INNOCENT search words (mature’s not one)


Back in late spring this year we were preparing a conference workshop on the subject of pornography and a changing society. Looking for some ideas to kick off the session, we thought about the well-worn angle of innocent search words on the Internet. So, for a few minutes we played a little game. It’s not an original idea; indeed, if you key ‘what search terms return porn words’ into your browser, you’ll see others have already gone there. However, actually playing the game proved quite heartening.

It appears that while at one time ‘eat’, ‘sunny’, ‘small’, ‘big’ and ‘nuns’ might have brought hardcore sex pictures and links to your screen, these searches actually returned very little that was erotic, let alone pornographic. There is a difference between image and web word searches, but not of the order that ‘net nanny’ world would have you believe.

There are search terms you might be surprised by, though. PRUK wouldn’t advise you to search, for example, the term ‘mature’ on the web and certainly not in images mode unless you have safe search turned on ‘all the way’, otherwise you’ll be looking at ‘Mature Moms’, ‘Milf Housewives’, ‘Granny sex’ and way more …

Finding porn on the Internet is not difficult, but it might be just a little more difficult than some people would have you believe. Here at PRUK we know that innocent people come across porn on their home PC not so much because of innocent searches they undertake but because someone in the family has used the computer and left a download or unlocked file that could provide an unpleasant experience if discovered by someone else when and were they least expected it.

Click to read our tips for porn recovery