A few weeks ago Harriet Sugarcookie was invited onto the James Whale show on TalkRadio to talk about a scandal involving people in the British Houses of Parliament making 24 000 attempts to access porn at work. It was one of those silly nothing stories that embarrasses politicians by making them appear human – but it got us thinking, who watches porn at work and why do they do it? We decided to investigate Sugarcookie style and did some research.

We surveyed nearly 2 000 men and women from around the world to discover their workplace porn viewing habits.

We asked them ten simple questions about watching porn at work and from that we got some staggering results.

Workplace porn penetration

It turns out that watching porn at work is the norm and it’s people that Iwatch porn at work who are in the minority. In our survey nearly 60% of people have watched porn at work at some point, even if it’s by accident.

There were some differences between men and women with girls more likely to watch at work. A whopping 74% of girls admit to it compared with 59% for guys.

Though it’s American girls who really set the standard. 85% claim to watch porn at work, the most of any group globally. For a comparison, only half of British girls watch smut at work.

Getting caught

Amazingly nearly 20% of porn surfers have been caught while watching porn at work. This figure could be even higher as nearly 30% of people have caught a colleague which suggests people tend to turn a blind eye when they see this on their work-mate’s screen.

How often do people watch porn at work?

There was quite a range of answers with median (26%) only watching porn at work about once per month. While at the extremes 10% of people view porn at work every day, 4% more than once per day and 20% say they have only ever viewed porn at work once.

The thing to remember is that workrs are only human, not robots. We all look for distractions from work whether it’s facebook, messaging, YouTube, games or watching porn. Workers cannot be expected to work flat out all day. In fact there are studies showing that a masturbation break can actually lead to higher morale and productivity in workers.

57% masturbate at work while they watch porn

If anything this figure seems low. We expected it to be closer to 100%. After all, why watch porn if not to get off, are the others just watching for the stories?

And again, just as girls were more likely to watch porn at work, they were also more likely to masturbate while doing so with 72% of girls admitting to the practice.

We also asked those that masturbate where the event takes place. The most common place was a private bathroom with 49%.

But many ‘baters were more brazen: 36% masturbate in a bathroom stall, 16% at their office desk, 15% in an empty office and the rest in some other place.

Getting personal

It’s not surprising that most people watch porn at work on their personal devices (92%). With your own laptop or mobile phone you don’t need to risk your job or navigate corporate porn filters. And 9% of people are lucky enough to work from home which makes things a lot easier.

But 18% of people are happy to put their jobs are risk by viewing porn on their work devices.

A lesson for bosses

We asked people why they watch porn at work, what drives them to this distraction? The most common answer with 59% admitting to it was simply that they were was horny.

3% said it was part of their jobs, which makes sense, someone has to be moderating all that online content or even keeping an eye on what’s happening on the corporate network.

Other results were more eye-opening. 58% reported boredom at work as their reason for seeking out porn and 20% watched porn at work because they were stressed.

The lesson here is that if you want to get the most from your employees and get them to spend more time being productive and less time watching porn, why not try stimulating their minds and find ways to make their work more interesting?

You should also monitor stressed employees, maybe give them a break to relax, like the previous study suggested, perhaps a porn and masturbation break can get them back to peak performance?

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