How Long Americans Spend Watching Adult Films

A ton of people watch porn, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. Even though the sex-positive movement has been enjoying some much-deserved time in the limelight over the past few years, watching porn — or at least being open about doing so — is unfortunately still taboo, particularly for women. But why should we be ashamed of consuming ~adult~ entertainment when so many of us are doing it? According to Pornhub's 2016 Year In Review, people all around the globe spent over 4.5 billion hours watching porn last year, which is a lot of damn hours.

Judging by that astronomical number, it seems humankind is generally pretty into the whole 'watching other people have sex' thing, which is cool with me. I can't reiterate this point enough: there's nothing wrong with indulging our fantasies and exploring our bodies through masturbation. Although there are plenty of problems with mainstream porn — like creating unrealistic expectations for sex or lacking in diversity — it's unfair to also condemn pornography as a whole, or the idea of masturbation. It's healthy to masturbate: it can help you learn your sexual likes and dislikes, and even makes you better at partnered sex.

So knowing how popular porn was globally in 2016, how did America stack up? When it came (hehe) to porn consumption, Pornhub found that the good ol' U-S-of-A was number one, with 221 page views per capita this year. On average, Americans spent 10 minutes and 15 seconds per visit while watching porn — which is a whopping 24 second increase from 2015's average page-visit time.

Although it's fun to get a peek into how our fellow Americans enjoy their alone time, it's important to note that how long someone spends watching porn or masturbating isn't all that indicative of their performance in bed (because solo sex and sex with a partner are totally different). Nonetheless, here are 10 U.S. states that spent the longest amount of time (on average) during each visit to Pornhub.