Facts and Figures

Internet Pornography

• 420 million-plus pages of pornographic material online worldwide (IFR)
• 72 million worldwide visitors to porn websites monthly (IFR)
• 25% of all search engine requests daily are for pornography (68 million searches daily) (IFR)
• 2.5 billion daily pornographic emails (8% of total emails) (IFR)
• 42.7% Internet users who view porn (IFR)
• 100,000-plus websites are devote to child pornography (IFR)
• 35-44 age group is the largest consumer of Internet porn (IFR)
• 20% of men admit to accessing pornography at work (IFR)
• 35% of those purchasing online porn make $75,000-plus annually (IFR)
• The United States is the top producer of pornographic web pages with 244,661,900, or 89 percent (IFR)
• Worldwide revenue from mobile phone pornography is $1 billion-plus and growing (Bryan-Low, Cassel and Pringle, David. "Sex Cells: Wireless Operators Find That Racy Cellphone Video Drives Surge in Broadband Use." The Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2005)

Industry Size and Revenues

• Annual revenues of the pornography industry in the U.S. are $13.3 billion. This is more than the revenues of the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball combined; more than NBC, CBS and ABC combined; larger than the revenues of the top technology companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix) combined (IFR; 2006)
• 11,000-plus porn videos were produced in the U.S. in 2006, more than 20 times the number of mainstream Hollywood movies (60 Minutes, Dec. 5, 2007)
• 55% of the movie rentals in hotel chains are pornographic “adult entertainment” moves (Adult Video News)
• The Internet accounted for $2.5 billion of the adult industry’s total U.S. revenues in 2004 ("Dirty Downloads Ready to Go on iPods," Associated Press, Nov. 5, 2005)
• Every second, $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography, 28,258 Internet viewers are viewing pornography, 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines, and every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is made in the United States (IFR)

Impact

• 10% of adults admit to an addiction to online pornography (IFR)
• 20% of men admit they access pornography at work (IFR)
• It is estimated that 15% of those using Internet pornography develop a compulsive habit that disrupts their lives (Pamela Paul, Pornified, 2004)
• At the 2002 American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers convention, attorneys present reported that 56% of their recent divorce cases resulted from a spouse’s compulsive Internet porn use (Paul, 2005)
• After watching just 6 hours of nonviolent pornography, research subjects in one study were much less likely to desire sexual intimacy with their real partners, or to be interested in marriage or children (Zillmann and Bryant, 1986)
• 70% of women say that they keep their cyber activities secret (IFR)
• The links between pornography use and subsequent aggression was proved so successfully by Zillmann and Bryant that their studies cannot be replicated for fear of further harming research subjects (Paul, 2005)
• 17% of women struggle with pornography addiction (IFR)
• 9.4 million women access adult websites each month (IFR)
• 13% of women admit to accessing pornography at work (IFR)
• 1 in 3 visitors to pornographic websites are women (IFR)
• 70% of all Internet porn traffic occurs during workdays (9 am-5 pm) (Sextracker.com)

Studies show that after viewing pornography men are more likely to:

1. report decreased empathy for rape victims
2. report believing that a woman who dresses provocatively deserves to be raped
3. report anger at women who flirt but then refuse to have sex
4. report decreased sexual interest in their girlfriends or wives
5. report increased interest in coercing partners into unwanted sex acts
("Pornography's Effects on Interpersonal Relationships," 2006, by Ana J. Bridges, University of Arkansas)

About 350 members of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the nation’s top divorce attorneys, met in 2002 for an annual conference, where they reported in 2002 that more than half -- 56% -- of their recent divorce cases resulted from a spouse’s compulsive Internet porn use (Paul, 2005). The problems most frequently cited by the attorneys were: obsessive interest in pornographic sites, 56%; excessive time on computer, 47%; and excessive time communicating in chat rooms, 33%. According to Richard Berry, president of the Academy, “Pornography had an almost nonexistent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago"; its significant role now is “clearly due to the Internet.”

When 813 college students from six college campuses participated in a 2008 survey on pornography use, findings included: 86% of the men said they had viewed pornography in the last year; 48.4% were viewing pornography weekly; and 19.3% were viewing pornography almost every day. 31% of the women had viewed pornography in the last year and 3.2% were viewing pornography weekly. (Jason S. Carroll, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Larry J. Nelson, Chad D. Olson, Carolyn McNamara Barry, and Stephanie D. Madsen, “Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use among Emerging Adults.” 2008. Journal of Adolescent Research vol. 23 no. 1: 6-30.)

Children and Pornography

• Four out of five 16-year-old boys and girls regularly access porn on the Internet, and that more than a quarter of young patients at a leading private clinic are being treated for addiction to online pornography, according a 2012 report by the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry Into Online Child Protection in the United Kingdom.
• http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/9603/20120419/internet-porn-pornography-children-uk.htm#jd8IoaCvEueGdiUs.99
• 11 years old is the average age of first exposure to Internet pornography (IFR)
• 85% of men arrested for possession of child pornography had sexually exploited a child, according to a 2008 study by Michael Bourke, chief psychologist for the US Marshals Service
• 76% of offenders convicted of Internet-related crimes against children admitted to contact sex crimes with children previously undetected by law enforcement and had an average of 30.5 child sex victims each, according to a 2000 study by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Reports by state-based Internet Crimes against Children (ICAC) task forces confirms, through its law enforcement and fieldwork, the positive correlation between the possession of child pornography and the commission of crimes against children. For instance, the Pennsylvania-based ICAC task force reported that 51% of individuals arrested for pornography-related offenses were also determined to be actively molesting children or to have molested in the past. In Dallas, the ICAC task force found that 32% of offenders arrested over the course of one year for child pornography offenses were also molesting children or had molested in the past.
• At least 80% of purchasers of child pornography are active abusers, and nearly 40% of the child pornographers investigated over the past several years, have sexually molested children in the past, according to the United States Postal Inspection Service. From January 1997 through March 2004, 1,807 child pornographers were arrested and 620 of these individuals were confirmed child molesters. Therefore, between 34-36% of these child pornographers were actual child molesters, defined as someone who had confessed to acts of molestation, someone who had a record for molestation, or someone who was involved in an overt act in order to procure children for sexual purposes. The 620 confirmed child molesters led to 839 child victims who were identified and rescued.
• In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40% had both sexually victimized children and were in possession of child pornography. Of those arrested between 2000 and 2001, 83% had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12; 39% had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3 (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study, 2005).
• The main sex exploitation offense referred to U.S. attorneys shifted from sex abuse (73%) in 1994 to child pornography (69%) in 2006, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Child pornography matters accounted for 82% of the growth in sex exploitation matters referred from 1994 to 2006.
• Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online. In 2008, Internet Watch Foundation found 1,536 individual child abuse domains (Internet Watch Foundation, Annual Report, 2008)
• The largest consumer group of Internet pornography is the 12-17-year-old age group (IFR)
• Of all known child abuse domains, 58% are housed in the United States (Internet Watch Foundation, Annual Report, 2008)
• The fastest growing demand in commercial websites for child abuse is for images depicting the worst type of abuse, including penetrative sexual activity involving children and adults and sadism or penetration by an animal (Internet Watch Foundation, Annual Report, 2008)
• More than 20,000 images of child pornography posted online every week (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Oct., 8 2003)
• Approximately 20% of all Internet pornography involves children (National Center for Mission & Exploited Children)

Sources: Internet Filter Review (IFR) sources include: ABC, Associated Press, AsiaMedia, AVN, BBC, CATW, U.S. Census, Central Intelligence Agency, China Daily, Chosen.com, Comscore Media Metrix, Crimes Against Children, Eros, Forbes, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Free Speech Coalition, Google, Harris Interactive, Hitwise, Hoover's, Japan Inc., Japan Review, Juniper Research, Kagan Research, ICMEC, Jan LaRue, The Miami Herald, MSN, Nielsen/NetRatings, The New York Times, Nordic Institute, PhysOrg.com, PornStudies, Pravda, Sarmatian Review, SEC filings, Secure Computing Corp., SMH, TopTenREVIEWS, Trellian, WICAT, Yahoo!, XBIZ

Additional sources of facts on pornography and sexual violence

CDC Injury Center: Sexual Violence

FBI: Human Trafficking

Internet Filter Review
Statistics culled from numerous sources

National Juvenile Online Victimization Survey Publications (Crimes Against Children Research Center at University of New Hampshire)

National Institute of Justice: Rape and Sexual Violence information

National Sexual Violence Resource Center
Extensive online resource

The Porn Economy
A video on pornography statistics

U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Criminal Victimization reports from the Office of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women
A component of the U.S. Department of Justice; provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to reduce violence against women and administer justice for and strengthen services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.