Locked down Australians have adopted a strange new fetish during lockdown – choosing cartoons over real people.
Hentai – animated pornography – has beaten out lesbian as the most viewed category on the Pornhub website in Australia in 2021.
Australia was also ranked the 12th biggest user of the site this year, according to a new report released on Thursday.
Hentai came in as Australia’s most searched category on Pornhub in 2021 as locked down Aussies turned to the strange fetish
Lana Rhoades was the most viewed pornstar in the world for a third-consecutive year, despite retiring from the industry
Dr Laurie Betitio, of Pornhub’s Sexual Wellness Centre said hentai often has a stronger storyline than other types of pornography, which can make it appealing to viewers.
‘Cartoons are more fantastical than regular porn. They may offer more visual stimulation in terms of movements, angles, colours and facial expressions,’ she said.
‘Because it’s not real, it can go further, with less constraints that reality offers.’
Lesbian content – sometimes known as ‘girl on girl’ – was the second most popular search for Australians, while the term ‘Asian’ moved up one spot to the third most searched.
Americans retained their position of the most avid watchers of porn videos, followed by the UK, Japan and France.
Worldwide, the most popular time to watch pornography is 11pm, with 5am being a quiet time for fans.
Hentai – animated pornography – has beaten out lesbian as the most viewed category on the Pornhub website in Australia in 2021
The average time spent on the Pornhub site dropped by nearly half a minute to nine minutes and 55 seconds.
The site says this is not due to waning interest, but an improved interface offering ‘handy search algorithm and well-curated category tags’.
Users from the Philippines stayed on the site the longest at 11 minutes and 31 seconds on average.
Lana Rhodes has cemented her position as the most searched for porn star on the site, retaining the top spot for the third year running.
Among the other most popular categories on the website are Japanese, ebony and teacher – the latter rising by 14 spots since last year.
Among the other most popular categories on the website are Japanese, ebony and teacher – the latter rising by 14 spots since last year
Pornhub attributes this to a Taiwanese math teacher Chang Hsu, who uploads tutorials to the site.
Mr Hsu has 7,700 subscribers and his videos have been watched more than two million times.
‘I knew this day would come,’ he said. ‘People get intrigued if you do special things in special places.’
Pornhub has previously been criticised for hosting illegal content, leading to a loss of advertisers.
But this year it published its first transparency report, saying it removed 653,465 pieces of content identified as potentially harmful.