STUDIES INDICATE CONSERVATIVES ARE BIGGEST CONSUMERS OF PORN

A report posted on www.newsscientist.com says that though Americans as a whole see themselves as being a society of high moral stature, the country continues to be one of the leading consumer groups of Internet pornography.

The report also proved that the consumption of web porn was prevalent in all parts of the country. A recent study that looked into anonymous credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider showed that there was little variation in consumption between states.

“When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different,” says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.

One trend that seemed to surprise those conducting this study is that states that consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption.

“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.

As per the study, the state that consumed that most online porn was Utah, as the state averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000.

Number 10 on the list was West Virginia at 2.94 subscriptions per 1000, while number 41, Michigan, averaged 2.32.

The report points out that eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii being the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favored Barack Obama.

Other trends discovered from this research include that church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays, and that 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 1000 people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.”

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