According to Pornhub, the most used search term in 2021 was “hentai. This search term has always ranked high (it was also number 1 in 2018), but has now reached the number 1 position again. But what is hentai and why do we search on it so massively?
What is hentai?
In Japanese, the term hentai loosely translates to “perversion” or “abnormality. Hentai is the shortened term of “Hentai Seiyoku,” an expression meaning “Abnormal Sexual Desire. The word first surfaced during the Meiji era (1852 – 1912) and was used as a way to describe abnormal sexual fetishes. Yet it did not become popular until after World War II. Hentai was then used as a slang term referring to fornication.
With the popularity of Japanese animated films and comics with explicit sexual content, the term became increasingly associated with pornography outside of Japan. In Japan itself, the phrase refers to a very specific subset of drawn pornography.
So Hentai is actually a subgenre of Japanese comics (manga) and animated films (anime). In this subgenre, the storylines and characters focus on often extreme fetishes, such as tentacle erotica or even incest and sex with minors. Precisely because they are cartoons, publishers have long used this genre to circumvent legislation, until in 2016 a Japanese judge determined that manga can indeed be child pornography.
Why hentai is high on the rankings
In an American survey of 4,175 Americans, 27% fantasized about sex with or between cartoon characters. Yet only 4% did so with any regularity. All the more striking is Pornhub’s conclusion that hentai was the most used search term.
Yet this is not so strange. Precisely because a certain form of sex is not common, you have to look for it specifically. After all, getting laid is in almost every video, so you don’t have to look for that. A threesome is high on the list of fantasies of both men and women. This search term is “only” in third place in Pornhub’s rankings (summarized as “group sex”). But precisely because threesomes are so common in porn, you don’t really have to go looking for them. When you first log on to Pornhub, chances are there will already be videos of threesomes on the first page.
Hentai as the translation of our deepest fantasies
But what then makes hentai so attractive to look up? One of the conclusions from the aforementioned U.S. study is that there are major differences between gender and sexual orientation:
- 12% of straight women fantasize about hentai
- 27% of straight men fantasize about hentai
- 26% of lesbian women fantasize about hentai
- 39% of gay men fantasize about hentai
- 40% of trans and nonbinary persons fantasize about hentai
Heterosexual women fantasize less often about taboo topics and more often about romance and passion. For example, they also fantasize more often about sex in which they themselves play a (main) role. Outside the heteronormative setting, fantasizing about taboo topics is more common.
People who fantasize about hentai tend to be people who have a vivid imagination, are less extroverted and less meticulous (less focused on details). In other words, these people have less interaction with other people in real life, are less focused on details, and are therefore better able to relate to fantasy worlds.
Also, hentai fantasies are often related to BDSM and sometimes fantasies about non-consensual activities (such as voyeurism and exhibitionism without consent). So for some, hentai can be a way to engage in sexual interests that are impossible, dangerous, or illegal in the real world. Consider also fantasies of sex with aliens, fantasy creatures (with extreme genitalia), or robots.
What is strange is delicious
Nobel winner Nikolaas Tinbergen conducted research on animal behavior. In this way he discovered that behavior was by no means always instinctive. He painted eggs blue with black dots and put them in the nest of songbirds. The birds soon left their own eggs to hatch the unusual eggs. He called this a “supernormal stimulus” – a phenomenon that occurs when an artificial object triggers an animal’s instinctive response more intensely than the natural object to which the instinct evolved. Other studies with other animals that Tinbergen conducted confirmed this phenomenon.
One theory is that hentai and other fantasy stories, act as supernormal stimuli on people’s sexual instinct. Our evolution tells our instincts to look for partners in a certain way, but when a supernormal stimulus occurs, it can trigger us more intensely. The exaggerated sexual characteristics of hentai characters, are like blue-painted eggs with black dots to us.
Dutch search terms on Pornhub
In the Netherlands we had slightly different preferences, compared to the rest of the world. In 2021, ‘MILF’ rose 2 places to become the most popular search term in the Netherlands, while the previous favorite ‘Dutch’ went down 2 places. Other terms with rank changes include ‘massage’ (+4), ‘asian’ (+12) and ‘squirt’ (+10). Trending searches included ‘turkish porn’ (+535%), ‘gay porn’ (+520%) and ‘swap’ (+284%). Compared to the rest of the world, Dutch visitors are +89% more likely to watch the category Popular With Women, +80% more likely to watch Scissoring and +56% more likely to watch Outdoor videos.
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