Valentine’s is meant to be about real-life romance, and it turns out for many Maltese it really is. Research shows we are less likely to watch pornography on the night.

Popular porn website Pornhub told The Sunday Times of Malta that on the evening of February 14 last year between 6pm and midnight – normally the busiest time for the website – traffic from the island dropped by 10 per cent.

It’s not surprising: that’s the time when Maltese couples flood restaurants and other places for a romantic date.

According to the website, the Maltese did not shy away from enjoying pornography on other nights, however, with an average of 30,000 local visitors every day. A breakdown of local traffic shows that Pornhub logged more than 12 million visits from Malta in 2016 alone.

This newspaper first pulled the sheets back from Malta’s porn habits back in 2014 with a detailed report on visits to the website following a request for information from its research and statistics arm.

And, while the Maltese are no strangers to online pornography, it turns out romance is not the only thing to keep us away from explicit content.

According to the website, porn consumption also has some serious competition from the Eurovision, with last May’s edition of the singing competition having caused a 15 per cent drop in local traffic.

Romance is not the only thing to keep us away from explicit content

“The finals broadcast at 8pm translated into a significant drop between 7pm and 11pm. It goes to show how proud the country was that a compatriot had reached the finals,” Pornhub said.

Football was another ‘distraction’ from porn. In 2016, Malta was the country with the third largest drop in traffic during the UEFA Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, with traffic dropping by 15 per cent on the day. The largest drop was recorded in Spain – the country of origin of both finalists.

Like most countries, Maltese web users were interested in local content, with the terms ‘Malta’ and ‘Maltese’ among the most popular porn search terms. This trend is shared by most countries researched by Pornhub.

So what were the Maltese doing on the website? According to the research, Maltese consumers spent an average of approximately eight minutes on the site, sifting through around seven pages per visit, which was described as “pretty average” by the website administrators.

“It’s interesting how much porn consumers have in common around the world,” they said. Most searches were logged during warm summer nights, with June registering the most hits.

Chilly February, on the other hand, is the least popular month – not only because of Valentine’s Day.

Monday blues could be the reason that locals tend to flock to the site at the beginning of the week and are least likely to do so on Sundays.

Late-night visits, meanwhile, were the most popular, with the majority logging in between 10pm and midnight.

It wasn’t only men who were logging on: around one-third of local visits were made by women, which is seven per cent higher than the global average.

Valentine’s Day around the world

Valentine’s Day may be synonymous with chocolates, roses and dinner dates for most Maltese, but this is not the case all over the world.

In the Philippines, mass weddings are held on Valentine’s Day, with hundreds of couples lining up to tie the knot.

Meanwhile, the special day is banned in Saudi Arabia, where public displays of affection are considered taboo and punishable by law. There is even a black market for roses.

In Japan, it’s common to give one’s boss a Valentine’s gift. Japan also has a tradition called giri choco, in which women buy chocolate for male co-workers. In fact, men are more likely to receive a gift on Valentine’s Day in Japan than women.

In South Korea, the day can be a ‘black day’, where those who haven’t found a Valentine can mourn the fact that they are still unlucky in love.

In Germany, pigs are a regular feature on Valentine’s cards, while in Brazil, it is traditional for single ladies to gamble on love by writing the names of people they are attracted to and drawing a name from a hat.

Fancy some new cutlery? Well in Wales, love spoons are traditionally given to the one you desire.

Mini baby boom

According to the Directorate of Health Information and Research Malta, many couples have Valentine’s babies.

While an average of 85 births are registered weekly, 96 were registered in the week nine months after Valentine’s Day.