LOS ANGELES — A new survey conducted by adult online magazine XCritic.com and Vivid Entertainment has found that more than half of online buyers still pay to watch porn.
The “Sex Tracker" survey of more than 400 mostly male respondents who visit the XCritic website also indicated that 33 percent are watching porn on DVDs they purchase.
Women accounted for 3.9 of the respondents and 86.4 percent were between 18 and 50 years of age.
"With all the talk of piracy and tube sites, the majority of consumers out there still wants to get their adult entertainment legally and is more than willing to pay for it," said XCritic editor Christopher Thorne.
Although DVDs still lead the pack, tube sites had a significant showing with 31.7 percent of those surveyed indicating they used tubes, while the remainder of respondents said they pay to watch their adult entertainment either on-demand or via subscription and membership sites.
The survey also showed significant trends in adult entertainment consumption, with 51.7 percent of respondents who watch porn saying they do so alone, and while masturbating.
Still a quarter of the respondents (24.3 percent) watch porn movies alone simply for entertainment, while 23.5 percent watch it with a significant other.
Other popular trends from the study indicate porn viewers like features with strong story lines (20.5 percent), sex only (19.5 percent), or gonzo-extreme sex (12.9 percent), with the newer genre of parodies making a significant showing at 9.4 percent.
Porn films involving three participants has been a perennial favorite and the survey found that the combination of two women and one man is by far the most popular configuration at 62 percent, and two men and a woman at 25.7 percent.
Asked "what are your feelings about cam shows?," 17.8 percent of the respondents checked the box "What are Cam Shows?," while 38.3 percent said they do not enjoy cam shows and 23.4 percent said they only watch them occasionally or rarely.
The survey revealed that 16.9 percent of the respondents said they watch the "free preview and that's it."
"The results are a fascinating snapshot of the preferences of visitors to our site," Thorne added. "There's a lot of speculation about what consumers want and don't want and how they consume their entertainment, it's great to see real hard data to show what's really going on out there."