VoL investigates the rise of adult genres as part of a larger examination of the modern porn industry.
By Jack Cummings, with Chloe Chapman as a sub-editor
In the adult industry, there has been a subtle, Freudian surge in viewership over the last decade. As it occurs, a increasing percentage of users to Pornhub’s most popular websites are looking for women who are at least their mother’s age.
It’s a trend that dates back to the early 2000s, when users began requesting more "MILF" content. That wasn’t out of character in and of itself; most of the performers who fit the bill were in their late 30s and had the bodies of glamour models. A MILF was essentially a decade older version of your regular pornstar.
However, in the wake of ‘mature’ porn, which showed natural, often amateur women between the ages of 40 and 55, the category began to fade a few years later.
The emergence of this category is by no means exceptional in the increasingly diverse world of sexual entertainment, but its popularity far beyond what you might expect from such a niche. According to Lynx, a mystery Xhamster spokeswoman, the website’s fourth most popular category is "mature," which outranks the stereotypically more popular "teen" and "MILF" categories.
Meanwhile, mature has become the most popular category on Pornhub, the world’s most popular pornographic website, in various nations.
“Mature is very popular in European countries,” said Corey Price, VP of Pornhub. In Southern/Eastern Europe and Spain, it is the most popular category
Price said in an interview with VoL that this was due in part to the significantly older user population in Europe, and that those who watch "adult" porn spend more time on the site than the typical viewer.
Pornhub provides global demographics
Nonetheless, there is a substantial paucity of study regarding adult entertainment viewership trends. The majority of scholarly research on pornography focuses on its media effects rather than its usage. The success of older porn is attributed to a shift in attention toward ‘real’ women, according to Lynx. The apparent Oedipal undertones in guys seeking out women far older than themselves are equally fascinating.
This is becoming more prevalent in adult porn’s sub-categories. In 2015, the search terms ‘step-mom’ and ‘mom’ were the third and sixth most popular on Pornhub, respectively, and they frequently portray familial style role-play.
Of course, prejudices regarding porn usage still exist in some nations. According to Pornhub, who gave us unparalleled access to their demographics, ‘hentai’ (animated) content is the most popular in Japan, while ‘anal’ is the most popular in Russia.
Internationally, though, the enigmatic world of older porn is enjoying a golden age, and while no one understands why the category is so popular, we definitely don’t want to know.