This year, Pornhub, the most popular website for adult entertainment, has once again shared exciting insights into statistics on the search behaviour of its users. From these insights it is clearly recognizable to what extent the constant media presence of earth-shattering topics like the rise of AI and ongoing wars influence us as humans. They implant themselves so strongly in our minds that they even shape our sexual desires.

With searches for robot-related terms such as ”AI robot or ”sex robot“ growing by +304% in 2023 and other connected terms like ”NPC“ (non-playable character) even increasing by over 1500%, it becomes clear how the omnipresent information about the breakthrough of artificial intelligence also stimulates our sexual fantasies. 

Besides that, darker topics like the continuing wars in Europe and the world have also changed the preferences of porn consumers in 2023. The images of war that we encounter on an everyday basis have apparently burned themselves into our brains, especially those of ”soldiers“ (+332% in searches) and their uniforms (increase of 243%), which gain great popularity amongst Pornhub users.

When we think about the connection between global events and evolving sexual fantasies, the question arises: Why does this manifestation happen? Is it the power of the media and the mere-exposure effect, or perhaps even an expression of our innate human desire to process and make sense of the world around us, even in the most intimate areas of our lives?