[Disclaimer: While this blog post discusses Rule 34 statistics, it doesn't contain excessive coarse language, explicit imagery or embedded links to pornographic material.]

It's the tenth of the month, so you know what that means. That's right! It's time for another in-depth analysis of clop!



My previous Rule 34 blog posts are available at the following links.

August 2012 / At the rate things are going...

September 2012 / Famous Bronies

October 2012 / Digimon

November 2012 / Equestrian elections

December 2012 / Top 11 Hottest Animated Women

January 2013 / General porn statistics

February 2013 / Touhou review

March 2013 / Season three wrap up

April 2013 / Idolm@ster

May 2013 / OC woes

June 2013 / Ribald Rivalries

July 2013 / A major announcement

August 2013 / Rule 34 Origins

September 2013 / Equestria Girls Review

October 2013 / Three years of MLP:FIM

November 2013 / Season Three Episode Retrospective

December 2013 / Twilight Sparkle's Rival

Without further ado, here's the latest Rule 34 statistics!

As of January 10, 2014, here's the state of Rule 34, according to Rule34.paheal.net:

Pokemon still holds the lead with 70,808 images. 1,589 new explicit images were added during December, giving Pokemon a 2.2% increase in porn from last month. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is now in second place with 44,799 images. 2,555 new explicit images were added during December, giving My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic a 6% increase in porn from last month. Touhou is in third place with 44,324 images. 612 new explicit images were added during December, giving Touhou a 1.4% increase in porn from last month. DC Comics is in fourth place with 23,295 images. 273 new explicit images were added during December, giving DC Comics a 1.1% increase in porn from last month. Street Fighter is in fifth place with 17,518 images. 184 new explicit images were added during December, giving Street Fighter a 1% increase in porn from last month. Naruto is in sixth place with 17,066 images. 166 new explicit images were added during December, giving Naruto a 0.9% increase in porn from last month. Marvel Comics is in seventh place with 16,699 images. 189 new explicit images were added during December, giving Marvel Comics a 1.1% increase in porn from last month. Sonic Team is in eighth place with 15,066 images. 283 new explicit images were added during December, giving Sonic Team a 1.9% increase in porn from last month. Digimon is in ninth place with 11,702 images. 149 new explicit images were added during December, giving Digimon a 1.2% increase in porn from last month. Idolm@ster is in tenth place with 10,436 images. 19 new explicit images were added during December, giving Idolm@ster a 0.1% increase in porn from last month.

What a way to start off the new year! After a difficult battle, Touhou has been surpassed by My Little Pony, which is now the second largest generator of Rule 34. This lofty goal was achieved less than forty months after the premiere of Friendship is Magic! Excluding Pokemon, My Little Pony generated more explicit imagery in December than all other top ten porn producers combined!

I discussed Touhou in a previous update. It's really not that dissimilar from My Little Pony.



My Little Pony and Touhou: Two honorable series which have contended with one another as pornographic pugilists for more than three years. Both are known for having a rabid and loyal fanbase. Now, after a long, hard struggle, My Little Pony has finally toppled Touhou. In a sense, it is a hollow victory. If manga and other explicit comics were permitted on Rule34.paheal.net, then Touhou's amount of content would still surpass My Little Pony. To be fair, My Little Pony also has its share of limitations. Original characters aren't permitted on rule34.paheal.net, so popular OCs such as Milky Way aren't allowed, even though they have hundreds of explicit images. The ribald rivalry between Touhou and My Little Pony is the stuff of licentious legend. Goodnight, Touhou. You were a worthy adversary.



Now that we've gone over the monthly update for the top ten porn producers, it's time to analyze the latest data regarding Rule 34 images for the mane six.

As of January 10, 2014, here's the state of Rule 34 for the mane six, according to Rule34.paheal.net:

Twilight Sparkle has 6,744 images. 388 explicit images were added during December, giving her a 6.1% increase from last month. Rainbow Dash has 5,764 images. 308 explicit images were added during December, giving her a 5.6% increase from last month. Fluttershy has 5,060 images. 347 explicit images were added during December, giving her a 7.3% increase from last month. Pinkie Pie has 4,947 images. 261 explicit images were added during December, giving her a 5.5% increase from last month. Rarity has 4,271 images. 247 explicit images were added during December, giving her a 6.1% increase from last month. Applejack has 4,257 images. 214 explicit images were added during December, giving her a 5.2% increase from last month.

Congratulations to Fluttershy, who reached more than 5,000 images! I think the popularity of Flutterbat helped contribute to her exceptionally high monthly numbers.



Also, Rarity reclaimed her fifth place position from Applejack! She may be prim and proper, but she's no pushover.



It looks like the fight for fifth place will be one of the most contentious positions amongst the mane six. Will Rarity be able to hold on to fifth place, or will the pressure be too much for her to take?



Special thanks to Infinion, who made these amazing graphs of the data I collected. [Updated charts coming soon.]

To start off with, here's the master chart of the top ten Rule 34 producers.



This chart represents more than three years' worth of Rule 34 data. In order to more closely examine the numbers, Infinion has broken the data into more manageable semi-annual charts.

Oct. 2010 - Mar. 2011.

Apr. - Sept. 2011.

Oct. 2011 - Mar. 2012.

Apr. - Sept. 2012.

Oct. 2012 - Mar. 2013.

Apr. - Sept. 2013.

Which brings us to Jan. 2014.



To get an idea of how far My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has come since its premiere, here's a chart highlighting the monthly numerical and percentage increase of MLP porn.



For those who desire a more consolidated look at the raw data, here's the numbers for the top ten porn producers, as well as their monthly increase.

Now let's take a look at the Rule 34 stats for the mane six. Here's their master chart.



In order to discover what these numbers mean, we'll need to delve deeper. In order to do that, we'll break down the data into semi-annual chunks.

Oct. 2010 - Mar. 2011.

Apr. - Sept. 2011.

Oct. 2011 - Mar. 2012.

Apr. - Sept. 2012.

Oct. 2012 - Mar. 2013.

Apr. - Sept. 2013.

Which brings us to Jan. 2014.



For those who desire a more consolidated look at the raw data, here's the numbers for the mane six, as well as their monthly increase.

In honor of My Little Pony's recent victory over Touhou, here's a chart which catalogs both of their monthly increases.



My Little Pony is now the second largest generator of explicit imagery on Rule34.paheal.net, with 99.8% of MLP porn being made within the last forty months. Twilight Sparkle is on the cusp of having more porn made of her than any other individual character. Only Chun-Li stands in the way of Twilight Sparkle being crowned the undisputed Princess of Porn.



I wonder what Lauren Faust and Tara Strong would think of all this?



This raises the question, why so much porn? What is it about My Little Pony that so many people find sexually appealing?



This simple sketch by Lauren Faust paved the way for thousands of explicit Twilight Sparkle images.

Seriously, why do people draw so much pony porn? They're not even human!



What compels so many people to draw Twilight Sparkle and her friends in such an explicit manner? The answers may be rooted in evolution.



Regardless of how outwardly civilized modern humans are, there are still primal urges within men and women which have been passed down through countless generations of evolution.

(As a disclaimer, this discussion focuses on why human males are attracted to certain physical attributes of women for the purposes of reproduction. There are many other factors which contribute to a couple falling in love. It should be noted that humans aren't driven solely by evolutionary conditioning. Free will also plays a large role.)

With all that being said, let's discuss the subtext behind beauty. Many of the ideal physical traits in human women are also found within the mares of My Little Pony.



Let's start with the head and work our way down. A woman's hair plays a prominent role in her attractiveness to the opposite sex. The quality and length of hair serves as a marker of genetic strength and overall health. This is clearly evident in My Little Pony, in which long, brushable manes are one of major selling-points for the toys. It's true that some men prefer women with shorter hair, but when discussing these physical attributes of beauty, the focus is on subconscious signals engrained on primal urges as opposed to personal preference.



Eyes are often referred to as "windows to the soul," but primitive man had more pragmatic reasons for staring into the eyes of a potential mate. Before spoken language came to be, one of the only means of communication was through body language and interpreting facial expressions. There's a reason why men are attracted to women with big, open eyes and long, full lashes. Those with beady eyes or dodgy glances are often seen as untrustworthy. For the purposes of reproduction, it's important to believe that a potential mate is honest and reliable. This is another area where My Little Pony shines, since it's known for having characters with eyes which are disproportionally large for their faces.



What about the hips? An article published in the British Journal of Psychology in 2001 found that the smaller width of the waist compared to the larger width of the hips is believed to correspond to the optimal fat distribution for high fertility, which is why primitive man would find this shape highly attractive. In addition, a wide pelvis was considered essential for successfully delivering babies during childbirth. This is another area where My Little Pony taps into the primitive male brain, since their full flanks facilitate fertile fantasies. AKA "I watch it for the plot."



The last one has to do with sexual experience and age. There's an obsession with virgins throughout the world. The concept of virginity plays an important role in all cultures and can be traced back to the dawn of humanity. Men are naturally drawn to monogamous relationships with virgins. A woman's unbroken hymen is seen as a symbol of purity and health. Deflowering a virgin gave primitive man a sense of pride to know that she would be his exclusive mate for life. In addition to "planting his seed in untouched soil," primitive man preferred younger women because they were generally more healthy than older women and able to bear more children in order to better propagate the species. So how do Twilight Sparkle and her friends measure up in terms of youth and virginity? The mane six are all thought to be in their late-teens or early twenties, based on human years. They all have careers and most are living on their own. Aside from a couple of wistful daydreams from Rarity, romance hasn't played a role for any of the mane six. None of them have been in a serious romantic relationship within the canon of the series, so the virginal factor can't be ignored.



Long, healthy hair? Check.

Large, expressive eyes? Check.

Wide, child-bearing hips? Check.

Young, virginal and fertile? Check.

The only physical ideal missing from My Little Pony are the breasts. Aside from Rainbow Dash's "parasprite bikini," My Little Pony doesn't leave much to the imagination where mammaries are concerned.



From an evolutionary perspective, there were many reasons for primal man to seek out a mate with huge... tracts of land. Large breasts contain a healthy supply of fat storage, which increases the female's chance of survival in times of cold or famine. Now that modern intercourse often occurs "face-to-face," the cleavage fulfills a mating function similar to the rump, which primal man saw before mounting a female from behind in the ancestral way. Whether butt cheeks or boobies, two well-shaped mounds awaken a primal plea to procreate within modern man. Makes you wonder what else in this world has sexual subtext...



In an effort to add the missing mammaries to pony porn, Rule 34 producers began to give ponies enlarged crotchboobs.



Placing the breasts directly above the crotch allowed the mammaries to more directly mirror a plump rump in a way that human breasts never could. While the size and shape of the crotchboobs more closely resembles the breasts of female humans as opposed to horses, they were at least more anatomically-correct to equine anatomy than the chest cleavage featured in My Little Pony Tales.



It should also be noted that mares have an advantage over human females in terms of provocative posture. Walking on all fours puts the pony in a perpetual position of bending over. This posture sends subliminal signals to the male brain indicating that this female wants to mate by presenting her rump to the male.



The human male has come a long way in terms of courtship and showing proper esteem for womanhood, but in many respects man is still not far removed from his primal ancestors. Old habits die hard, so don't expect to lose the desire to select a mate based on physical attributes anytime soon. Life is a challenge to keep our urges in check.



Physical appearance is strong, but it's not the dominant factor. Even if ponies showcase nearly every desirable physical attribute for the primitive male, their pleasing appearance pales in comparison to the appeal of their personality. Bronies have grown to love these characters because each of them have their own unique set of talents, goals and personality traits. The stories revolve around their friendship and the challenges they face.



From a porn perspective, this creates a stronger bond with the characters. Porn of the mane six would be nowhere near as alluring if they were just a bunch of pretty faces in sexually explicit scenarios with no real personalities.

On a related note, actor Matt Damon knows a thing or two about what makes for good action films and good porn. Damon believes cheesy porn films and action movies are predictable and badly written. He's expressed a desire to create an adult movie where the narrative is as important as the graphic sex scenes. Damon said, "My theory on action movies is that they're like porn movies. A porn movie has got really bad writing, really bad acting and really thinly drawn characters. "They have a really shitty scene where they talk and say, 'Hey, I'm the milkman' And you know what is going to happen. "And then you get the action and you don't really feel anything for the action and then you get another really stupid scene with, 'Hey, I'm the milkman'. "What I want to do is make a character-driven porn movie. It's all going to be about the character and the porn's going to grow out of the characters and serve as character development."

This is what helps to give porn of My Little Pony more depth. The different episodes of Friendship is Magic act as a catalyst for new porn and new clopfics. The well-rounded and complex characters from the show can be inserted into any explicit scenario. Now, not all porn is created equal. Some pony porn is just slapped together and some clopfics are decidedly derivative, but these are the exceptions which confirm the rule. The majority of My Little Pony erotica can rival any other fandom in terms of quantity and quality.

Now that we've discussed the history of physical beauty and character-driven porn, let's look at how the role of female characters in fiction has changed over the years.

In the mid-1980's, Alison Bechdel created a comic strip entitled Dykes to Watch Out For, which ran in gay and lesbian newspapers for more than twenty years and was also eventually published online. In spite of its relative obscurity even today, Dykes to Watch Out For has left an indelible impression on the way we view works of fiction. This is due to the Bechdel Test. Named after the creator of Dykes to Watch Out For, the Bechdel Test is used to measure the gender bias in any given work of fiction. This is achieved by determining whether or not the work in question features two or more named female character who talk to each other about something other than a man.

/bech·del test/ n.

1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man

Note how the movie posters in the comic are filled with phallic imagery. (A gun and sword.)

Renowned feminist essayist Katha Pollitt would later devise her own theory on gender bias in creative fiction when she presented "The Smurfette Principle."



Pollitt espoused the theory that male characters dominate, with only a token female character to round out the cast. While I appreciate the insight of the Smurfette Principle, we can't forget the Sassette Principle.



The existence of Sassette doesn't repudiate Pollitt's premise. Gender inequality in fiction is as prevalent today as it ever was. Films with a predominately male cast are considered "gender neutral," while movies with a mostly female cast are seen as "chick flicks." The prevailing belief system in Hollywood seems to be that men can only identify with other men. It's not uncommon for a woman in movies to either be treated like a prize for a man, or their sole purpose is the pursuit of a man.

Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings and the Avengers are all huge sausage fests which all fail the Bechdel test pretty hard, yet they are still considered some of the most successful franchises of all time.

The gate of history turns on small hinges and so does pop culture. In many ways, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is at the forefront of this new chapter in societal evolution and passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors.



Those who fear change will be rebuked for disparaging human progress.

The Bechdel Test has been in the news recently. Voctiv.com analyzed the top fifty biggest box office movies of 2013 to determine how many of them passed the Bechdel Test. The grand total domestic box office number for the movies that passed was significantly higher than the domestic box office total for the movies that didn’t.



What this means is that more female characters, even the secondary ones, are shown to have thoughts and feelings that revolve around something other than male characters. This results in more layered and nuanced female characters, which comes as a result of better writing and leads to more financially-successful movies.

Peter Jackson should be owed some measure of credit. The Hobbit movies may have failed the Bechdel test, but at least Jackson went out of his way to add the she-elf Tauriel; an entirely made-up female character who never appeared in the books.

Hopefully Hollywood takes this lesson to heart. Interesting and well-rounded female characters in a movie isn't just good for social or artistic reasons. It also results in a bigger domestic box office. Though much like primal man, old habits are hard to break. We still have a long way to go before well-developed female characters are considered the norm, as opposed to an anomaly. The gate may have small hinges, but at least it seems to be swinging in the right direction.

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2014 is the year of the horse.



As miniature equine aficionados, this is also our year. Hasbro even released a special promotional Pinkie Pie to tie-in with the Chinese New Year.



Let's resolve to be more open about our love for My Little Pony and its characters. Watch the show openly and discuss it with friends! Read the MLP comics! Show support for the series in whatever way you can! If we work together, we can make 2014 the year of My Little Pony!



Thanks again for reading and please feel free to leave any comments. Look for the next Rule34 update on February 10th.