Nationwide Study - Republicans like their porn - Utah largest consumer
John Manning
Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers
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."
Ewen Callaway
New Scientist, February 27, 2009
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16680-porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-are-biggest-consumers.html
Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red and
blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across the
nation: the liking for online pornography.
A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a
major online adult entertainment provider finds 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.
However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. 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.
Political divide
Edelman spends part of his time helping companies such as Microsoft and
AOL detect advertising fraud. Another consulting client runs dozens of
adult websites, though he says he is not at liberty to identify the firm.
That company did, however, provide Edelman with roughly two years of
credit card data from 2006 to 2008 that included a purchase date and
each customer's postal code.
After controlling for differences in broadband internet access between
states – online porn tends to be a bandwidth hog – and adjusting for
population, he 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.
Old-fashioned values
Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a
postal code's religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in
subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week
brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.
Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted
11% more porn subscribers than states that don't explicitly restrict gay
marriage.
To get a better handle on other associations between social attitudes
and pornography consumption, Edelman melded his data with a previous
study on public attitudes toward religion.
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."
"One natural hypothesis is something like repression: if you're told you
can't have this, then you want it more," Edelman says.
Journal reference: Journal of Economic Perspectives vol 23, p 209 (pdf)
All links:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16680-porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-are-biggest-consumers.html
Nation-wide study here:
http://people.hbs.edu/bedelman/papers/redlightstates.pdf
ATP*
"John Manning" <jrob...@terra.com.br> wrote in message
> 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.
>
hard to draw conclusions as to the party affiliation of those consumers.
John Manning
You can read the nation-wide study and see how, and on what, they based
their conclusions - here:
http://people.hbs.edu/bedelman/papers/redlightstates.pdf
ATP*
the first one that comes to my mind is that Utah might not be a very
friendly place for adult stores or adult-oriented entertainment and the
online services function as a substitute.
John Manning
Indeed. Plus, as the article indicates: "One natural hypothesis is
•R. L. Measures
<waxwin...@azurepane.com> wrote:
> "John Manning" <jrob...@terra.com.br> wrote in message
> news:BKadnV97N6ZiEjfU...@giganews.com...
> > ATP* wrote:
> >> "John Manning" <jrob...@terra.com.br> wrote in message
> >>> 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.
> >>>
> >> That's only a little more than half a percent of the whole state, so it's
> >> hard to draw conclusions as to the party affiliation of those consumers.
> >
> >
> >
> > You can read the nation-wide study and see how, and on what, they based
> > their conclusions - here:
> > http://people.hbs.edu/bedelman/papers/redlightstates.pdf
> >
> Interesting paper, but there could be several reasons for the correlation,
> the first one that comes to my mind is that Utah might not be a very
> friendly place for adult stores or adult-oriented entertainment and the
> online services function as a substitute.
** It is also probably necessary that LdS Stake Presidents and Bishops be
kept well Abreast [sic] of the latest porn so that they can informedly
speak against it during the mandatory 3-hr Sunday church service.
--
R.L. Measures. 805-386-3734, www.somis.org