hat’s a wrap! 2025 was one hell of a year for our industry and one we won’t be forgetting for quite a while. There were scandals so big they broke into the mainstream, records broken, and a shocking amount of femboys. Before we get too far into the new year, let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at the biggest moments for the adult industry in 2025…

2025: The Year Of The Femboy?

They’re cute and they even have a special superpower: making pretty much anyone (man, woman, or anything else) just a little bit gay. Femboys have been a staple of internet culture for years, finding their home in subreddits like r/FemBoys, gooner PMVs, and even SFW streaming platforms. It would be easy to assume that these thigh high sock-wearing feminine cuties were just a trend on its way out. Pornhub’s statistics tell a different story.

According to Pornhub’s 2025 Year In Review “Femboy” was an awfully popular search term this year, and not just in the places you’d think. Sure, femboys absolutely dominated in the world of gay porn. They came in at #1 for gay search terms globally, dethroning even the ever-popular “twink.” The term shot up three whole spots in 2025 alone, following its four-rung climb in 2024. 

It’s no surprise gay guys love femboys, but this trend’s had the flexibility to stretch even further. “Femboy” became dramatically more searched outside of the gay section, landing the #10 spot in overall searches for the year. That’s fifteen slots higher than last year- in the USA alone femboys became 292% more popular! More specific searches jumped in popularity too, like “Femboy Hentai” getting 64% more popular globally. Clearly, it’s not just gay men who want to watch femboys get dirty.

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Queenie Gets A New Crown 

Usually adult stars only get their flowers from other folks in the industry. Not this summer! For the first time ever the Coney Island Mermaid Parade chose an out-and-proud sex worker to lead the show: NYC legend Queenie Sateen.

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is the country’s largest art parade and an exciting draw for New Yorkers and tourists alike. As a local nightlife legend and musician known for her love of elaborate costuming, Queenie really was the perfect pick. Still, it would have been easy for the organizers (CIUSA) to pass-up on the opportunity to snag such a perfect fit. It’s generally a family-friendly event, after all, and we all know how weird the people can be about sexworkers being anywhere near children, regardless of how appropriate their behavior. As an openly queer Pornhub brand ambassador with an transgender ex-spouse and music collaborator, Queenie somehow manages to be even more controversial than the average pornstar. 

Still, The Coney Island Mermaid Parade made the right choice: standing behind sexworkers and crowning Queenie Queen Mermaid. Queenie, whose other titles include XBIZ’s Best New Performer of 2024, was interviewed by the New York Post about the experience, saying “Obviously, it’s so important to have representation of sex workers. I know that porn stars are the most public of that, but I’m proud to be able to represent the pornstar/sex worker girly community in such an iconic and storied New York institution.” Queenie proudly led the quirky, artistic parade alongside Ukrainian-American musician Eugene Hütz, the frontman for Gogol Bordello. 

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Finally, A Man’s On Top

Fellas, you finally did it. Women have long dominated the adult performance profession, but this year one lucky man proved male talent really can do anything. For the first time in history, a man was ranked as #1 Most Searched For Pornstar on Pornhub: Alex Adams.

What made Alex a cut above the rest? He’s handsome and charming, of course. He’s well-endowed, but that’s a given. It certainly can’t hurt that he’s been shooting porn for over a decade at this point. Maybe, just maybe, millions of people were yearning to see the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Assistant Secretary for Family Support slang dick and just got confused. Well, that one seems a little less likely. 

Alex isn’t just an exceptional performer who’s been pumping out scenes since 2012. What’s really defined his career is range. Although he entered the industry through the gay world, he’s an open bisexual who’s since expanded his expertise considerably. He’s versatile with men and women just the same. He’s a pro at topping and bottoming. He’s not afraid to take the backseat in scenes with popular starlets, but he loves to get pegged by pretty girls, too. His masculine good looks and “straight passing” affect make him the perfect pick for the popular “straight guy” genre of gay porn, while also catering to the considerable female audience that’s been growing on the hub. As if that weren’t enough, he’ll try almost anything once and made a name for himself doing shockingly hot BDSM scenes for studios like kink.com.

Can we really be surprised that Alex got the #1 spot not just in the USA but globally? He’s been surging up the chart for the last few years, so it’s not like we couldn’t have seen it coming. Either way, it’s an exciting moment for male talent and an important reminder that market dynamics can always shift in unexpected ways. Congratulations to Alex!

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The Mr. Beasts Of Porn

What’s more attention-grabbing than sex? Sexual ragebait! What can get people talking more than sexual ragebait? Public feuds between successful women in the same industry! We might just have the adult news event of the century, folks: Bonnie Blue vs Lily Phillips. Who can have sex with the most men in one day? It’s what Joe Price of Complex called an “Onlyfans arms race.” 

The tale started back in 2024 when then 23-year-old OnlyFans star Lily Phillips made headlines by having sex with one hundred men in one day. Had anyone done this before? Yes. Had they widely publicized their plan, posted proof on OnlyFans, and had a documentary crew there to make sure everyone knew? No. With South-African Youtuber Josh Pieters present and plenty of press buzz, Lily made headlines. The documentary I Slept With 100 Men In One Day, where Lily famously shared a gripping post-sex emotional moment, wracked up twelve million views. It was obvious Lily had changed the Adult content space forever with her impressive, controversial achievement. After finishing the stunt, she expressed a plan to up the number to 1,000 men.

Less than one month after Lily announced her plans, fellow Onlyfans creator Bonnie Blue beat her to it. On January 12th 2025 Bonnie orchestrated the media stunt of the year, calling any and all of-age men in the area to come help her beat the world record for most sexual partners in a day. There were ski masks, condoms, a line of men out the door and multiple scandalous moments that circulated social media to build buzz. Bonnie claimed to have sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours that day, blowing the previous record set by Lisa Sparxxx out of the water. Even better, Bonnie’d taken a leaf out of Lily’s book by making sure a documentary crew were there to document. True Lives’ 1000 Men And Me: The Bonnie Blue Story was broadcast in July to much controversy and discourse.

These “extreme challenges” are nothing new on the internet. As other writers like Cosmopolitan's Brit Dawson have noted, the SFW space has been saturated with them for years. Mr. Beast, the biggest creator on YouTube, broke into fame by spending forty hours counting to 100,000 with no breaks and rakes in views with his increasingly large-scale, controversial stunts. Plus, “rage bait” is a tried and true strategy for getting copious attention online. No wonder, then, that creators in the adult space would be using the same marketing strategies. 

Some loved Bonnie and Lily. Some thought they were harbingers of the end of civilization. Even fellow industry professionals have raised concerns about these extreme stunts. Still, everyone from news anchors to random commenters on social media couldn’t get these women' s names out of their mouths, and that’s just the way Lily and Bonnie like it. Whether these challenges are good or bad for women, the industry, or society at large is still being debated, but that hasn’t stopped them from raking in views.

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Groundbreaking Hotwife Brand WIFEY Launches

For laymen not too clued into the world of adult media, it’s easy to assume it’s all the same: fauxest and gonzo scenes with the same big-name stars doing the same few positions for the camera to help you get off. That’s never been true. Vixen Media Group’s new brand WIFEY proves that beyond dispute. 

WIFEY is the first ever brand focused on real couple’s experience with Ethical Non-Monogamy, specifically “Hotwifing.” It’s a popular kink and lifestyle (related to cuckolding, but without the erotic humiliation element) where women are free to explore sexually outside of their partnerships. Their husbands enjoy the thrill of their wives having great sex with other men and actively support their promiscuity. While many adult stars practice some form of ENM or even found porn through “the lifestyle,” WIFEY’s broken new ground. They bring Hotwifing into the spotlight not through fantasy scenes or sensationalist mainstream coverage, but real, intimate experiences with everyday couples in the scene.

WIFEY finds dirty couples with strong bonds and gives them the fantasy experience of a lifetime. Hotwives get glammed up by a professional crew and star in their very own erotic photoshoots before being fucked on screen by the industry’s hottest male stars they’ve fantasized about for years. Their husbands get the thrill of seeing their wives get the cock they’ve always craved, holding her hair back while she sucks off another man, and even shooting footage of the big event themselves.

WIFEY productions aren’t just scripted hotwife sex with a little dialogue at the beginning to set the scene. Instead, they’re hour-long “documentary style” productions that seamlessly blend hot, hardcore sex with adorable interviews. A WIFEY video is more akin to a reality TV show than the average mainstream porn watch, with plentiful time dedicated to the dynamic between the couple. The unique synthesis of real-life candid conversation, high-production-value sex and genuine education about the lifestyle brings something totally fresh to the scene. We can only hope that WIFEY inspires even more innovation in our constantly developing industry.

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A New Era Of Desire  

Porn is ever-popular, but it never stays the same for too long. As new generations come of age and technologies evolve it’s only natural adult content would, too. This year Pornhub Insights revealed multiple unexpected shifts in the world of adult media that could spell out an excitingly diverse future for the industry.

When people think “porn” what exactly do they mean? It’s been decades since DVDs and magazines were popular, but now even the creator platforms that upturned the industry are starting to be old news. What’s the new media on the horizon? According to Pornhub insights it’s pornographic reimaginings of popular SFW media forms. Vertical video more than doubled in 2025, and that’s not even the biggest news. Gaming videos were up 283% and podcasts grew the most. Searches for porn podcasts raised over three hundred percent in just one year. With even “parody” getting a big boost, it’s obvious audiences are craving porn that mirrors SFW media they already love. 

It’s not just the style of content that’s shifting, it’s the substance, too. This year showed a spike of interest in LGBTQ+ porn. Not only was the ever-popular “Lesbian” the most-viewed category, the runner up was “Transgender” (which jumped in popularity even more for women than men!). “Queer” nearly doubled as a search term and even “Bisexual” jumped 88%. Pornhub brand ambassador and trans star Natassia Dreams commented on the shifting desires “People are finally seeking out stories and performers who break old ideas about gender and sexuality. It’s amazing to see viewers become more open-minded and interested in authenticity. This growth shows trans creators are finally being seen and celebrated on our own terms. Audiences and the industry are evolving together.”

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