Porn escalation is getting worse: 25 years of data

In 2000, among the most popular porn videos on the internet, roughly one in five contained visible aggression. By the 2020s, that number had nearly tripled.

The data comes from researchers at McGill University, who coded 255 of the most-viewed Pornhub videos spanning 25 years (Shor & Liu, Journal of Sex Research, 2025). Practices like choking, which didn't appear at all in the earliest videos sampled, showed significant increases in the most recent ones. The content that defines "mainstream" porn today would have been considered extreme a generation ago.

The result is a higher baseline for new viewers, alongside the individual tolerance patterns that can develop with repeated use.

The content itself has changed

This matters because escalation has two layers: the individual brain and the environment feeding it.

When researchers talk about porn escalation, they usually mean what happens inside an individual's brain: tolerance builds, novelty seeking kicks in, and preferences drift toward more extreme content. That's real and well-documented. But there's a second layer: the content available to consume has also escalated, independent of any individual user.

The Shor & Liu study is the most rigorous look at this trend to date. They sampled 255 popular Pornhub videos uploaded between 2000 and 2024, coding each for visible physical aggression (spanking, hitting, choking), nonconsensual aggression, verbal aggression, and other markers. The growth was primarily driven by increases in spanking, but hitting and strangulation also rose significantly.

What this means in practical terms: someone encountering porn for the first time in 2025 is starting from a more extreme baseline than someone who started in 2005. The "entry level" has moved.

Five ways escalation actually works

Most people think of escalation as simply watching "worse" content over time. Research tells a more specific story.

A 2024 network analysis of 2,300 male porn users across the US and UK (Ince et al., Addictive Behaviors, 2024) identified five distinct escalation patterns:

1. Quantitative tolerance. Needing more time to achieve the same effect. Sessions that used to take ten minutes now take an hour. This was the most significant finding: quantitative tolerance acted as the central statistical bridge between other escalation patterns and all measured facets of problematic use.

2. Qualitative escalation. Seeking more intense, taboo, or extreme genres. The classic "genre drift" from vanilla to increasingly niche or disturbing content.

3. Tab-jumping. Rapidly switching between videos or tabs to chase the next novelty hit. Instead of watching one video, users cycle through dozens, each one providing a brief dopamine spike before becoming stale.

4. Edging. Deliberately delaying orgasm to prolong sessions and maintain the dopamine state. This extends exposure time and deepens the brain's association between arousal and screen-based stimulation.

5. Pornographic binges. Extended multi-hour sessions, often triggered by stress, boredom, or the accumulation of smaller cravings. Binges represent a collapse of self-regulation and are strongly associated with post-use distress.

These categories came from data across two independent samples. The key insight is that quantitative tolerance (simply spending more time) is the gateway: it bridges casual use patterns to problematic engagement.

What people actually experience

The statistics describe the pattern. The lived experience fills in what it feels like.

A 2023 qualitative study in Scientific Reports (Ince et al.) surveyed 67 people who identified as having problematic pornography use. Their descriptions of escalation were strikingly consistent:

"My tastes have changed and my time spent indulging has increased. I have looked at things that I would have once found disgusting." (25-year-old male)

"I have gradually sought more and more depraved material over time. Although very tame pictures would suffice in the past, I now seek out many different types of genres which could be considered extreme." (27-year-old male)

"The lackluster feeling [is] mental and physical. After each session, it is like I slowly need more and more of it. Something new or fresh." (22-year-old male)

A critical finding from this study: the escalation was overwhelmingly compensatory rather than exploratory. Participants were chasing a dopamine response that familiar content no longer delivered. The researchers noted "little anecdotal evidence that these escalating usage patterns were driven by sexual exploration and discovery."

This distinction matters. Escalation is usually a tolerance pattern rather than a direct measure of someone's stable preferences.

Why the double escalation matters

This is where the two trends converge. The content is getting more extreme (the Shor & Liu finding), and individual brains build tolerance to whatever they consume (the Ince finding).

This creates a compounding problem:

• A new user in 2025 starts with content that's already more aggressive than what was mainstream 15 years ago
• Their brain habituates to that baseline, and tolerance pushes them further
• "Further" from an already-extreme starting point means landing in territory that previous generations of users rarely reached

This is especially relevant for adolescents and young adults, whose brains are still developing and whose dopamine systems are more plastic. A 2023 Common Sense Media survey found that 54% of teens had seen pornography by age 13, and the intensity of what they encounter continues to rise. For more on how this affects younger users specifically, see Quitting porn as a teenager.

The neuroscience in brief

The mechanism behind escalation is the same tolerance process that drives dose increases in substance addiction. Your brain's reward system runs on dopamine. Repeated exposure to the same stimulus causes dopamine receptors to downregulate (become less sensitive). The result: you need more intensity or novelty to generate the same response.

With porn, "more" can mean more time, more extreme content, more rapid switching, or some combination. The pathway may differ, but the underlying pattern is the same: familiar stimulation produces less response, so the user seeks a stronger signal.

For the full breakdown of how this rewiring works at the neurological level, see How porn rewires your brain. If you're noticing escalation alongside erectile dysfunction with partners or other signs of problematic use, those patterns are connected.

What this means for you

If you're reading this and recognizing your own pattern, three things are worth knowing:

Escalation reflects tolerance. The content someone escalates to can reflect the level of novelty or intensity their brain has become used to, rather than a stable identity or fixed preference.

It reverses. When the stimulus is removed, dopamine receptors upregulate. Sensitivity returns. Preferences drift back. This is documented in clinical reports and in the lived experiences of people who've gone through recovery. It takes time (weeks to months), but the direction is consistent.

The sooner you address it, the less distance there is to travel back. Escalation is progressive. The longer it runs, the further preferences drift and the longer recovery takes. Catching it early, even just naming what's happening, gives you a shorter path back.

For a complete guide to understanding your own escalation pattern and what recovery looks like, see Porn escalation: why your tastes change and what it means. If you're using AI-generated porn or AI companions, the escalation dynamics can move faster; see AI porn and escalation: why novelty accelerates tolerance.