The Porn Pandemic: How Corona Is Driving Up Consumption Of Sex Sites

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"The longer the lockdown, the more porn I watch."

Photo: Silas Stein / picture alliance / dpa

It only occurred to him when he was loading all of the films onto his hard drive.

800 gigabytes of porn, quite a lot, thought Jan-Phillip Kozalla, whose last name is actually different.

He used to be on his favorite sites "Brazzers", "Bangbros", and "Pornhub" three to four times a week, he estimates.

Then came the first lockdown, and Kozalla watched porn every day, sometimes several times a day.

"When you're in the home office, porn is only two clicks away," he says in the video call.

"Nobody else sits in the office, you are much more tempted." His consumption, says the 34-year-old lawyer, correlates with the corona restrictions: "The longer the lockdown, the more porn I watch."

Kozalla is by no means an isolated case.

Few porn sites publish their traffic numbers.

But the data that SPIEGEL researched shows that porn consumption has risen sharply since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.

According to its own information, the industry giant Pornhub had up to 26 percent more clicks from Germany every day between March and July 2020 than in the period before Corona.

Erika Lust, producer of feminist porn, says that since the beginning of the pandemic, her customers have spent an average of 20 to 30 percent more time on her websites.

In March 2020, Lust received twelve percent more views from Germany than in March 2019. The increase is no surprise for the 44-year-old: "Watching porn is great for forgetting the worries we all have right now."

OnlyFans is also growing strongly, with sales of two billion dollars forecast for 2020.

On the online platform, providers can, among other things, make adult content available to paying subscribers.

OnlyFans is like Instagram and TikTok, only that nude photos are explicitly allowed and some content costs money.

OnlyFans reports an "enormous increase in registrations".

In March 2020, the platform said it still had 24 million users and 500,000 active uploaders.

In January 2021, the number of users almost quadrupled: 91 million people now use the portal, and one million offer exclusive content there.

Corona bargains for beginners

Occasionally, the new users were also specifically baited with Corona bargains.

Pornhub, for example, offered its premium access for one month free of charge in the first shutdown.

Jan-Phillip Kozalla also used Pornhub's offer at the time.

"It was clever marketing," he says ten months later.

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“There were many discounts on porn sites,” says Madita Oeming, “that certainly played a role in the increase.” The cultural scientist is doing her doctorate in the field of “Porn Studies” at the University of Paderborn.

Another reason for the surge in porn views, according to Oeming, is that other forms of sexual gratification are more difficult to access during the pandemic.

"People are physically separated from their partners, dating is extremely difficult." The bars and clubs are closed.

Prostitution de facto prohibited by the Corona measures.

"Masturbation is a simple, always available alternative to pornography."

Another factor is simply boredom: "Especially in the first lockdown, many people suddenly had a lot of time." In addition, many are looking for happiness hormones, the good feeling after an orgasm.

Surrounded by messages about virus mutants, lockdown extension and impending waves of bankruptcies, pornography offers a small distraction.

"Eating and masturbation are two central sources of happiness that even lockdown cannot take away from us," says scientist Oeming.

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Jan-Phillip Kozalla also distracts himself with porn during the pandemic.

Kozalla is single, he adheres to the Corona rules, meets with far fewer people than before.

"I used to date a lot," he says.

He doesn't just miss the sex.

He lacks touch, tenderness.

Now when Kozalla watches porn, he pays attention to foreplay, petting and kissing.

"The actresses are the same, but the focus shifts."

He misses the game evenings with his friends, the hug to greet him.

New fantasy: sex in the home office

Porn researcher Oeming talks about so-called "custom-made porn", sex films that are produced according to the wishes of paying customers.

One actress reported that she was getting more and more requests to play home office sex and masturbate during video conferences.

For Oeming, that's an indication that the pandemic has found its way into many people's sexual fantasies.

"That is obvious because the reality of many people has changed significantly."

The everyday life of porn actors has also changed radically.

The producer Erika Lust reports that the views of her pornography have increased, but that her mostly independent actors have lost all income due to the shooting stops: "Many of them are in serious emergency." Perhaps that explains the rise of platforms like OnlyFans which performers can now address their audience directly.

Jan-Philipp Kozalla would like to go out for a beer with his favorite actresses.

"Through Corona I noticed that social contact is the essential thing in life for people," he says.

As long as that doesn't work, he will continue to watch more porn than before.

"The more you ensure that this is no longer a taboo, the better."

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