If you ever have a few free minutes and you’re tired of going down the Wikipedia K-hole that is Six Degrees of Zac Efron (the millennial version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon), it’s always fun to type in random search terms to Google Trends and see how often people have searched for them over the years.
You know what’s even more fun than that, though? Typing random search terms into Porngram, a new search analytics tool that helps you track the trajectory of porn title word frequencies over time.
Developed by the data firm Sexuallitics, a crackpot team of French statisticians, sociologists, and political scientists trying to “contribute to human sexuality understanding through a Big Data approach,” Porngram plots and compares word trends in 800,000 porn titles on the streaming tube site xHamster. Basically, that entails tracking commonly used terms and archetypes in porn titles—be it “blowjob,” “butts,” “anal,” or “pussy”—and seeing how often they’re searched for between 2007 and 2012.
While Porngram doesn’t attempt to explain why certain search terms wax and wane in popularity over the course of six years, the tool provides a fascinating glimpse at how our shifting sexual mores are reflected in our porn-viewing habits. Take, for instance, the search terms “shaved” and “hairy,” with reference to pubic hair preference:
As you can see above, while the popularity of the term “shaved” in porn titles has stayed fairly consistent over the years, “hairy” has ascended in popularity, though it seems to be leveling off somewhat. Considering how our culture has shifted in our standards for women’s pubic hair maintenance over the past few years, this trend actually kinda makes sense.
The best part of using Porngram, however, isn’t discovering the link between pornography and sociological trends. It’s searching for naughty schoolyard terms like “boobs” and “poop” and giggling uncontrollably, because deep down inside we are all basically 12 years old. Observe:
Tee-hee.
Tee-hee-hee.
…and done.
H/T The Atlantic | Screengrabs via Porngram; photo via lincoln-log/Flickr (CC by 2.0)
