Porn is a big business.
And it’s hard to overstate how big it is.
There are more than 1.2 billion videos on the Internet.
Over the past decade, the industry has grown from a hobby to a mainstream business, making it worth billions of dollars annually.
But what’s the one misconception you can avoid?
Here are the top 10 myths about porn: 1.
It’s too hard to get it, especially online.
The industry has come a long way in terms of online accessibility, and the fact that it’s a relatively new medium doesn’t mean it’s not an important part of our culture.
But it’s still not as easy to find as you’d think.
“There’s a lot of stigma about it in the industry,” said Emily Pank, director of research at Pornhub, which measures the number of videos a user sees on its site.
“People aren’t necessarily aware that porn is on there, and they think it’s something they can just access without paying.”
Pank added that “there’s also this assumption that if you’re a millennial, you don’t want to watch porn.”
Pushed to tell the story of the industry, Pornhub partnered with The Daily Beast to create a video that shows how porn can change your life.
“It’s really about the journey that you take on your own journey to becoming the person you want to be,” Pank said.
“You can’t have that journey without the person who’s in the porn.”
2.
Porn is for kids.
This is one myth that gets repeated time and time again.
According to Pornhub’s data, porn is viewed by people ages 18 to 49, and that’s a huge chunk of the population.
That’s partly because of the rise of social media, where teens and young adults are more active online, according to Pank.
They also tend to be more sexually active, and more likely to use porn, Pank explained.
The reality is that there are many more people who are over the age of 50 who watch porn than the one percent who are.
But this isn’t a trend that’s solely driven by social media.
According the Pew Research Center, more than half of adults over the course of a year have viewed porn at least once, according the report.
3.
Porn can’t be dangerous.
Yes, it can be dangerous, and there are no proven links between porn and sexual abuse or addiction.
But Pank told HuffPost that people don’t see porn as a gateway to sex.
“Most of the people who see porn don’t even know they have an addiction,” Pask said.
Pank says the biggest obstacle to people being educated about porn is the stigma it has created.
“Porn has always been viewed as a very dangerous, disturbing medium, but that’s not true,” Panks said.
4.
You can’t get addicted to porn.
Many porn users are just using it to explore their fantasies.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t fall into an addiction.
Porn users can be hooked to the material and become addicted.
“They might feel like they’re losing control of their own lives, and you’re not,” Palk told HuffPost.
But not all porn addicts become addicted, Palk added.
“I know a lot more porn addicts than people who’ve tried it for a while.”
5.
There’s a lack of diversity in the content.
There is no standardized definition of pornography, and it’s difficult to say how much is actually porn, and how much porn is for everyone.
There was a time when the word “porn” was synonymous with the internet and social media in the 1980s, and now it’s more commonly used to describe the types of content people find online.
Panks also pointed out that the word porn is so widespread in the media that it can have a negative impact on what we see as legitimate porn.
“If you look at the porn that comes out, they’re all the same,” Pansk said.
She said that while people in the adult industry are still trying to figure out what constitutes real porn, “you’re not going to see the same content all the time.”
Palk said the most important thing is to educate people about porn, which means educating them on the harmful content that porn can be.
“We need to teach people what it is they are watching,” Pansky said.
6.
It takes too long to watch it.
Palk and Pank both said that some porn consumers may not be able to watch enough to feel fully immersed in the experience.
“A lot of people don