Implications of the Russian Invasion on Ukrainians' Pornography Consumption: Insights from Big-Data Processing.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 has led to drastic changes in the social distancing awareness of Ukrainians and affected their social relationships. Due to the large-scale international conflict, fear of death and social distancing arose from the perception of external dangers caused by Ru...

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Published in:Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 54; no. 9; pp. 3335 - 3344
Main Authors: Nessaibia, Issam, Howard, Alper, Bouarroudj, Tayeb
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Oct2025
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Oct2025
      vid: 54
      iid: 9
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      pub: Springer Nature
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        10.1007/s10508-025-03247-7
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        atl: Implications of the Russian Invasion on Ukrainians' Pornography Consumption: Insights from Big-Data Processing.
      aug:
        au:
          Nessaibia, Issam
          Howard, Alper
          Bouarroudj, Tayeb
        affil:
          Gabinetto Di Psicologia (REFLETO), Via Francesco Saverio Nitti 28, 00195, Rome, Italy
          https://ror.org/026ey8z81 Environmental Research Center, Annaba, Algeria
          New York, NY, USA
          Center in Physico-Chemical Analyses, Tipaza, Algeria
      su:
        Ukraine
        Russia
        Social distance
        Pornography
        Sexual intercourse
        Big data
      sug:
        subj:
          Social distance
          Pornography
          Sexual intercourse
          Ukraine
          Russia
          Big data
      keyword:
        Compulsive sexual behaviors
        Russo-Ukrainian War
        Social distancing
        Compulsive sexual behaviors
        Russo-Ukrainian War
        Social distancing
      ab: The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 has led to drastic changes in the social distancing awareness of Ukrainians and affected their social relationships. Due to the large-scale international conflict, fear of death and social distancing arose from the perception of external dangers caused by Russian army attacks, leading to the anticipation that sexual activities would be severely impacted. However, retrospective self-report studies on Ukrainians' pornography consumption and autoeroticism during this war are sorely lacking. This study used big-data databases available on the Internet to investigate factors that affected pornography use during the Russia–Ukraine War. Weekly relative search volume (WRSV) data from Google Trends from January 2, 2022 to July 31, 2022, were extracted. Pornography habits data were extracted from the Pornhub Insights website. The parameter was defined as "Ukraine's most searched-for terms in 2022 compared to an average day in 2021." A cumulative number of civilian deaths in Ukraine during Russia's invasion (listed by week) was obtained from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) website (ohchr.org). The normality of the data was examined using the Shapiro–Wilk test. All variables included in this study were normally distributed. Therefore, parametric tests were adopted where appropriate. According to Google Trends, the WRSV for "pornography" increased in early March 2022 for the Ukrainian people, which is close to the date when Russia invaded and occupied parts of Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War on February 24, 2022. The number of weekly civilian war deaths was positively correlated with the traffic of Pornhub, a popular pornography website in Ukraine, and the WRSV for "pornography." Mediation analysis demonstrated that a stronger Russian–pornography use association was observed with increased social distancing awareness. Increased Ukrainian pornography consumption during the 2022 invasion was observed, and it was associated with the severity of the Russian army attacks. Social distancing awareness could be a key factor influencing interest in and use of pornography for the Ukrainians. Further studies on changes in sexual desire and birth rate control in Ukraine are warranted, as long-term public health may be affected by shifts in sexual behavior during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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