CARNAL NATION

A study conducted by Sweden’s World Internet Institute reveals that women are spending more time on the internet searching for sexual content. Two thousand male and female participants were asked, “How often, if ever, do you use the internet to look at sexual material?” via telephone interview. The Local, a Swedish news source, reports that there has been a large increase in the number of women who use the web for sex and that gendered use is becoming more comparable. However, among younger men and women under the age of 25, nearly one third of male respondents admitted to searching for sex online and only 4 percent of young women admitted the same.

In total, 17 percent of Swedish web-users search for sex online, which is an increase of 600 percent from data collected in 2003. The percentage of users who regularly visit sex sites has remained constant at 4 percent.

“It’s actually not that surprising that surfing the web for sex is increasing. Attitudes toward sex in society play a role in how honest people are, as does internet use overall – more and more services are carried out online these days,” explains World Internet Institute CEO Janne Elvelid.

In comparison to other countries, the Swedes are rather tame when it comes to internet sex sites. Statistics from 2007 indicate that 29 percent of Americans and 40 percent of surfers from the Czech Republic used the internet to search for sex.