Young Men Have a Complicated Relationship With Porn

Support for added restrictions coexists with continued consumption

PornHub is going dark across the U.S.

Young men may not be entirely displeased.

The world’s largest pornography platform has withdrawn from one red state after another in recent months, a potential harbinger of what’s to come for the rest of the nation. An ideological vanguard of conservative activists is seeking to crush the industry and has achieved legislative victories in several states that have prompted these withdrawals.

You might suspect young men to be leading the resistance. Instead, there are signs of growing skepticism towards the industry and openness to added restrictions.

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Project 2025 doesn’t mince words.

Russ Vought and the architects behind The Heritage Foundation’s 922-page policy blueprint for Trump’s second term state bluntly:

“Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.”

Rejecting any claim to First Amendment protections, they label distributors as “child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women” and call for educators and librarians displaying content judged as “pornographic” to be registered as sex offenders. Positions once considered extreme are now mainstream in the GOP.

Across the country, Republican state legislatures are implementing age verification requirements that force users to upload photo IDs or undergo facial recognition to access adult sites. Often framed as protecting minors, these restrictions serve a larger mission. Vought, now the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was secretly recorded last August saying these verification systems are a “back door” method to crushing the industry entirely. Thus far, the strategy is working. PornHub has stopped providing content in multiple red states rather than pay the exorbitant fees required to maintain these verification systems.

These changes are occurring alongside a remarkable shift in public opinion. Young men are historically the heaviest consumers of porn and have traditionally been split on adding more restrictions. It’s not surprising, then, that a 2024 Harris super PAC targeted them ahead of the 2024 election with the ad: “Trump’s Project 2025 Will Ban Porn. Enjoy While You Can.”

But young men's attitudes appear to be shifting. While there is strong evidence that a majority of young men would not support a total prohibition on porn in the U.S., a 2025 Survey Center on American Life poll found that 64 percent of men ages 18-24 agree that accessing porn should be more difficult. This represents a significant increase from just 51 percent in 2013, and was well above the measured support from men ages 25-54 (just below half).

Some speculate that this shift among the youngest men aligns with Gen Z having less sex than previous generations. Others argue that less exploitative portrayals of women in film have altered perceptions. Ultimately, these views on porn seem to align with a broader conservative turn on social issues, particularly around sex and gender relations.

But supporting restrictions in theory and following them in practice are two different things.

Young Men Research Project (YMRP)’s summer 2025 survey explored the latter question, asking 18-29-year-old men in the U.S. how often they look at pornography on free websites and paid subscription services like OnlyFans.

Options included:

• Multiple times per day

• Once per day

• A few times per week

• A few times per month

• Less often

• I do not do this

The sample was weighted to match Catalist’s 2024 turnout data, which reflects a Trump +5 electorate: 34 percent said they voted for Trump, 29 percent for Harris, 1 percent for a third party, and 36 percent abstained. Here, the survey looks at the pornography habits of several key groups of young men:

• Race: White, Hispanic, Black

• Party Affiliation: Democrat, Republican

• 2024 Vote Choice: Harris, Trump

• Education: College-educated, Non-college-educated

• Age: Born 1995-2002 (older), Born 2003-2007 (younger)

• Geographic Region: Urban, Suburban, Rural

• Religion: Very Religious (weekly service attendees), Non-Religious (never attend services)

An important caveat: Porn usage is notoriously difficult to measure accurately. Respondents often underreport their usage, even in anonymous surveys. Results from study to study can vary considerably. That said, our overall findings fall in the range of separate surveys examining overall usage among men in the U.S.

Graphs depicting usage are shown below:

Figure One: Percentage of young men using pornography at least weekly. Usage of free content is represented in red, subscription services in purple, across demographic categories.

Figure Two: Free pornography usage frequency by demographic group. Stacked bars show daily (darkest red), weekly, monthly, and less often (lightest shade) usage patterns across demographics.

Figure Three: Subscription pornography viewing frequency by demographic group. Stacked bars show daily (darkest purple), weekly, monthly, and less often (lightest shade) usage patterns across demographics.

63 percent of young men report viewing free pornographic content at any frequency, more than twice the share who use subscription services at any frequency (30 percent, with only 18 percent doing so at least weekly). And despite shifting attitudes, no demographic group shows a majority that fully abstains.

Race shows minimal variation for free content, though Hispanic young men use paid services at slightly lower rates (23 percent) than their White (30 percent) and Black (35 percent) peers.

Geography matters mainly for paid content: young men from urban backgrounds use premium services more than their urban and suburban counterparts. While 73 percent of rural and 75 percent of suburban young men say they abstain from paid content, just 63 percent of those from urban areas say the same.

Paid porn skews right, while free porn skews left. Nearly half (46 percent) of Harris supporters report consuming free pornographic content at least weekly, compared to 39 percent of Trump supporters. The gap widens further for monthly usage at 60 percent versus 47 percent. However, Trump voters appear more likely to pay for premium content– 21 percent report using subscription services like OnlyFans daily, ten percentage points above the overall average and eight points higher than Harris voters (13 percent).

Religion reveals the starkest divisions. Very religious young men (weekly service attendees) abstain from free porn at significantly higher rates than the non-religious group– 45 percent versus 32 percent. In fact, the non-religious cohort reports one of the highest monthly usage rates at 59 percent. Yet, the religious cohort uses paid services more frequently than non-religious peers (25 percent weekly versus 12 percent), and far more non-religious young men altogether refrain. (79 percent versus 63 percent). Full crosstabs can be found here.

That very religious young men abstain from free, easily accessible porn much more than their non-religious peers is not surprising–religious groups are some of the staunchest opponents of the porn industry. What is more puzzling, and cannot be answered from our data, is why the trend reverses for paid services. One explanation is that religious respondents attach more shame to porn and prioritize anonymity in their consumption, avoiding any malware or tracking on the free sites. Conversely, non-religious young men simply consume pornography at higher overall rates. For frequent consumers, regularly paying for content simply might not be economically sustainable.

The YMRP survey does not confirm or explain why young men are increasingly open to restricting porn. While patterns vary across demographics, the survey finds that majorities of young men still view porn content in some capacity. Importantly, consumption does not preclude moral opposition–many individuals maintain habits they recognize as problematic or socially objectionable. Young men who consume pornographic content can still believe it has become too pervasive in today’s society.

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The ascending power of online right-leaning opponents is clear.

Many of the leading voices speaking to this demographic–from conservative figures like Jordan Peterson and Matt Walsh to self-improvement gurus like Andrew Huberman and Andrew Tate–are increasingly utilizing their platforms to highlight the dangers of pornography, at times commending abstention as a form of masculine strength and self-discipline. We have written about the influence of podcasts and online content creators as a news source for young men. These sway over cultural issues likely shape young men’s values far more than think tank policy wonks.

How these messages ultimately translate into political preferences and personal behaviors is evolving rapidly and will be difficult to untangle. It bears repeating that stated values and private behaviors often diverge–from 57 percent of young adults supporting cell phone bans in schools, to men being just as likely as women to favor stronger gambling regulations, despite gambling more themselves. With pornography, this gap is especially difficult to measure, making predictions about future trends all the more difficult.

What is clear is that conservative policymakers aren’t waiting on public opinion to settle. They’re moving swiftly to dismantle the industry, one state at a time, with plenty of online influencers bolstering their cause. We will continue to track how these trends evolve–and how young men respond.