DAMU members have long been suspecting that residents in the state of Utah were among the top consumers of pornography. There remained considerable uncertainty, however, because the only available data were Google trends. Now, Benjamin Edelman from Harvard University has confirmed conjecture with credit card data of pornography consumers.
After controlling for differences in broadband internet access between states – online porn tends to be a bandwidth hog – and adjusting for population, [Edelman] found a relatively small difference between states with the most adult purchases and those with the fewest.
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.
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.
. . .
Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.
It seems that my cousin was right all along: a little less denial would work wonders with respect to sexual morality.
I don’t know, subscriptions?! Maybe they just don’t know where to get free porn. 😉
So true. In a sense, one might think these statistics are ironic, but really, they’re not.
More than anything, I think it’s a sad statistic.
Squeezing the balloon in one place makes it blow up elsewhere. From Edelman’s analysis, though, we don’t know how big the total balloon (rental + cable/satellite + periodical + live) is in Utah compared to elsewhere.
I suspect online is preferred because it’s easier to “hide.” Morality should always be considered in the context of propriety.
However, this does explain why Mormon church leaders are so obsessed with the subject. Though this obsession has also made porn the current “sin of choice,” the confession of which absolves all others.
True, and as I discussed in advice from the armchair marriage counselor, this can often be counterproductive. If the “sin of choice” is the default first-choice explanation for any relationship problem, it can potentially deflect attention away from solving the real problem in cases where the root problem is actually something else.
The deflection hypothesis is interesting, Chanson. I wonder if Mormon marriage dynamics suffer from the same flaw as religious freedom problems:
Eternal marriage is the best. Actually, it’s perfect. Therefore when eternal marriage frays, somebody must have sinned. Suspect number one would be the sex obsessed husband.
So we’ve now correlated conservative to divorce, teen marriage, and pornography. And they think that its secularism that’s a threat to family values??
That’s right, Christian. If you are concerned about the end of western civilization, you don’t need liberals to tear it down.
The efforts of FOX tv are sufficient.