Election Day was a mixed bag for the porn industry. While the XXX community rejoiced over the defeat of California’s Proposition 60 — which would have mandated the use of condoms in porn shoots in the state — Tuesday was a grim day for the adult-video industry, at least for internet purveyors of skin cinema.
Porn site RedTube reported that its U.S. traffic experienced “a major slow down” on election day, dropping 5 percent at approximately 4 p.m. ET and going even more flaccid by 11 p.m. ET, as the election results were pouring in, dropping 22 percent.
RedTube reported comparable losses in Canada, where traffic didn’t resume it’s normal rate until early Wednesday morning. (Side note to all of those who have vowed to leave the country over Trump’s election — don’t worry, yes, Canada has RedTube.)
Over at Pornhub, there was a similar pattern, with U.S. traffic dropping “well below average” Tuesday evening, falling off by 23 percent at 11 p.m. ET and resuming normal rates by 1 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
Of course, it’s hard to determine the Trump factor in all of this — there was, after all, another candidate in the race. But the increased hand-wringing over this particular election likely left many voters’ hands unavailable for other activities.
The good news for the porn industry? Both RedTube and Pornhub reported robust business earlier on Election Day. RedTube said that it experienced increased U.S. traffic between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. ET on Tuesday, while Pornhub surged “well above that on an average Tuesday, peaking as high as +17 percent” at 8 a.m. ET.
Both sites attribute the early uptick to American employees being given two hours to cast their votes on Election Day. (Thanks, bosses.)
Clearly, many voters were pulling something else before heading off to pull the lever for their candidate of choice. Hopefully there was plenty of Purell at the polling stations.