Skip to main content

Govt effort to "discourage" pornography in reverse gear: India a top country with high porn viewership

Top nations attracting porn sites
By Jag Jivan* 
Adult website Pornhub, one of the many pornographic sites, which were sought to be banned by the Government of India in August 2015 through an order of the Department of Telecom, has claimed that India has the world’s third largest population viewing pornography, next only to the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Indian ban ordered the service providers to block access to 857 websites hosting pornographic content. But, as is known, the Government of India could predict the scale and level of outrage that the order unleashed, as influential sections of Indians, belonging to mainly Internet-friendly middle classes, heaped criticism and scorn on the move. The ban had to be withdrawn.
In its controversial annual report for 2015, the "popular" site says, “The United States remains at the top, with American visitors accounting for about 41% of our overall traffic, followed by the United Kingdom in at second place. India knocks Canada out of third place with a one rank position gain” over the last year.
Pointing towards the the worldwide average length for a visit to the Pornhub site, the report says, it “was 9 minutes and 16 seconds”, adding, “Over the course of 2015, this figure extended by 4 seconds, with the average session duration now clocking in at 9:20.”
It adds, “The countries with the lengthiest average visit durations also each added a few seconds their times. The Philippines remain in the top spot with visits lasting a leisurely 12:45 on average, which is 5 seconds longer than last year. The US added 11 seconds to their average time on site. India added over a minute to their now 9:30 average since last year”, the report states.
Time spent per visit on porn site: Top 10 countries
Comments the report, “The world watched a lot of porn this year. In 2015 alone, we streamed 75GB of data a second, which translates to enough porn to fill the storage in around 175 million 16GB iPhones”, though adding, “This indicates that most people are not ‘addicted’ in a way that they spend all of their time on porn, or doing little else with their time.”
It further states, “eMarketer reports that we are now spending an average of 5.6 hours online per day, up from 5.3 in 2014. The countries with the lengthiest average visit durations also each added a few seconds their times.”
The report contends that the top searches in India for the Pornhub site included Indian bhabhi, Indian actress, Indian wife, Indian college, Indian aunty, desi and Indian teen, among others. However, it notes some “interesting changes” over the last one year.
“While the vast majority of top, gaining and relative searches here contain ‘Indian,’ search terms ‘Japanese’ and ‘Indonesia’ both made some impressive leaps to get into the top 10 list with 14 and 47 place jumps respectively”, the report says, adding, Bollywood actress Sunny Leone was “the top searched” porn star.
Pointing towards what adversely affects port traffic, the report says, “Traffic dips by about 39% on Christmas Eve worldwide, with the biggest drops having taken place in France and Belgium. Smaller but still significant drops are noted on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.”
It interestingly adds, “Romania’s May Day celebrations brings traffic down by 18% while the beginning of Ramadan caused traffic to come down by 15% in India. Argentina‘s National Day on October 12th and Day of respect for cultural diversity on May 25th each brought traffic 14% below average in the country.”
---
*Freelance writer

Comments

TRENDING

Beyond India-China borders: Economic links expand, political gaps persist

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  Despite growing trade between India and China, a persistent trust deficit continues to shape their bilateral relationship. Expanding economic engagement has not fully resolved political differences, many of which stem from historical legacies as well as contemporary geopolitical concerns. Border disputes—often traced to colonial-era arrangements—remain a significant obstacle to deeper cooperation, while differing strategic alignments in global affairs add further complexity.

GreenTech Summit claims NCR as key green building hub, without pan-India comparison

By A Representative   The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), under the Confederation of Indian Industry, held its GreenTech Summit 2026 in New Delhi, where industry representatives, policymakers and sustainability professionals discussed the adoption of climate technologies in India’s built environment.

Gujarat cadre to HDFC: When bureaucratic style hits corporate walls

By Rajiv Shah   I was a little amused by the abrupt March 17, 2026 resignation of Atanu Chakraborty —a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of the 1985 batch who retired from the government in 2020—as chairman of HDFC Bank . Much of what may have led to his decision to quit this ostensibly high post—actually a non-executive, part-time role—is by now well known. I followed most of it online with considerable interest, partly because I had interacted with him umpteen times during my stint as The Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar from 1997 to 2012.

Operation Epic Fury: Making America great at the world’s expense?

By N.S. Venkataraman*  ​The decades-long enmity between Iran and Israel is well-documented, but historically, their direct confrontations have been brief, constrained by the logistical and economic limitations of sustained warfare. The current conflict in the Middle East, however, marks a radical and dangerous departure from this pattern. 

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah  Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

India has been getting its economic growth wrong for two decades, say top economists

By Jag Jivan*   India's official GDP figures have misrepresented the trajectory of the world's fifth-largest economy for the better part of two decades, according to a major new working paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). It finds that India overstated annual growth by up to two percentage points after 2011 — and understated it during the boom years of the 2000s.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

'Tax the top': Nationwide protests demand action as 1% control 40% of India’s wealth

By A Representative   Civil rights groups across the country observed the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh on March 23, as people from diverse backgrounds united to raise their voices against growing economic inequality. The mobilisations marked the launch of a nationwide campaign against inequality, running from March 23 to April 14 (Ambedkar Jayanti), under the banner of the “Tax The Top” campaign.

Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque under siege: A test of Muslim solidarity and Palestine’s future

By Syed Ali Mujtaba*  In the cacophony of Israel’s and the United States’ attack on Iran, one piece of news has been buried under the debris of war: Israel has closed the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to Palestinian worshippers during the holy month of Ramadan. The closure, announced as indefinite, affects the third most revered mosque in the Islamic world.