A sex scientist has revealed the worrying reason behind the boom in searches for a particular category that was recently banned from Pornhub.
Dr Rena Malik recently made an appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett where she discussed sex questions people might be too nervous to ask themselves.
In the video description, which was published to YouTube, it detailed how Dr Malik, who is a urologist, pelvic surgeon, and sexual health expert, helps millions of people to better understand sexual health and taboo topics through science-based education and honesty.
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One of the subjects she touched on was the normalization of choking in the bedroom.
She explained: “Younger people these days are actually having a rise in more of what we call ‘rough sex’, so choking has become very common.
“They call choking almost like vanilla sex, so young people, if you look at data like 60% of women and I think 20% of men have been choked during sex of that age group, like college age group. And of those people who get choked, 20% have been choked 25 times or more.
“Now, I think it’s fine if you’re into that, but I can’t imagine that that many people are into choking. And there’s data to support that.”
She continued: “When you look at some of the data on this demographic, you know people 30 and below, around that age the extreme outliers are spending 8 to 10 hours on their phones on social media and on the internet.
“Roughly about 15 to 20% of young people describe their usage as almost constant, effectively scrolling during all waking hours while they’re eating, while they’re in the bathroom, and before they go to sleep. So, I was wondering from a dopamine perspective if there’s correlation between these like dopaminergic activities that are now like hijacking our lives, whether it’s short form videos on social media, whether it’s pornography or food, whether it’s having an impact on what then happens in the bedroom and our performance in the bedroom.”
The expert's comments come in the context of major policy changes made by Pornhub which has moved to restrict, and in some cases ban, search terms and videos related to choking, strangulation, or non-consensual violence.
The platform introduced tighter moderation and verification rules following widespread scrutiny, and alongside this, it has limited the visibility of content depicting potentially harmful acts. While Pornhub does not publish full category-level data, industry reports and academic research suggest that 'rough sex'-related search terms have surged in popularity over the past decade, with some analyses indicating double-digit percentage growth year-on-year prior to restrictions.
During the chat, Dr Malik went on to discuss the methods people tend to use when attempting to enlarge their penis.
She explained: “There are many ways that have been tried, discussed, attempted. So there’s definitely surgeries that you can get, but there’s not a lot of surgeons who do a lot of penile lengthening surgeries and they have lots of complications, like very high rates of complications because the penis is a very vascular organ, and the thing is that when you have the tiniest difference on your penis, you notice it, right?”
She added: “I don't recommend surgery for lengthening penis.
“There is a safer way and that has been shown to help and that's using a traction device.”