How to Find the Right Porn Scene Without Having to Scroll for Eight Years

The plight of fervently scrolling through page after page of porn, searching for The One, has been acknowledged and chronicled by many. In his knockout song “Kimono,” internet rapper and producer Lil Boom gripes about the hours he once spent probing Pornhub for a memorable video from his distant past:

I’ve been on fuckin’ porn for like six hours
Goddamn bro, still haven’t found my fuckin’ video (can’t find my fuckin’ video)
Scrollin’ through Pornhub, I’m on page 50 (on page 50)
Tryna find that one video I remember (I remember)

The struggle is so real that nut seekers ‘round the world openly share accounts of their prolonged, arduous expeditions through the depths of porn sites for everyone on the internet to read and sympathize with.

Indeed, the vast annals of internet porn are marvelous in many ways, but they come at a cost, and part of that cost is having to do the work of scrolling, half-hard Richard in hand, to find what you like. 

But there has to be a better way, so I asked Geoffrey Celen, creator of ThePornDude (a website dedicated to cataloging and reviewing pornographic content); Alex Hawkins, vice president of xHamster; and Chris Jackson, of Pornhub, how to find a porn scene that suits you without having to scroll until your fingers are raw. Here are their tips…

Pause, Breathe and Think Before You Scroll

“A lot of users start looking for porn without thinking about what they might actually want,” Hawkins says. “They just log on and start hitting play. But we have nearly five million videos, and once you start watching, you get more impulsive, which, if you’re hot and one-handed, can easily end in frustration. So pause before you start, think about what you want and make a few key adjustments that will help you get off more effectively.”

Likewise, Celen says, if you already know what you like and which sites have a good selection, start there. “If you know what gets you off and who has it on tap, the job is half done,” he explains. “If you’re in the mood for MILFs, go to a MILF site, or a network with a good cougar selection. Instead of just searching some random tube site for any videos with ‘butt’ in the title, hit up one of the better anal sites.” A simple way to find these more focused sites is to just Google “ass porn site” or whatever else you might be looking for.

Celen adds that the more prominent porn sites, like PornHub, Brazzers and xHamster, tend to have better quality videos than their lesser-known counterparts. “Source is especially vital when you’re surfing the free tubes,” he says. “You want access to high-quality porn without having to wade into a minefield of spam, which the shadier tubes are notorious for. The better free porn sites have good relationships with the paysites, which ultimately means more abundant, hotter free content with fewer boner pill pop-ups on your end.”

Make an Account

I know, I know, making an account for your jerk sessions feels kinda weird, but it can save you a lot of time and frustration. “Even if it’s not a paid membership, having an actual account on a site like xHamster helps AI better recommend new scenes to you based on your previous views and videos you’ve liked or disliked,” says Hawkins. “It also helps you easily go back to scenes you’ve already watched, which is great when you’re in a hurry. You also can follow certain producers and stars, create personal collections and find new content more efficiently. Often, people make the decision to watch porn when something triggers them, or they have a spare moment. Why waste time and deal with the frustration of combing through millions of videos and searching with one hand when you’re just trying to do a little self-care between shifts?”

Jackson approves of this tactic, emphasizing that your experience after making an account will be much, much better from the get-go. “When you sign up for a free account, you’ll get asked questions about your preferences,” he says. “We use whatever you select to curate content that would be of interest to you, and this improves further over time, as you watch more content.”

Employ Those Category Pages

If you like asses, navigate to the “ass” category page, bro. This can be especially effective, because as Hawkins explains, the search bar on porn sites is often completely useless when it comes to broad topics. “Search is best used when you’re looking for a particular star, or a very specific niche,” he says. “But most popular porn search terms, like ‘stepmom,’ ‘daddy’ or ‘Japanese,’ are so broad and heavily populated that they’re often ineffective. Everything gets labeled that by users, because they’re popular search terms. Imagine if you logged on to a food delivery app to get dinner and tried to search for ‘hot’ or ‘delicious.’ Because xHamster’s content is user-uploaded, we have little control over the titles or descriptions. However, our AI and support team are able to tag videos with the appropriate categories. That means searching for ‘MILF’ is often less efficient than using ‘MILF’ as a category, then adding additional categories, like BBW, BBC or BDSM, as needed.”

Celen mostly agrees, but with one caveat. “Category pages can help you find what you’re looking for, but only if you’ve picked a good source,” he says. “If a site has bad tagging and video indexing, they’re often useless. The really third-rate free tubes will sometimes have a bunch of overlapping/competing category pages, like ‘lesbian,’ ‘lesbians,’ ‘girl-on-girl’ and ‘girl/girl.’ On the other hand, the ‘creampie’ section on a site like Brazzers is probably going to have exactly the sweet treats you’re looking for.”

Get Even More Specific With Filters

So, you’re already on the “ass” category page, but you also like that HD stuff. Hawkins says you can have the best of both by adding filters atop your categories. “If you’re looking for a real scene, adding filters like ‘HD’ or a specific time length will immediately help narrow things to better-quality clips,” he explains. “Or if you’re feeling adventurous, turn on ‘latest videos’ or ‘most-viewed filters.’ If you’re only searching broad terms, it’s less effective — AI is great, but it can’t read your mind.”

Pay Attention to the Thumbnails

One of the worst feelings is clicking on an epic thumbnail, only to realize that the featured scene was hardly even in the video. Fortunately, as Celen explains, many top porn sites have started implementing tools to help fappers avoid this altogether. “Unless you’re fapping to some deep-niche fetish, most of the good porn sites these days have moving previews when you tap or hover over a thumbnail,” he says. “Even the slideshow-style, with multiple random screen-grabs flashing by, can tell you a lot about the actual quality and content of the scene. ‘Hey, what do you know? This lesbian scene is actually a MMF threesome.’ Sites with bigger budgets sometimes even have full-motion video montages under the thumbs.”

And if you’re worried about being duped by altered thumbnails, Jackson says, “We only allow our top content creators to set custom thumbnails on their content, and these are manually verified to make sure that they accurately represent what they’ve uploaded.” 

If All Else Fails, Buy Some Content

“While a lot of good stuff is free, most performers and producers reserve their best stuff for paying customers,” Hawkins says. “People used to think that younger people wouldn’t pay for porn, but the opposite has turned out to be true: They’re actually better customers than Boomers. Perhaps it has something to do with millennials’ understanding of media — whether video games, music or porn, most media has a free and paid option, and for a little extra money, your experience can be so much better and easier. That’s one of the reasons why we launched xHamster Premium.” Jackson, too, points to Pornhub Premium, “which offers an ad-free experience to users, complete with faster playback and higher quality streaming, as well as the largest collection of exclusive full-length, HD adult titles available in a crisp 1080p resolution.” (Translation: High-res tiddys.)

And If You’re Completely Lost, Take Some Recommendations

Geoffrey, a porn superfan who says, “It’s been years since I had a truly unsatisfying evening of streaming dirty movies with the blinds closed,” was nice enough to share some recommendations for all of us who need a little direction when it comes to finding the right scene to crank it to. “It’s a bit of a loaded keyword, but I love amateur porn,” he says. “There’s a raw, real feel and excitement to the sex that you often miss with the really polished smut. My favorite stuff falls between the obviously staged reality porn scenes and the obviously homemade movies with bad camerawork, unattractive participants and 12-second runtimes. The new Instagram-style porn sites have been catching my attention lately, with content that fits the bill.”

As far as specific stars go, “You end up with a lot of favorite pornstars when you watch them perform as often as I do,” says Geoffrey. “If I’m recommending someone to a stranger, it would be one of the babes who meet the universal criteria of a pretty face, a hot body, an obvious enthusiasm for dirty sex and a real talent at doing it. Katie Kush, Brooklyn Gray and Emily Willis have been getting a lot of screen time in the porn lair lately. Abella Danger and Riley Reid have near-permanent residence in my daydreams, too.”

So, there you have it. With all of this advice, finally, I might have time to enjoy some of my other hobbies, too.

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Ian Lecklitner

Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.