TL;DR
VR porn has changed porn indefinitely, with more than 171 million people using VR devices globally. It’s also supported by the vast majority of adult industry professionals, including pornstars Ela Darling and Joanna Angel.
VR porn is extremely popular. In 2017, VR porn videos on PornHub hit more than half a million views, and the number has risen dramatically since. As of right now, 67% of consumers reported to have bought VR headsets specifically to watch porn.
VR porn poses various risks and benefits. It can enhance porn addiction and cause motion sickness, but it can also be a free playground for sexual fantasies and be used as a learning tool and coping mechanism to treat sexual conditions and even help women orgasm.
VR porn has a bright future, with experts believing that the sector will grow into a $124 billion industry by 2030. Additionally, 80% of people who have tried VR devices reported liking them, meaning there’s a real demand for VR content.
How Does VR Change Porn?
VR changes porn because it provides the adult industry with the necessary technological means to produce videos that are more immersive, realistic, and customizable than ever. Instead of just watching porn, VR viewers can experience porn by participating in simulated, controlled environments.
The enhanced realism of VR porn also fosters a deeper sense of empathy and connection between viewers and performers, allowing consumers to fully engage with their sexual fantasies. But are global audiences truly tuning in to VR porn?
According to G2, 171 million people use VR technology globally. Considering that 4% of the websites on the Internet are porn and that men watch porn for 1-3 hours a week, the enthusiasm surrounding VR porn cannot be overstated.
A Huffington Post piece also shows that the majority of pornstars support VR porn. The VR pioneer Ela Darling believes that VR porn is “incredibly exciting,” making her feel “more intimately engaged” in her performances. Even though performers such as Joanna Angel have stated that recording VR porn “feels like you’re confined to fucking in a small box,” there’s no denying that the adult industry has embraced VR technology as loud and clearly as possible.
The Popularity of VR Porn
Viewers and performers alike have welcomed the VR porn revolution with open arms, but how popular is the phenomenon after all? Looking at the numbers, it’s hard to make a case against the inevitable emergence of VR porn.
In 2017, VR was still taking its first steps, but VR porn videos on PornHub were already hitting more than 500k views a day! A few years later, in 2022, global VR porn searches grew by 115%, reaching 1.2 million, with viewership growing a whopping 250% in countries like the United Kingdom.
But VR porn is not just enticing the world’s curiosity: it’s actually making its way into the daily lives of millions of people worldwide! 15% of men have tried VR porn, one-third of people who have tried VR technology have used it to watch porn, and 67% of consumers bought VR headsets exclusively to watch adult content.
Additionally, 60% of VR headset owners reported to watch VR porn at least once a week, while a staggering 88% use it multiple times every month. All things considered, the chance that your next-door neighbor is watching some VR porn right now is higher than you probably imagined.
The Technology Behind VR Porn
To create VR porn, adult industry professionals must incorporate stereoscopic 3D cameras, 360-degree video, and binaural audio. Luckily, all the consumer needs to watch lewd VR videos is a proper VR headset and—optionally—a nice pair of haptic gloves.
According to Finances Online, the worldwide VR market leaders are Meta (38.7%) and Sony (21.9%), with the most popular VR headsets being the following:
- Meta Quest 3: The standard choice for most consumers, this Meta product supports mixed-reality features that alleviate motion sickness.
- PSVR 2: A fine low-cost alternative that doesn’t require a lot of CPU.
- HTC Vive Pro 2: A pro-level pick that offers the best possible VR experience but demands a lot of power.
- Valve Index: A luxury option that was designed with gaming in mind but works wonders for VR porn too.
If there’s one thing VR headsets have in common, is that even the most affordable devices can be quite expensive. However, it’s possible to recreate a VR experience using Google Cardboard, a simple device capable of turning any smartphone into a makeshift VR headset. Statistics show that this is more than a fringe solution too, as 3 out of 4 VR consumers watched VR porn using Google Cardboard.
The Benefits of VR Porn
With cardboard devices making VR accessible to everyone, there’s no doubt that any person can watch VR porn. The real question seems to be: should people watch VR porn? If you still haven’t made up your mind, considering the benefits of VR porn is of the utmost importance.
Below, I have highlighted three key aspects of VR porn that can have beneficial effects on viewers:
VR Porn is an Immersive Experience
VR porn offers a more immersive experience compared to traditional 2D pornography because viewers feel like they’re really there, which heightens arousal and realism. But can science prove it?
Well, a study published on Science Direct established that VR porn is more immersive than conventional desktop display because it has a “stronger effect on psychophysiological reactions as well as subjective experience.” This means that, even though viewers know that 2D and VR porn are equally real, they cannot help but feel more immersed in the latter.
VR Porn is a Playground for Sexual Fantasies
People often feel like there’s never been so much sexual freedom as now. And yet, some sexual fantasies are still taboo, and some people are still not comfortable with exploring them. Did you know, for example, that 31% to 61% of women have rape fantasies according to the University of North Texas?
Unlike other people, VR porn will not judge you or put you in danger just because you happen to subscribe to a weird fetish. VR porn’s neutral standpoint, combined with its aptitude for realism, makes it the perfect playground for exploring sexual fantasies.
VR Porn Improves Sexuality
Studies have shown that VR improves mathematical learning by providing evidence that “indicates the noteworthy potential for the use of AR/VR in advancing students’ socio-emotional, cognitive/meta-cognitive, and pedagogical development in mathematics learning processes.” So, if VR can improve math, can VR porn improve sex?
There’s huge potential for using VR porn as a sexuality learning tool and, as reported by Forbes, VR is already being used to help women get off. If VR porn can help women orgasm, then who’s to say it cannot be useful to address other sexual issues such as premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction?
The Risks of VR Porn
You know the drill. Albeit great for some things, VR porn can also be bad. Below, you can find the three main risks I associate with VR porn.
VR Can Enhance Porn Addiction
There are many ways to stop porn addiction, but creating better porn isn’t one of them. VR porn can be outstandingly immersive and realistic, and that means it can be even more addictive than regular porn.
Looking at the numbers, porn addiction proves to be more common than many people assume. Roughly 5% to 8% of the world’s population is addicted to porn, and there are more than 200,000 porn addicts in the United States alone. Subjects are considered porn addicts if they watch more than 11 hours of adult content weekly.
VR Porn Can Desensitize Viewers
According to James B. Weaver III PhD, porn consumers are more prone to depression than people who don’t consume porn. This occurs because porn is hyper-stimulating and forces our brains to get accustomed to receiving unnaturally high doses of dopamine. As usual, VR porn takes things one step further.
No, VR porn doesn’t cause depression. However, it’s so invigorating for our brains that it can desensitize sexual stimuli. In other words, VR porn can be so good that it takes the fun out of real sexual intercourse (at least according to your libido).
Further risks of VR porn that relate to this type of sexual desensitization include idealized and exaggerated representations of sexuality and physical attractiveness (which is also an issue with old-school porn), escapism, and strained intimate relationships.
VR Porn Can Cause Motion Sickness & Myopia
VR porn also has physical consequences, and the correlation between VR viewership and conditions such as myopia and motion sickness is well documented, with 58% of VR users experiencing motion sickness according to a Gitnux report.
Motion sickness is so common in the VR realm that there’s even a word for it: cybersickness! It doesn’t take much for a person to get sick from using VR devices too. A study from Leeds University, U.K. showed that 20 minutes of exposure to VR could impact the ability of children to understand the distance of objects.
Myopia is perhaps an even greater concern, with experts stating that as much as 50% of the world’s population will be affected by myopia in 2050. To be fair, however, VR porn isn’t the main culprit here, as people have been overexposed to screens for decades now.
Myths & Facts Surrounding VR Porn
It happened with AI companions, and it also happens with VR porn. Every time a new and exciting technology gets in the way of our sex lives, we tend to assume some things are true without even investigating them properly.
To shed light on such a tough subject, I have reunited three of the most common myths surrounding VR porn, as well as an often disputed fact.
Myth: VR Porn is Still Not There
How many times have you been in a discussion about VR and heard someone say the technology is still not there? I have been in that awkward position many times in the past, and I find it baffling that so many people assume VR porn belongs to the future, when it’s clearly working in the present.
In fact, VR porn was even working in the past, with 55% of VR users reporting the experience as satisfying in 2020 and 70% of VR users reporting to intend to increase the use of VR in 2022. Statistics also show that VR porn makes up for 3.4% of the porn industry’s current revenue, proving there’s a huge demand for VR porn at the moment.
Myth: VR Porn is Just For Men
I have spent enough time reviewing the best AI girlfriend apps to know that there’s a gender issue in porn, even when porn involves new technologies. However, I believe that stating that VR porn is just for men is a bit far-fetched, as VR adult content creators have been making a real effort to be inclusive of female audiences.
Even though only 3.8% of women watch porn daily, a reported 16.7% of VR porn users are females. Those figures are probably going up too, with Medium stating that female VR porn users almost tripled from 2019 to 2021.
That’s not to say, of course, that women necessarily enjoy VR porn more than men… According to a Science Direct paper, women—unlike men—didn’t conclusively find VR porn to be more exciting than 2D porn.
Myth: VR Porn Will Massively Increase Porn Addiction
VR porn will not make it easier for anyone to beat porn addiction, but it will also not create a world in which everyone’s a porn addict. If you’re one of the people who think VR porn will replace intimacy and fast-forward us into a post-love dystopia, you may want to listen to the words of certified sex therapist Dr. Holly Richmond.
In an interview, Dr. Richmond was asked if VR porn will lead to a country full of porn addicts and answered with a decided no. According to Richmond, addiction-related fears surrounding VR porn are seen as “a great way for the addiction community to make a lot of money by pathologizing people’s sexual needs.” In sum, the therapist believes that VR porn will not create new porn addicts regardless of potentially affecting people who are already addicted to porn.
Fact: Porn is at the Center of the VR Revolution
When someone tells you that the VR revolution won’t have anything to do with porn, just tell them they’re wrong! VR technologies are intrinsically tied because 60% of all VR sites are porn. That means that more than half of all VR websites feature explicit adult content.
The people making the big bucks in the VR world are also aware of this fact. Meta’s VR headset, for example, features a masturbation mode. On the other hand, Apple decided to ignore the link between VR and porn with its new VR headset, causing massive public outcry.
Is There a Future for VR Porn?
VR porn is here right now. But it also has a bright future ahead of it for three reasons: (1) people love VR porn, (2) VR porn makes a lot of money, and (3) VR porn has lots of technological potential.
1: According to a G2 report, one-third of U.S. adults believe VR will have a positive impact on society. The same report shows that 8 out of 10 people who have tried VR porn liked it, describing it as either “somewhat” or “very positive.” This means that the overall population not only trusts but enjoys playing with VR devices.
2: Reports show that the VR porn industry is worth $1.52 billion and is expected to grow to $124 billion by 2030. Experts also believe that VR porn will account for more than half of all porn revenue in 2030. This means that the adult entertainment industry has the means (and the motivation) to meet the high demand of the public.
3: VR technology is pretty advanced, but still taking its first steps. Once adult VR content begins to incorporate third-party tools like AI nude generators, VR porn videos will become even more immersive, realistic, and customizable, further attracting audiences.
Nobody knows what the future holds, but all facts seem to point out that VR porn is not only here to stay, but will likely become even stronger.
Where Can I Find VR Porn?
You can find VR porn videos in all of the mainstream porn websites, including PornHub, XHamster, and XVideos. There’s also a growing number of websites and apps fully dedicated to VR porn content, with VRBangers being the most notable example.
From old-school Cowgirl to the weirdest sexual fantasies, VR porn is fetish-inclusive, leaving no perv behind. It’s also more aware of female audiences when compared to 2D porn.
For now, most VR porn is photorealistic, but there’s a good chance that animated VR porn will become commonplace in the future, in line with Hentai AI apps and other Anime-inspired services for adults.
What is VR porn?
VR porn is adult content that is specifically created for viewing through VR headsets.
How is VR porn different from traditional porn?
VR porn is different from traditional pornography because it provides a more immersive and realistic experience, creating a sense of presence and intimacy that is not possible with 2D porn.
What equipment do I need to watch VR porn?
You’ll need a compatible VR headset, such as the Meta Quest 3 or HTC Vive, along with a compatible device, such as a computer or gaming console.
Is VR porn safe to use?
Despite being as safe as 2D porn, VR porn comes with potential drawbacks such as the increased risk of myopia and motion sickness. Use with caution!
Where can I find VR porn content?
You can find VR porn on most mainstream porn websites, including PornHub, and also on dedicated VR porn platforms such as VRBangers.
Ava Nicks
Ava Nicks merges adult entertainment experience and AI passion at Tity, with hobbies including friends and pets, from Ohio to Miami.
