Porn in the USA: Conservatives are Biggest Consumers

When I happened across this story on New Scientist it reminded me of my teenage years - among my friends who had the biggest problems with consuming too much alcohol, they always seemed to be the ones from families where drinking was forbidden. A case of the forbidden fruit being always more attractive than what is allowed in moderation. It seems that the same applies as well to online pornography. The states that are the most religiously and politically conservative are the ones where there is the highest per capita consumption on line porn (Utah, home of the Mormons has the highest per capita consumption). It parallels the fact that evangelicals talk the most about applying the Bible literally, yet they have the highest divorce rate of any religious denomination. Why does the word HYPOCRITE spring to mind? I'm not trying to be mean, but give me a break. Publicly these folks obsess about sex being bad, but apparently in private cannot get enough of it. Here are are some story highlights:

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Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds. "Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.

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The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says. Number 10 on the list was West Virginia at 2.94 subscriptions per 1000, while number 41, Michigan, averaged 2.32.

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Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don't explicitly restrict gay marriage. . . . States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage," bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behaviour."

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Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

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"One natural hypothesis is something like repression: if you're told you can't have this, then you want it more," Edelman says.