xHamster is a pornographic video sharing and streaming website based in Limassol, Cyprus. It was founded by Oleg Netepenko and Dmitri Gusev in 2005. xHamster serves user-submitted pornographic videos, webcam models, pornographic photographs, and erotic literature, and incorporates social networking features. , it is the 29th most-visited website in the world, and the second-most-visited adult website, after Pornhub.
The site produced The Sex Factor, a reality TV series in which contestants compete to become porn stars and OnlyFans stars. The site has been targeted as part of malvertising campaigns, and some governments have blocked xHamster as part of larger initiatives against Internet pornography.
History
In August 2007, Russian citizens Oleg Netepenko and Dmitri Gussew launched xHamster. xHamster was envisioned as a social network; a spokesperson said the site's content organization scheme was intended to "allow people who wanted to chat, exchange erotic pics and share amateur videos ... to find mutual friends online and maybe discover partners interested in intimate relationships". In 2015, xHamster became the third most popular pornographic website, after XVideos and Pornhub. In May 2016, xHamster launched The Sex Factor, a reality series competition where contestants compete to become a porn star.
xHamster has restricted access to its site and removed content in response to political issues concerning the LGBTQ community and rape culture. The site blocked users with IP addresses based in North Carolina during April 2016, after the state enacted a law that stopped its counties and cities from passing laws to protect LGBTQ people. In response to the verdict of the People v. Turner sexual assault case, xHamster instituted a "Brock Turner rule", which banned videos involving rape, including those involving sex with an unconscious partner or hypnosis. In the aftermath of the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak, xHamster offered Debbie Wasserman Schultz a $50,000 role in a pornographic film with a Bernie Sanders lookalike.
In August 2018, xHamster sent a letter to the creators of the television series Sense8, Lilly and Lana Wachowski, requesting to host the third season of Sense8, after the show was dropped from Netflix.
In August 2018, xHamster launched a $25,000 xHamster for Women Fund to expand the content in the "Porn for Women" category of the site. According to xHamster vice president Alex Hawkins, the goal of the fund is to increase the availability of porn that women viewers want to watch as well as to address the discrepancy between the site's visitors, 25% of whom identify as women, and the 95% of site content aimed at a male audience. Submissions were judged by "a rotating team of women-identified judges, made up of fans, porn stars, journalists and xHamster employees". Starting 1 September, amateur and professional women-identifying filmmakers could apply for grants in the range of $500 to $10,000. The films will be made available for free and without interest claims from xHamster.
In September 2018, the website released an interactive online guide map, titled "Legendary Porn Theaters of NYC", marking the most famous porn locations in 1970s New York City.
Website xHamster provides various pornographic videos, photos, fuclone and erotic stories grouped under categories catering to specific fetishes or sexual preferences. In addition to prerecorded videos, users can view live streams of paid models; the model can interact with several users by means of an online chat service. Models can also activate a "Tip" button, which allows users to provide the models additional money. Since 2017, xHamster has used an artificial intelligence model that scans material on its website to target individual user preferences. In reaction to growing demand for tech-related content, xHamster created a virtual reality platform to explore opportunities for VR techniques in the porn industry.
xHamster also contains several social networking features, including user profiles, a commenting and rating system, and the ability to interact by adding others as "friends" or subscribing to another's content. A user can verify their identity by submitting a photo of themselves with their username, which confers a stamp on their profile.
In August 2020, xHamster came under criticism for the deepfake pornography videos the site hosts. When asked about xHamster's policy on deepfake videos, Alex Hawkins reported that while the company lacks a specific policy regarding deepfakes, it would remove such videos when it became aware of them, as they are a violation of the site's terms of use.
HTTPS In January 2017, xHamster became one of the first major adult sites to incorporate HTTPS encryption. HTTPS allows for privacy, malware protection, and the integrity of information exchange. Alex Hawkins said that one of the reasons for HTTPS was because xHamster receives millions of visitors from countries where pornography is illegal.
Security In April 2013, Conrad Longmore, a cyber security researcher, found that xHamster and PornHub were attacked with malvertisements. In September 2015, xHamster was hit with another malvertising attack along with YouPorn and PornHub. TrafficHaus reported that it might be the result of a breach. On 28 November 2016, it was revealed that the usernames, email addresses and passwords of 380,000 users were stolen.
In an effort to maintain user anonymity, xHamster stated in a Men's Health interview that they limit third-party access to user information when sending viewer data to marketing and analytics groups. While these security measures do not necessarily eliminate the possibility of linking a "browser fingerprint" and IP address to a user's personal identity, xHamster claims that it does not actively identify individuals unless one decides to "opt in to providing more personal, identifiable info".
In 2025, xHamster agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas by paying a $120,000 penalty over noncompliance with the state’s age verification law.
Sex education In response to lawmakers in the US state of Utah rejecting a sexual education bill in February 2017, xHamster started presenting a popup to visitors from Utah, offering them to view xHamster's sexual education series "The Box". The rejected House Bill 215 would have allowed parents to opt their children in for more comprehensive sexual education than the abstinence-only sex education common in Utah, but was opposed for encouraging sexual behaviour and allowing children to be taught how to have sex. The bill's sponsor criticized the trend of leaving sexual education to pornographic websites such as xHamster and Pornhub.
In April 2017, in response to US President Donald Trump's decision to allow states to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood, xHamster stated that they would be posting to their site information on Planned Parenthood with a popup encouraging donations to the organization. The post states, "Porn stars and amateurs alike depend on increased reproductive rights, access to birth control and low-cost STI screenings, and non-judgmental sexual health education".
Product history In November 2016, the company released its own beer, xHamster beer. The beer is an 8.5% ABV Belgian Triple-style ale. Costing €3.90 for 0.55 liters, it sold out within five days.
In May 2017, xHamster partnered with Dutch inventor Moos Neimeijer to create Minimeyes, a motion sensor Bluetooth device that uses infrared to monitor the room and signals the computer to shut all windows and sound when an intrusion is detected.
In June 2017, xHamster released a sex doll named xHamsterina in collaboration with the manufacturer iDoll.
Since October 2017, xHamster has launched a product campaign that addresses "owners of apocalypse bunkers". Against receipt, owners receive some of the company's products and videos for free.
Censorship xHamster has been blocked by various governments. In August 2015, the government of India ordered Internet service providers to block several sites, including xHamster, under the IT Act. In Russia, a local court in the Republic of Tatarstan ruled in favour of a block on xHamster and other pornographic websites in April 2014; the ruling was passed on a year later to Roskomnadzor, the state media overseer.
Legislation to restrict pornographic sites includes efforts targeted at reducing human trafficking which may mandate electronic manufacturers to install content filters to restrict "obscene" material. Nevertheless, organizations in support of free speech have been speaking out against the efforts to include porn sites such as xHamster which noted 125 million clicks from Thailand and 95 million clicks from users in Turkey, where the site is banned.
Other attempts at censorship have their origins in violating net neutrality, whereby governments may restrict bandwidth to various Internet categories. xHamster's Alex Hawkins stated, "As an international company, we see every day how restrictive governments use regulatory tools, like traffic throttling, to limit access to not only porn but political speech".
In September 2018, the Nepali government announced a ban on pornographic websites in response to public outcry regarding the rape and murder of a young Nepali girl. A few weeks later, xHamster released a graph that showed that after a slight dip in usage, traffic to its site from Nepal resurged to previous levels. India blocked xHamster again in late 2018. News discussions of India's porn ban cited both xHamster's data on Nepal as well as the site's data on traffic from China following that country's 2018 porn ban, which resulted in an 81% decline in visitors from China to the xHamster site.
As a step to promote "healthy relationship, sex, and consent", the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) announced in January 2019 that it would require websites hosting pornography such as xHamster to implement "rigorous" third-party age-verification prior to web entry. This legal measure was designed to restrict access to internet pornography only to viewers of legal age, which is 18 in the UK. An alternative to directly verifying one's age is the option of purchasing a "porn pass" from a designated UK retailer, allowing viewers over the age of 18 to confirm their age anonymously.
In addition to criticizing the technical issues and privacy threats of the UK rule, porn providers, producers, actors, and civil rights advocates claim that underage porn viewership stems from broader societal issues left unresolved by the new law. Likely associated with the planned enactment date of the UK rule, 15 July 2019, xHamster viewership rose sharply in the UK in the preceding months.
After the third delay for the planned UK age-verification regulations, UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright announced in late June 2019 that, besides the delay, he was wary about how the enactment and enforcement of national age-verification rules would vary greatly from nation to nation, much "like pre-EU Europe".
In January 2020, State Representative Brady Brammer of the US state of Utah sponsored a bill that would require a "warning label" on "adult content" in an effort to inform potential viewers of supposed dangers associated with porn consumption on youth. Salt Lake City's FOX 13 reported that the "warning label" concept was "modeled after California's toxic product warning labels". xHamster "trolled" the Utah State Legislature by adding a label visible to all Utah viewers, stating, "Warning: porn use may lead to decreased stress, increased happiness, and lower rates of teen pregnancy, divorce, and sexual assault. However, it's only for adults". On 18 February 2020, the Utah State Legislature passed the proposal into law.