Calling All College Students: PornHub Wants to Give You $25,000 for Sex Research

One of the biggest hurdles to clear when trying to do any sort of research is coming up with the funding. There aren’t a lot of options out there — most come in the form of research grants. The good news is that the search for funding has just gotten slightly easier for those doing research into human sexuality. A new $25,000 PornHub grant was just announced for college students.

The new grant is part of PornHub’s Sexual Wellness Center initiative. The Sexual Wellness Center is a part of the PornHub site devoted to information about sexual health. The site has weekly Q&As with clinical psychologist Dr. Laurie Betito, plus information about STIs and more.

The PornHub grant is intended to “help advance important work in the field, be it technological, medical, or sociologically rooted–so long as its end goal is to bring new information into the world that can help people lead happier and healthier sex lives,” according to a PornHub press release.

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Applications must be received by May 1, 2018. There doesn’t appear to be any catch — the only requirement seems to be that PornHub grant recipients will have to share their research on the Sexual Wellness Center site.

While PornHub has done a number of good-natured PR stunts — like free premium on Valentine’s Day, plowing people’s driveways or hosting a stream of Hamilton — there is controversy surrounding their motives. One company, MindGeek (formerly Manwin), owns not only PornHub but most of the Porn Tube sites. Not only that, but much of the content on these tube sites is pirated.

Chauntelle Tibbals, a sociologist and author, isn’t buying PornHub’s attempts to improve its image. Calling it “one of the most egregious piracy-based tube sites,” she claims stunts like this are just an attempt to get people to forget about PornHub’s failings.

“It’s all stunt PR,” she says. “It’s all a trick to distract us. No, I don’t believe they’re destigmatizing anything. I think they’re destigmatizing themselves. We’re falling for it.”

 

What do you think about the PornHub grant? Let us know in the comments!

Featured image by PeopleImages via iStock