Study Finds More Americans Have Anal Sex Than Use Twitter

Yes, that includes heterosexual PIA sex.

Anal sex is more popular than Twitter.

No, seriously…it really is.

Our collective sexual appetites are changing rapidly in this chaotic digital world, as we conjointly explore new ways of loving and new expressions of eroticism. Since the popularization of pornography in the 1970s, the kinds of sex that used to only be practiced by a small minority have become staples in the bedrooms of everyday lovers the globe over. Then the internet brought all sorts of digital eroticism into our homes, opening up new worlds of sexuality for us to ponder, analyze, and explore.

The successive ongoing sexual revolutions aren’t really creating new kinds of sex whole cloth, but rather, humanity seems to be rediscovering the kinds of sex that we’re popular with our ancient and prehistoric ancestors, long before the chains of piety were forced upon us by overbearing religious institutions. One sex act that’s seen a massive surge in popularity over the past century, especially the last few decades, has been anal sex.

The Backdoor is Wide Open

Data from the porn behemoth PornHub collected between 2009 and 2015 showed a staggering rise in anal sex searches of 120% in the United States and 78% worldwide.

It’s up there with BDSM and group sex in terms of what people are fantasizing about the most (see Justin Lehmiller’s book Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life for more) — but the difference between those things and anal is that people are actually having anal sex and not just dreaming about it.