Porn is big business in America, but even bigger in conservative states reports a recent article from the Journal of Economic Perspectives. You can read the news brief here or see Dem Bones‘ good summary of the stats and method. Andrew Sullivan highlights the most arresting parts.
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 favored 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 behavior.’
One could get irritated that politics and religion were brought into a discussion on pornography, but I think it is useful if it helps in getting perspective on just how screwed up the religious and political discourse can get in America. Why am I disturbed about the correlation of higher porn purchasers in conservative states? Because I can only think of three reasons it could have happened (feel free to give me more).
1. Satan cooked the scientific and peer-reviewed study to lead to the online persecution of conservatives.
2. Living next door to a religious and political conservative leads to an increase in the leftist humanists purchasing of porn.
3. ‘Something like repression: if you’re told you can’t have this, then you want it more.’
This third ‘forbidden fruit’ answer makes the most sense, though option two isn’t too wonderful either. This study however highlights a third element concentrated along with conservatism and pornography, namely hypocrisy. Yes everyone is a hypocrite, but this is concentrated and worth talking about for a couple reasons
A conservative Christian would have to affirm that the support of the porn industry is sinful and that almost every use of it is sinful. If in the words of Jesus, ‘to look at a woman lustfully is to have already committed adultery,’ then it appears the greatest threat to Christian marriage may be on this very computer screen. While I disagree with my conservative friends about the need to establish heterosexual marriage legally, it is a bit disturbing to think they are legislating on black print Bible verses and spending more financially than the rest of the country on red letter violations. Utah, the biggest porn buying state, even invested in its neighbor’s anti-gay legislation. I am not asking anyone to change their mind ethically, just in emphasis of practice. This seems to fall into the ‘log in your eye, speck in your brothers’ category.
As a good friend has said, “”take the log out of your hand before putting the speck in your brother’s eye.”
Very interesting stats – can’t say I’m surprised.
Thanks for sharing!
So i am curious, what is it are you saying about right wing Christians due to this new found revelation you have? Or is your real agenda in this article to discredit the right wing politics from being legitimate real Christians?
I’m not that surprised either. Is the 3.6 per 1000 increase statistically significant? Forbidden fruit is certainly a plausible hypothesis. Although not correlated politically, I believe Barna has quite a bit of research showing that the rates for divorce, adultery, premarital sex, and the like are nearly identical between Christians and non.
But think about this… assume for a minute that accepting Christ begins with understanding the need for a savior. Would that understanding occur more often among people who struggle with significant emotional and behavioral deficits? If so, that would make Christians more likely to have higher incidence rates in those deficit areas. Then couple that with the fact that for many, following Christ is in part an endeavor to overcome these deficits, and now you have a scenario where these naturally higher incidence rates may be eventually lowered by religious adherence and practice.
If the above is even somewhat true, then the fact that Christians as a group trend nearly identically with the rest of the population is actually a success story. The accusation that Christianity is a crutch may be more accurate than we think.
How is this hypocrisy- most Conservatives believe in individual rights- the few uptight church ladies are a minority but are very vocal.
If you want to find a more appropriate correlation, look at the relationship between censorship laws and this study. You’ll find that the blue states have more censorship in terms of restrictions on purchasing.
Of course, as a wise man once said, you can prove anything with statistics.. says more about the author’s obsession than it does some perceived correlation..
I guess some folks just don’t like individual freedom and liberty.
Just found an interesting correlation, Viagra sales are higher in Blue States, does that mean that liberals are more impotent? Maybe that has a relationship between lower porn sales in Blue States, liberals just can’t get it up?
(see how you can say anything with misused statistics)
I have to confess that this surprises me. However, it makes me wonder how the writer of the article came to such conclusions based simply on the way people voted. To get the answers it seems to me it would take an interview with every person in the state to find out how they think on this issue or act on this issue. I am far from being a conservative person whether it is politically or religiously oriented. These statements just do not ring true for me based on whether a person is a conservative or not. The news informed us of how many conservatives who spoke against gays, sex outside of marriage, etc. were really in fact “sinning” in all these areas themselves. Again, this article just seems kinda ridiculous to me. Pornography is a very real problem but it is a problem for the right as well as the left. The article is just interesting reading.
i’m a christiain and i watch tons of porn, it’s true.