The Psychology of Hentai Porn

What was the most popular porn search term of 2021? According to Pornhub’s latest report, it was hentai. This term has been near the top of the list for a few years and seems to be on the rise. So what is hentai, and why do so many people seem to be drawn to it?

Hentai has been defined as “a subgenre of the Japanese genres of manga and anime, containing overtly sexualized characters and sexually explicit images,” according to Pornhub. In other words, it’s a form of cartoon porn.

Despite its seeming popularity, it’s not something that has yet received much research attention, but I do have some data that can shed some light on the appeal of this porn genre.

In the survey of 4,175 Americans’ sexual fantasies, I conducted for my book Tell Me What You Want, one of the things I asked people about was whether they had ever fantasized about cartoon or anime characters. What I found was that 27% of participants said this was something they had ever fantasized about before, with 4% saying it was something they fantasize about often.

So while a sizable number of people appear to have had hentai-related fantasies, it’s a relatively small number who fantasize about it frequently. This is interesting to consider in light of hentai being such a popular search term. Fantasies that aren’t extraordinarily common can show up disproportionately in porn searches because they aren’t as readily available and people have to intentionally go looking for them.

By contrast, if you look at something like threesomes (a fantasy almost everyone has had at some point), it’s not as high up on the search list, despite the fact that there’s way more threesome porn out there. It’s just a lot easier to find and is more prominently displayed on porn sites, reducing the need to search for it. I say this just as a word of caution to not read too much into the top search terms because they might not tell us as much about the prevalence of a given sexual interest as we might assume.

OK, so who’s most into hentai, and what’s behind its sexual appeal?

One thing I see in my data is that there are pretty sizable gender and sexual orientation differences in hentai-related fantasies:

• 12% of heterosexual women have had this fantasy before, with 1% saying they fantasize about it often.
• 27% of heterosexual men have had this fantasy before, with 3% saying they fantasize about it often.
• 26% of lesbian and bisexual women have had this fantasy before, with 4.5% saying they fantasize about it often.
• 39% of gay and bisexual men have had this fantasy before, with 8% saying they fantasize about it often.
• 40% of trans and nonbinary persons have had this fantasy before, with 8% saying they fantasize about it often.

What you can see here is that men and gender-diverse persons are far more likely to fantasize about hentai than women. Likewise, persons who identify as anything other than heterosexual are more likely to fantasize about this than heterosexual folks.

One possible explanation for these gender and sexuality differences is that it may be due to broader differences in the fantasy themes people are drawn to. For example, heterosexual women on average have the fewest fantasies involving taboo themes and the most fantasies about passion and romance. They are also the most likely to say that they usually appear in their own fantasies (and often as the object of desire). As a result, fantasies that have a stronger grounding in reality (featuring themselves and real-life partners) may be more appealing to heterosexual women than other groups.

I also found that hentai-themed fantasies were linked to a large number of psychological traits and characteristics:

• People with active imaginations, in general, had more hentai fantasies, which makes sense—these folks had more fantasies about almost everything! So, for some people, these fantasies may simply the product of a wandering mind.
• Hentai fantasies were also linked to being less extroverted (meaning less outgoing and sociable) and less conscientious (meaning less detail-oriented). This makes intuitive sense. If you have a lesser need for human interaction in real life, this may carry over into your fantasies. Likewise, if you’re not as focused on the details, this opens the door to a wider range of fantasy content (by contrast, people high in conscientiousness tend to have super detailed fantasies that closely mirror the real world).
• Hentai fantasies were also linked to being more anxiously attached (having more fear of abandonment), having a more avoidant attachment style (being uncomfortable with intimacy), and being more neurotic (very easily stressed out). For anxiously attached and neurotic individuals, fantasizing about a fictional character might provide some comfort by taking some stress and anxiety out of the equation, whereas for those who are avoidantly attached, fantasizing about a fictional partner might offer the emotional distance they’re looking for.
• Hentai fantasies were also linked to having more BDSM fantasies in general, which suggests that these fantasies may sometimes be a vehicle for expressing BDSM interests.
• These fantasies were also linked to more fantasies about taboo activities in general, as well as having more fantasies about nonconsensual activities (such as the nonconsensual forms of voyeurism and exhibitionism). So, for some, hentai may offer a means of engaging with sexual interests that are impossible, dangerous, or illegal in the real world.
• Lastly, and perhaps not surprisingly, those who had hentai fantasies tended to have more fantasies about fantastical scenarios in general, such as sex in outer space and sex with aliens or robots.

As with any type of sexual fantasy, different people may be drawn to hentai for very different reasons. Sometimes it’s just the result of having a very active imagination, whereas other times it might be about meeting a deeper psychological need or a creative way of expressing a taboo sexual interest.

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Image source: Photo by Branden Skeli on Unsplash