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Lifestyle

14th Dec 2021

Pornhub sees spike in covid-safe sex in 2021

Simon Bland

Turns out, working from home does boost productivity – just not in the way businesses might have hoped

Clear your diaries (and your browsing history) because Pornhub has released their official stats for 2021 and they’ve revealed a wealth of uncomfortable insight into our self-love tendencies – including a spike in searches for covid-safe sex.

The data, released earlier today, forms part of Pornhub’s 2021 Year In Review – a comprehensive report that lists every unusual nook, cranny and niche search term inputted by users throughout the past year.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, you might have noticed that with covid still raging and all manner of craziness emerging every few hours, 2021 hasn’t been the most, erm, normal of years – and as such, the search terms inserted (easy) into the popular adult site’s search bar have been just as unpredictable.

Among the document’s many eyebrow-raising findings (seriously, we recommend diving in) was a noticeable spike in the number of searches for covid-safe sex in the United States – in particular for the term ‘Gloryhole’, which was up 27 places from 2020.

The sex experts behind this master-debate on our porn preferences argue that the term – which, in case you were wondering, refers to sexual activity between two individuals with a barrier with a hole in it separating both participants… we’ll leave the rest to your imagination – has increased due to authorities recommending tips for safer sexual encounters during 2021’s continuous covid waves.

“The big increase in ‘gloryhole’ searches may be a result of some government authorities (like Canada’s CDC) recommending that a hole in a wall or other barrier could help avoid Covid transmission during sexual encounters,” says the report.

Meanwhile, PornHub’s findings shed light on some of the other most searched for terms of 2021 in the United States, including ‘threesome’ which was up two places from last year, ‘gangbang’ which had risen 17 spots and ‘hentai’ which increased by one position and emerged top of this particular poll.

Us Brits certainly made our voices heard, too – emerging as the country with the second highest Pornhub traffic rates behind America and above Japan. Maybe we should lay off the tea.

To read the full report – which also boasts insights into popular categories like the differences between men and women’s Pornhub tendencies, popular movie, TV and video game searches and holidays and events affecting traffic – head here.

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