In celebration of Gay Pride Month, Pornhub Insights and VICE are taking a look at what type of gay porn is popular across the United States, and how preferences differ by age group and in comparison to non-gay viewers.
In this post, we’ve focused on the proportion of pageviews for content featuring gay men, as we can’t determine the sexual orientation of Pornhub’s visitors based on the type of content they watch. For example, videos featuring lesbians remains one of the most popular categories viewed by both men and women, so it is not considered to be a gay category.
In our recent Women Searching for Women post, we found that female visitors are proportionately 186% more likely to search for lesbian porn compared to their male counterparts. In another post, we also revealed that women account for a massive 37% of all Pornhub visitors viewing gay male porn. Visitors viewing gay content spend about 2 minutes longer on Pornhub than the average non-gay visit time, an increase of nearly 20% over average visit durations.
Gay male content represents 6.3% of all pageviews in the United States, but as the following chart illustrates, some states are proportionately far more likely to be viewing gay content than others. Topping the list of gay viewing states is Mississippi, were 7.9% of all pageviews are for gay content. It’s followed by the District of Columbia (7.8%), Louisiana (7.4%), Georgia (7.3%) and New York (7.2%). The state with the least number of gay pageviews is North Dakota at 4.2%, followed by Montana, Idaho and South Dakota all with less than 4.5%.
Pornhub features nearly 40 categories of gay male porn, but several categories are consistently more popular across the United States. Black and Straight Guys have the most views overall. The Straight Guys category tends to be viewed more in the Midwest, while Black is viewed more in the Southeast. Bareback is more often popular in the Western States and Florida, while Latino (nsfw) is popular in Southwest, along with California and Nevada.
Some standout states include Connecticut, Massachusetts and Delaware where the Daddy (nsfw) is more likely to be viewed. The Twink category is viewed in Northern States like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Alaska, while Hawaii stands out as the only state that views the Japanese category more often than others.
While categories can illustrate how broader tastes differ, search terms can really differentiate preferences on a state by state level. The follow chart details the most popular relative searches by state — the terms which are not necessarily the most popular search, but rather the terms that are more often searched there when compared to all other states.
Some interesting relative searches include ‘cowboy’ which is 70% more popular in Montana, and ‘furry’ which is 569% more popular in South Dakota. Folks in Wisconsin are 762% more likely to search for ‘circle jerk’ gay porn (nsfw), and West Virginians are 152% more into ‘redneck’ porn. Iowa is 241% more into ‘tickle’ searches, and Utah is 845% more likely to search for ‘Mormon’. New Hampshire keeps things simple by simply searching ‘gay’ 418% more than elsewhere in the Unites States.
The demographic make-up of gay porn viewers tends to differ from their non-gay counterparts. The proportion of gay pageviews increases by age, with only 6.2% of pages in the 18 to 24 age group, but closer to 10% among visitors aged 55 and above. Among all gay viewers, around 28% are 18-24, while this group represents 31% of those viewing non-gay content. Viewers over the age of 45 represent more than 30% of all gay viewers, while that group is only 21% of non-gay viewers.
The type of gay male porn being viewed also differs by age group. The most popular categories remain Black, Straight Guys and Bareback among all age groups, but when compared to other age groups, some categories are proportionately more popular. For example, the Japanese category is 27% more popular with 18 to 24 year olds and Black is 21% more popular among 25 to 34 year olds. The Group category is viewed 12% more by 35 to 44 year olds, and Bareback is 30% more popular for those 45 to 54. Blowjob increases 84% in popularity in those aged 55 to 64, but visitors over the age of 65 are 152% more likely to view the gay Massage category.
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Pornhub Insights, and happy Pride month to all of our LGBT visitors to Pornhub!