This Valentine's Day, as many people take to Instagram to post public displays of affection, or fire up Hulu for a Galentine's Day rom-com binge, an even larger number of people will be opening their laptops to indulge in a different form of romantic media: porn.
Indeed, the porn streaming service Pornhub reported that, in past years, traffic to the site increased by 308% on February 14th alone compared to the monthly average. This is likely because Pornhub offers free access to its premium, ad-free content on Valentine's Day, and also because tons of people enjoy watching porn — as a couple or alone — on Valentine's Day.
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So, what kind of porn are people streaming on Valentine's Day? Obviously, "valentine" was a hot search term in past years, with Pornhub searches up 3,481% on Valentine's Day compared to the other days in the month, followed closely by "cupid" (652%) and "love" (244%). Some steamier seasonal searches include "massage," "lingerie," "romance," "passionate," and "making love," along with "kinky," "cuckold," "bondage," and "rough sex." In terms of porn genres, there were spikes in people looking at "school," "celebrity," "German," "ebony," "babysitter," and "Hentai" porn, according to Pornhub data. But by far, the site's top-gaining search on Valentine's Day was for "premium lesbian" content.
No matter what kind of porn you're into, there's likely a video out there for you to enjoy on Valentine's Day and the rest of the 364 days of the year. Ironically, the porn site noted that traffic tends to dip 10% from 6 p.m. to midnight on Valentine's Day night, perhaps because many people go out on dates. But ahead of the Hallmark holiday, there are a few things you can do to make Valentine's Day porn-watching a little more special.
If you're single on Valentine's Day, consider buying yourself a nice new sex toy or lubricant to use while you indulge. In a long-distance relationship? Coordinate with your partner to watch the same videos while you video chat, or send each other links to your favorite videos. And if you're all partnered up, you can open up a dialogue about what type of porn you each like to watch, or watch it as a couple for a low-budget Valentine's Day date.
Basically, as long as you have the internet on Valentine's Day, you can have an unforgettable, mind-blowing, Valentine's Day — no partner required.