I was 19 the first time I watched porn on purpose. Dial-up internet, 1997, 45 minutes before my mother would pick up the downstairs phone and disconnect me from the only thing I’d found that actually made sense. I clicked on two women and thought, there it is. Then my mother called my aunt. I had to wait until the next day to figure out what to do with that information.

Lesbian content has been the top search term among women on Pornhub for years. Women are 130% more likely than men to look for it. We account 47% of gay male porn views on the platform. Thirty-eight percent of Pornhub’s total audience is women, up every year since 2015.

We don’t bring this up at dinner. We’ll tell you about our therapy and our UTIs and the specific ways our mothers damaged us, but this stays private. I don’t know why. It’s just data. Uncomfortable, clarifying, extremely useful data.

So, let’s get more of this data into the open. I asked six women about their porn habits. Here is what they said.

Sara, 22, student

Sara has watched lesbian porn since she was 17. Stumbled onto it, stayed. She does not own a vibrator because she has roommates and, in her words, is not ready to have that conversation with the communal Amazon packages. So, it’s her hand, twice a week, after midnight, after everyone is asleep. She has a boyfriend but he does not know her search history. She does not consider this a problem—to her, it’s much like having a private checking account. “It’s not about him,” she said. “It’s about me. Those are different things.” 

Jess, 26, model

Jess doesn’t watch porn alone. Alone it does nothing. With a partner it does everything. They watch girl-on-girl, always, which her boyfriend introduced and she immediately understood. She has tried straight porn. “The woman always looks like she’s somewhere else,” she said. “Then I’m somewhere else watching her be somewhere else.” She paused. “What exactly am I supposed to do with that?”

Claire, 27, therapist

Claire watches porn before sex—by herself. She edges alone, then goes inside. Shows up halfway there without her partner knowing the warm-up happened in the driveway. “Men jerk off before a first date to calm down,” she said. “I do it before a third date to show up ready.” Girl-on-girl, phone, car, engine still running. I asked if she’d told anyone this. “I’m a therapist,” she said. “I know how normal this is. Knowing doesn’t mean announcing.”

Diane, 43, director

Diane has four tabs open. Orgy on one, age gap on another, girl on girl somewhere, algorithm wildcard on the fourth. Sunday mornings. Baby oil, fingers, no toys. “Vibrators are too efficient,” she said. “I’m not trying to get somewhere. I’m trying to stay somewhere.” She has no feelings of conflict about any of this. She is 43. The not-conflicted part took the longest. “I know what I like,” she said. “That was expensive information. I’m getting my money’s worth.”

Joan, 41, musician

Joan uses a dildo, a vibrator, and watches stepdaughter MILF porn. She knows how that sounds. She said so before I could. “It’s the dynamic,” she said. “Not the specifics.” Someone wanting something badly enough to do something about it. The particular electricity of want with an obstacle in it. “Desire is desire,” she said. “It doesn’t have to match my actual life to work.” This seems obvious when she says it. It isn’t obvious until someone says it.

The one who watches nothing

One woman, 34, finance, watches no porn and uses no toys. Not religion. Not morality. Strategy. She is afraid that if she learns to get there without a person, she will stop being able to get there with one. “I don’t want to train myself out of needing someone,” she said. 

She has a whole theory. It is a coherent theory. I did not have the heart to tell her that the other five women in this piece have solved exactly that problem and reported no casualties.

She is still thinking about it.

The rest of us finished thinking about it and then finished a second time for good measure.