“Women can still become addicted to pornography in the same way that men do.”
Dr Manish Jain, a psychiatry consultant in New Delhi, highlights the danger of Indian women getting addicted to porn.
Though men have always been considered as the main consumers of porn, a number of recent studies reveal a new trend.
Not only is women’s consumption of online porn on the rise, some of them may have developed an addiction.
In a new set of data published by popular online porn website – Pornhub – in July 2015, 30 per cent of the site’s traffic in India comes from female viewers.
This represents a five per cent increase since November 2014, and overtakes the global average consumption of Pornhub’s videos by women by six per cent.
The data also discovers Indian women who consume online porn are aged around 31 – three years younger than the worldwide average.
Another interesting finding is that women in this age group (18-34) are found to make up 24 per cent of the site’s total visitors. Millennials in India no doubt contribute to this figure.
Does it mean young Indian women are watching porn excessively? While this has not been ascertained, Dr Jain is more concerned with its negative impact on a person’s sex drive.
He says: “Results can vary as in some cases, it can increase libido leading to promiscuity and excessive masturbation.
“In others, however, it may lead to decreased sexual activity in which gratification is attained only by watching pornography.”
The consultant based in BLK Super Speciality Hospital also warns that watching pornography could be detrimental to a number of things.
He says: “Obsessive porn viewing can turn some into hypersexuals and addicts.
“This may later lead to porn dependence or even promiscuity, leading to relationship break-ups.”
Dr Sameer Malhotra at Max Super Speciality Hospital shares the same belief, saying: “It can make the act feel too mechanical.
“It can also cause stress in a relationship along with various other problems in one’s romantic and personal life.”
Access to online porn was initially banned in India in early August 2015, and then the ban was lifted, after a backlash on social media and widespread criticism of the government’s dictatorial approach.
However, sex and porn are not daily subjects of discussion in many parts of India, it is very much still a taboo subject in the country.
Conversely, there is a growth of Indian porn too in India, where there are many websites dedicated to Indian orientated porn.
Social pressure on women to suppress their sexual desire is likely to have played a part in the surge among female viewers of porn.
The internet has, of course, made this a lot easier.
Douglas Weiss, a licensed psychologist and executive director of Heart to Heart Counselling Centre in Colorado Springs, believes porn addiction does not discriminate gender.
She says: “Women can still become addicted to pornography in the same way that men do.”
“I do think that the partial reason for this is women becoming more intelligent about usage of the Internet – going online and chatting, developing relationships and acting out sexually.”
Nevertheless, when consumed sensibly, porn can enhance sexual pleasure.
Dr Malhotra comments: “It can also stimulate one’s fantasy and predispose one towards risky sex behaviour.”
We have explored the enjoyment of sex in a number of articles. Read them here.
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