A recent study of anonymous credit card receipts used in purchasing porn has just been done, and while the highest consuming state (Utah = 5.47 subscriptions per 1,000 broadband users) was only three times as high as the lowest (Montana = 1.92), the patterns of usage relative to political and social attitudes was quite comical, and counter-traditional:
After controlling for differences in broadband internet access between states – online porn tends to be a bandwidth hog – and adjusting for population...:
The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000.
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.
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."
Perhaps being denied something makes one desire it more? Perhaps desiring something one feels is immoral would cause one to be more rabid about getting it banned? Thus we get the parade of rabid homophobes (Craig, Foley, Haggart, etc.) who turn out to be homosexual. In any case, once again we have data to test the theories that religion makes people more virtuous and less sinful, and yet even by their own standards, they lose again. They get divorced more, consume more porn, commit more crime, and on and on and on. Whatever explanations may exist for each individual anomaly, the sheer volume and consistency of them begins to make other explanations less and less plausible. Sin and religion go together, whichever be the cause or effect.
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2 comments:
Well, in these parts folks like their vices to be illicit. I suppose it makes it more exciting.
I appreciate your thoughtful expositions and general point of view regarding the utterly ridonkulus veils of religious illusions that have captivated the masses for millenia. I was once captivated. Good to be free. The world, unfortunately might still be flat in many realms. But all things in (humanly measured movement of celestial bodies in space) time.
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