Sharp Spike in Porn Views: As a result of coronavirus, most of the counties are under quarantine. Governments have advised their citizens to stay home and social distance. This has led to people finding creative ways to pass their time, the most common activity is watching porn. New data released by PornHub shows that there has been a significant increase in traffic on the website. Especially in the period between February and March.
Global Impact of Porn with Statistics:
Countries with thriving sex work industries like Switzerland, Germany, and The Netherlands saw a much significant uptick in porn consumption. As the virus began to spread over Europe, the three countries issued an order to shut down brothels all over the country. Due to this a large chunk of the population resorted to watching porn to get their fix. As of March 16 of 2020, Germany has recorded an increase of 8% in porn consumption and Switzerland an increase of 11.5%. However, The Netherlands had the highest incline of 14%.
Due to accessibility porn is on the internet, people don’t usually think twice before they decide to view it. In our culture, although there is still a stigma surrounding the usage of porn. The porn industry is still thriving in this toxic atmosphere.
The porn industry decided to use the global pandemic as an opportunity to cash-in more views. They provided their viewers in these countries with free porn and special premium memberships. This lead to a spike in porn consumption like never before.
The popular porn streaming website PornHub, recorded a striking 95% increase in user engagement in India. This took place during the government imposed intense 21-days lockdown. Spain saw an increase of 61.3%, France wasn’t far behind at 38.2% and Italy saw an uptick of 30%.
With the release of these stats, porn websites have also released some other statistics that are alarming and shocking. The United States, which currently has the quickest growing numbers of coronavirus cases, recorded an increase of traffic on porn websites by 6.4%. What’s to be noted here are the searches made by users on these sites. The states of New York and Washington DC, saw the highest coronavirus related porn searches.
Increase in Porn Views – Vile Trends:
These porn surveys have also brought into light an absolutely vile porn trend getting popular worldwide. This new trend is “Corona Porn”. As this genre of porn continues to gain popularity worldwide, concerns have been raised against the racist and anti-Asian undertones in these videos.
Many believe these videos are intended to be a light-hearted take on the global pandemic. But majority videos lean on racist stereotypes about Asian people as their punchlines. Many videos combine xenophobic tropes about Asian people with the existing fetishizing of Asian women that occurs in porn.
Porn is currently an unhealthy medium, that isn’t well regulated. Often leading to the promotion of racism, child porn, sexism, fascism, and in general a plethora of inhumane activities.
In another shocking report by the Indian Child Protection Fund (ICPF), it was revealed that the demand for child pornographic content has increased in India. They recorded the increase over the course of the lockdown. The ICPF reported that since the lockdown, online data monitoring websites are showing an increase in demand for searches like child porn, sexy child and teen sex videos. They released a report titled ‘Child Sexual Abuse Material in India’. It is a research of child pornography demand in 100 cities in India.
ICPF has warned that this indicates that millions of pedophiles, child rapists and child pornography addicts have migrated online. This has made the internet extremely unsafe for children. They believe without stringent action, this could result in a drastic rise in sexual crimes against children.
The Problem:
Such incidents just go on to show us how harmful unmonitored internet usage is, especially for young minds. Who thanks to their innocence and curiosity, are quick to click on anything that pops up on their screen. Although unfortunate, it’s a good example that proves the point that how harmful unfiltered content on the internet is. It brings light to the irreversible damage it can cause to young impressionable minds.
Porn websites enable pedophiles, racists, and creeps on the internet to engage in such inhumane activities. A huge reason behind this is the lack of monitoring and censorship of content. Anyone is free to post anything on these websites, as the background checks conducted by these websites are basically non-existent. As a result of which you will often find various vile videos on here. Sex-trafficking videos, videos posted without consent, sexual assault and blackmail videos, and much more vile content like this.
Incidents like these remind us of the harm the pornographic industry is currently causing. Porn in itself isn’t innately bad. It is the unsupervised nature of the industry that is causing problems. Plus the current market’s tactics of using sex to sell. This is affecting the mental health of millions over the world.
Resource:
ICPF report warns of sharp rise in demand for online child pornography during lockdown
