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.
So I guess that if I was a citizen of the U.S I would certainly be a republican...
Αξιζει φιλε να πεθανεις για ενα ονειρο, κι ας ειναι η φωτια του να σε καψει.
Anyway, what are people in Florida and Hawaii doing? It's warm out all the time, with a presumably lessening affect on clothing... just head to the beach or something!
It's warm out all the time, with a presumably lessening affect on clothing... just head to the beach or something!
I think theres a combined action with the watching of porn that is generally frowned upon out in public places...
In remembrance of our great Admin Tosa Inu, A tireless worker with the patience of a saint. As long as I live I will not forget you. Thank you for everything!
Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don't explicitly restrict gay marriage.
Interesting. I wonder how this dovetails with the study at University of Georgia that showed men who were aroused by gay images were more likely to be violently homophobic ...
In 1996, a controlled study of 64 heterosexual men (half claimed to be homophobic by experience and self-reported orientation) at the University of Georgia found that men who were found to be homophobic (as measured by the Index of Homophobia) were considerably more likely to experience more erectile responses when exposed to homoerotic images than non-homophobic men.
Interesting. I wonder how this dovetails with the study at University of Georgia that showed men who were aroused by gay images were more likely to be violently homophobic ...
For those who are interested, here's U. of G's press release on the study. Unfortunately, the full paper is not available online, or at least I haven't been able to lay mouse on it ...
Psychoanalytic theory holds that homophobia -- the fear, anxiety, anger, discomfort and aversion that some ostensibly heterosexual people hold for gay individuals -- is the result of repressed homosexual urges that the person is either unaware of or denies. A study appearing in the August 1996 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), provides new empirical evidence that is consistent with that theory.
Researchers at the University of Georgia conducted an experiment involving 35 homophobic men and 29 nonhomophobic men as measured by the Index of Homophobia scale. All the participants selected for the study described themselves as exclusively heterosexual both in terms of sexual arousal and experience.
Each participant was exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual and lesbian videotapes (but not necessarily in that order). Their degree of sexual arousal was measured by penile plethysmography, which precisely measures and records male tumescence.
Men in both groups were aroused by about the same degree by the video depicting heterosexual sexual behavior and by the video showing two women engaged in sexual behavior. The only significant difference in degree of arousal between the two groups occurred when they viewed the video depicting male homosexual sex: 'The homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference to the male homosexual video, but the control [nonhomophobic] men did not.'
Broken down further, the measurements showed that while 66% of the nonhomophobic group showed no significant tumescence while watching the male homosexual video, only 20% of the homophobic men showed little or no evidence of arousal. Similarly, while 24% of the nonhomophobic men showed definite tumescence while watching the homosexual video, 54% of the homophobic men did.
When asked to give their own subjective assessment of the degree to which they were aroused by watching each of the three videos, men in both groups gave answers that tracked fairly closely with the results of the objective physiological measurement, with one exception: the homophobic men significantly underestimated their degree of arousal by the male homosexual video.
Do these findings mean, then, that homophobia in men is a reaction to repressed homosexual urges, as psychoanalysis theorizes? While their findings are consistent with that theory, the authors note that there is another, competing theoretical explanation: anxiety. According to this theory, viewing the male homosexual videotape may have caused negative emotions (such as anxiety) in the homophobic men, but not in the nonhomophobic men. As the authors note, 'anxiety has been shown to enhance arousal and erection,' and so it is also possible that 'a response to homosexual stimuli [in these men] is a function of the threat condition rather than sexual arousal per se. These competing notions can and should be evaluated by future research.'
Article: 'Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal?' by Henry E. Adams, Ph.D., Lester W. Wright, Jr., Ph.D. and Bethany A. Lohr, University of Georgia, in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 105, No. 3, pp 440-445.
That's not the point. The point is that american conservatives like to bath in family values and a strong sexual morality.
And yet you find them watching the most porn. Strange init?
That's not the point. The point is that american conservatives like to bath in family values and a strong sexual morality.
And yet you find them watching the most porn. Strange init?
That's not the point. The point is that american conservatives like to bath in family values and a strong sexual morality.
And yet you find them watching the most porn. Strange init?
Hello Larry Craig.
It's far from just being american conservatives. there are probably more liberal womens rights groups who are against porn than conservatives (the actresses are always victims, ya know). I would go deeper into my anti-porn conspiracy theory, but i'm too drunk right nows so no
Baby Quit Your Cryin' Put Your Clown Britches On!!!
Having read the actual study ( http://people.hbs.edu/bedelman/paper...ightstates.pdf ) it seems to me the author is pushing an agenda. It became pretty obvious when he began correlating porn buying with hypothetical religious statements.
Also, he concluded the highest rate occurs in urban areas.
Now, it's important to note that states are not homogeneous. You can have areas of Republicans in blue states and Democrats in red states. The author assumes that states are homogeneous. I also couldn't find the raw data, before he 'corrected' for several variables, that could show certain states with a much higher gross amount of porn buyers. As it happens, in the US, urban voters are more likely to be democrats.
So the porn-buyers the author is using to impugn red states are likely the urban democrats in that state.
CR
Ja Mata, Tosa.
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter – all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement! - William Pitt the Elder
Having read the actual study ( http://people.hbs.edu/bedelman/paper...ightstates.pdf ) it seems to me the author is pushing an agenda. It became pretty obvious when he began correlating porn buying with hypothetical religious statements.
Also, he concluded the highest rate occurs in urban areas.
Now, it's important to note that states are not homogeneous. You can have areas of Republicans in blue states and Democrats in red states. The author assumes that states are homogeneous. I also couldn't find the raw data, before he 'corrected' for several variables, that could show certain states with a much higher gross amount of porn buyers. As it happens, in the US, urban voters are more likely to be democrats.
So the porn-buyers the author is using to impugn red states are likely the urban democrats in that state.
I don't masturbate to porn anymore; I whack the bishop while reading comments from jealous American hating foreigners. I use to get my rocks off with just self loathing Americans, but it just doesn't get it up like it use to so I had to go where the real hate is.
I don't masturbate to porn anymore; I whack the bishop while reading comments from jealous American hating foreigners. I use to get my rocks off with just self loathing Americans, but it just doesn't get it up like it use to so I had to go where the real hate is.
Yeah you like that dont ya?!
Αξιζει φιλε να πεθανεις για ενα ονειρο, κι ας ειναι η φωτια του να σε καψει.
I don't masturbate to porn anymore; I whack the bishop while reading comments from jealous American hating foreigners. I use to get my rocks off with just self loathing Americans, but it just doesn't get it up like it use to so I had to go where the real hate is.
I didn't know you were catholic
Baby Quit Your Cryin' Put Your Clown Britches On!!!
Guess who watches the most porn...
My kingdom for a 
.
Originally Posted by NewScientist
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