In 2022, the world watched aghast as Russian troops invaded the European country of Ukraine. A group of psychologists viewed this as an opportunity to conduct a natural experiment to monitor how the stress and fears of being in a country under attack and at war would impact people’s viewing of pornography. By this point, it was well-established that many people use pornography as a way to cope with loneliness, stress, and depression.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people predicted there would be a massive surge in pornography use, with people stuck at home, stressed, and bored. Researchers monitored pornography use during 2020 and surprisingly found that while there was a temporary increase for a few months in pornography viewing, levels of viewing returned to baseline levels by late summer in 2020 (before there was even a vaccine and while social distancing and quarantining were still required). These results showed that while people do use pornography to cope with negative emotions, it’s often a short-term accommodation.

Ukraine Pornography Use

The study’s researchers gathered data from two sources: Pornhub Insights and Google Trends. Pornhub, the largest pornography site in the world, regularly publishes data on the behaviors and choices of its site visitors. This is the origin of those memes we so often see describing sexual interests in different states. They have that data, as well as data showing the frequency of pornography searches from specific countries, such as Ukraine. Secondly, the researchers used Google Trends to track Google searches in Ukraine over time, specifically tracking searches for “Pornhub” and “pornography,” as well as terms related to the war.

While these measures aren’t perfect, they are better than self-report, which is notoriously unreliable when it comes to media consumption. The authors argue that these data are a useful and accessible proxy for engagement with pornography and follow past research practices. (Fair disclosure: I myself have previously published research that utilized data from Pornhub and Google Trends.)

Invasion Impact on Ukraine Pornography Use

Statistical analysis of data from the first six months of 2022 demonstrated very strong positive associations between searches for “Ukrainian war map” and searches for “pornography” and “Pornhub.” Further, the researchers found that as the number of Ukrainian civilian deaths from the war increased, there was a positive matching increase in searches for pornography. Searches for the words “pornography” and “Pornhub” were very highly correlated (r -= 0.89), confirming the researchers’ theory that these searches could be used as a proxy for interest in viewing adult sexual material.

Ukraine Pornography Interests During the War

In 2021, Ukrainians’ most-often-searched-for term on Pornhub was for pornography that was “Russian homemade.” Searches for this same term dropped by 6 percent (in ranking of terms) in 2022, while searches for “Ukrainian porn” rose by over 84 places to become one of the top five searches in the country. “Reality” pornography was the top-viewed pornography category, and Ukraine was one of the only countries to have this category as the top interest. Searching for pornography using the term “stuck” increased by 553%. Amidst the national fervor of a nation under attack, searches for local "Ukrainian porn" seemed to be a unique form of patriotic spirit.

The study’s authors suggest that their data strongly support the theory that Ukrainians are using pornography as a means to escape stress about the war, using erotic stimulation to cope with loneliness, fear, and depression. While there was a decrease in searches for “Russian homemade” pornography in 2022, Ukrainians as a whole are 327% more likely to watch pornography in the Russian category (most Ukrainians speak Russian, and this may be a language preference, not a cultural preference). The reason for higher relative Ukrainian interest in “Reality” pornography wasn’t clear from the data, but again, it may be a form of coping, and a way to momentarily alter or escape their own sense of reality.

Social Distancing

In Ukraine, the government has implemented social distancing guidelines, similar to what was implemented during COVID, to limit public social gatherings that may be targets of Russian attack. The researchers found that higher numbers of civilian deaths during the war predicted higher searches for social distancing, and that a higher volume of searches for social distancing was associated with more searches for pornography. In other words, the social distancing factor acted as a mediator for these effects. The authors speculate that this may reflect that the increases in pornography use are triggered more by the effects of social isolation than by the number of civilian deaths.

Conclusion

The authors acknowledged that the data used from Pornhub and Google Trends are aggregated, difficult to verify, and do not provide information on sex, personal characteristics, or things such as the amount of time spent viewing pornography. Many viewers of pornography may access it through means that wouldn’t show up in Google searches—for instance, saved bookmarks or social media. Thus, using the Google Trend data may be more revealing of certain groups of people, such as those who are infrequent or naïve viewers of pornography.

Pornography Essential Reads

However, those limitations accepted, this remarkable natural experiment serves as further confirmation of the developing understanding of how humans use pornography as a form of emotional coping for difficult things in their lives, even tragedies such as unprovoked invasion and war.

References

Nessaibia I, Howard A, Bouarroudj T. Implications of the Russian Invasion on Ukrainians’ Pornography Consumption: Insights from Big-Data Processing. Arch Sex Behav. 2025 Oct;54(9):3335-3343. doi: 10.1007/s10508-025-03247-7. Epub 2025 Oct 28. PMID: 41152504.