Indians are hooked on to their smartphones. Many of them are watching porn on their phones. What’s the big deal, right? But what about the porn habits of Indians, especially men? Now that could make interesting reading.

A detailed analysis by the Mint newspaper catalogues the porn habits of Indian men by examining the popularity of a collection of porn-associated terms such as sex video, porn, free porn — no surprises — on Google over the last decade.

Highlights Of The Analysis

Porn tops searches: Porn-related queries far exceed queries on more innocuous Indian passions such as recipes, cricket and Bollywood.

Global topper: After adjusting for search volumes, only Bangladesh, Nepal, Ethiopia and Trinidad and Tobago make more porn-related queries than India, said the Mint report.

Clampdown On Porn Not Working: Even as the government tries to clamp down on porn, Indian visits to porn website Pornhub have more than doubled since 2013, said the Mint analysis.

Mobile traffic largely and by men: The bulk of these visits come from men — 70 percent of traffic — browsing via mobile phones, which account for more than 90 percent of total traffic.

‘Indian’ and regional preferences: Indians prefer Indian-centered porn. Among the most searched terms on Pornhub over the last five years, ‘Indian sex’ and ‘Hindi’ featured prominently. Likewise, there is also regional affinity in the searches with terms such ‘Telugu sex video’ and ‘Malayalam sex video’ very popular, according to the report.

Familial fetish: Indians also seem to have a familial fetish with ‘bhabhi’, and this domestic preference extends to several regions especially, South India.

Homosexual content: Despite a largely conservative outlook towards homosexuality, search interest in homosexuality is increasing over time and is in line with other countries.

Dive deep into the report here.

Bottom line: Indians are searching for porn like never before. The search interest in these terms has increased steadily, according to the Mint report.

Trigger: The search interest in porn seems to have spiked especially since September 2016, when Reliance Industries Ltd launched Jio, disrupting the industry with a sharp decline in data tariffs, said the Mint analysis. This has brought down the costs of accessing online porn, it said.

First Published:Dec 25, 2018 4:05 PM IST