeal to us.

As for women, and when I asked them why do they watch gay men porn, many have
told me that they believe only a man can know how to please a man to 100% and
that they want to better educate themselves on how to be better in their sex
life... and they might actually have a point; I've heard from several gay men
that no woman's blowjob can ever hold a candle to one that a gay man can do --
I personally believe that to be an exaggeration but I think they're on to
something there.

And finally, a _lot_ of girls and women in my life have admitted to being
interested in lesbian sex but are afraid due to social stigma and them being
extremely vulnerable if they start actively looking for a woman sex partner.
My own spouse openly admitted she'd f_ck a woman if she found one willing to
do it. Strange thing is I wouldn't perceive that as cheating. I believe my
S.O. is correct when she is saying that men think their girls cheat on them
only if there's a penis involved.

That, plus hundreds of convos and experiences I've had in my life makes me
think that women are innately bisexual while men are, most of the time,
hetero-sexual.

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a1371
I find it hard to accept his conclusions. For example this:

> Porn featuring overweight women is surprisingly common among men. But the
> data from dating sites tells us that just about all men try to date skinny
> women. Many people don’t try to date the people they’re most attracted to.

Porn is a fantasy land. Many people find these stuff attractive because they
are far away from their ordinary lives. Looking at the top views of the porn
sites you can see strange titles like "Step-daughter punished by angry dad".
What does this tell you? Can you really interpret the titles as what people
want to do?

Same goes for overweight women. Some of the interest in watching those videos
could even come out of hate.

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Spooky23
This makes Freakonomics sound like Nobel material. Completely vacuous.

He uses the comparison that most men are looking to date skinny women, but
that many men are "afraid" to act on their attraction to overweight women.

Yet... nearly 40% of women are considered obese. About half are married or
otherwise attached. Who is to say that the population of online daters
strongly correlates with these terrified men?

~~~
illnewsthat
> This makes Freakonomics sound like Nobel material. Completely vacuous.

That's ironic considering he was a guest on an earlier Freakonomics episode:
[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/big-penis-things-ask-
google/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/big-penis-things-ask-google/)

~~~
Spooky23
I had forgotten about the podcast!

------
sergiotapia
>For example, I am certain a large number of men are more attracted to
overweight women than skinny women but try to date skinny women to impress
their friends and family members.

That's quite a leap there Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.

~~~
overdunk
This neglects the _porn-as-spectacle_ aspect of entertainment value extracted
by viewers of pornography.

But " _large number_ " is a poorly defined qualifier.

10,000 individuals interested in an odd combination of diaper play involving
amputees could be considered a " _large number_ " (more than you might expect)
but is handily dwarfed by three quarters of a billion vanilla viewers looking
for consensual sex in the missionary position.

Meanwhile, gore and racism searches do not, a sociopathic Nazi, make. How does
one learn about reality, without investigating it?

Everyone gets curious about how genitals manage to escape the undercarriage of
a 450 lb. individual, just to understand how they manage to wipe after
completing a bowel movement. The best source of insight into that kind of
curiosity is satisfied by locating and viewing fetish pornography.

~~~
imron
> Everyone gets curious about how genitals manage to escape the undercarriage
> of a 450 lb. individual

Not everyone.

~~~
overdunk
I won't argue with you. I'm not quoting hard statistics, it's just a turn of
phrase, given the context.

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throwaway47861
This article is of USA origin, clearly. You guys are strange -- always be like
"ohhh we're Homo Sapiens, let's be ashamed of ourselves and let's deny our
nature until the end of time!". You're starting to rival the Japanese in self-
shaming which really says something.

Can't you just shout "I wanna f_ck any way I like and none of you can do
anything about it!" and move on with your life already? Like, forever?

People have all sorts of fantasies and they develop based on one's persona,
needs and environment. If your dream is to be nailed in the butthole by a game
warden, there are probably millions of people on this planet who not only
won't mock you but they'll also indulge you (by being the real thing, or by
roleplaying). Same goes for if you can't get a boner without your bed being
filled with unicorn plushies, or scr_wing armpits, or whatever floats your
boat.

Drop the shame. Enough. Just go down the street smiling at the thought that
nobody is oppressing your sexual needs, because in 99% of the time that's the
truth.

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sidlls
This isn't very convincing. The conclusions rely on at least two assumptions
that aren't well supported

* That these searches are a proxy for honest expression of a sexual desire

* That these searches are by the cohorts purported

~~~
mythrwy
And that interests of people searching for porn are representative of the
general population.

Agree. Not convinced (although the data is interesting).

~~~
marchenko
I suspect that this assumption fails particularly spectacularly with women,
who consume more erotica as art and text than men.

~~~
lostmsu
Or they just talk less about what they actually consume.

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onelildatapoint
not that it proves much overall, but the porn i masturbate to actually has
little to do with what i enjoy sexually with a live woman. i'm sure i'm not
the only one

~~~
314
Although this does leave the reader worried about your preferences when with
women who are not so live.

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badprose
Man looks at what's trending on Pornhub: "What? Cartoon sex? Foot-sex to
completion? I must write a book!"

------
mythrwy
It may be (and I don't know) that a large group of people abstain from porn
altogether.

So the preference of people who visit Porn Hub may be just that and it isn't
accurate to extrapolate this to society at large.

The percentage of people liking "disgusting" porn for example may be higher
among the group of people who habitually view porn. So I'm not sure it's fair
to say that this desire translates into the general population.

~~~
nv-vn
(Meta: why is this comment downvoted when it's saying pretty much the same
thing as the top comment?)

~~~
mythrwy
That's an interesting question and since you mention it, my suspicion is that
it's in response to a disagreement with one or more frequent poster's
political views some months ago.

I could be wrong about this, but almost every comment I have posted in a
popular forum since that time has been down voted (usually this is overridden
before long except in cases of comments that probably deserve down-votes which
I do occasionally make).

It's not a big deal obviously but I'd like to address the poster(s) doing this
(should they exist) and express my contempt for the pettiness of their
approach and possibly bring moderator attention should it be warranted.

But in reality, the time it took to type this post is more effort than the
action deserves. It is pretty juvenile though assuming I'm seeing correctly.

------
AznHisoka
Shouldnt the title be "Pornhub searches" not Google? as far as I know Google
doesnt even show autocomplete results for porn related keywords.

~~~
dragonwriter
“Doesn't show autocomplete” doesn't mean “doesn't collect data”.

~~~
js2
The article indicates that he has data from both pornhub and google. The
interview questions jump between the two, but the questions about porn are
mostly based on the pornhub data.

One thing I'm curious about is that the article implies he has demographic
information (sex, income, etc) about the searchers and I don't know how
google/pornhub would know that.

I would imagine the majority of searches are anonymous except for IP and
whatever the browser gives up. But maybe he's only looking at logged-in data?

~~~
infogulch
To be fair, "whatever the browser gives up" more than enough to reliably
identify people.

~~~
js2
I work at Yahoo (er, Verizon). We absolutely do not correlate logged-in and
logged-out data. I am going to assume the same for Google.

Regardless, based on things like OS and IP, I understand how you could infer,
say, an income range from that, but how precise could it be?

But even assuming google/pornhub has identified me based on my browser
fingerprint, how do they know my income level? I've never given that info to
Google, nor filled it out on any surveys, warranty cards, etc that I can
recall. Maybe I'm not typical and people freely give up this information?

~~~
MaulingMonkey
> Regardless, based on things like OS and IP, I understand how you could
> infer, say, an income range from that, but how precise could it be?

A simple geoip query is pretty accurate when it comes to placing my
neighborhood, which is already a fairly big indicator of income level I
believe. And all the laptop advertisements google is showing me because I
looked up my laptop recently show they know plenty enough about my shopping
habits to make some fairly accurate guesses about my demographics, I'd wager.

------
sctb
Related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14632004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14632004)

