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.
(Thanks surrealestate)
The article claims that conservatives purchase more online pornography than non-conservatives, however as the first comment points out: “Might it not be the frustrated liberals in their midst who turn to porn to console themselves? No state – blue or red – has a population that votes in lockstep.” And what constitutes a “red state”? Wyoming and Kansas typically go red in national elections, but have Democratic governors.
March 3, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Three other issues:
1. What about free porn? Perhaps “red” state residents are just more willing to pay? Or not savvy enough to find the free stuff?
2. “…[C]redit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider….” What variety of content does the provider specialize in? I’d be interested to know if the “red” states are interested in the really kinky stuff, or just the more vanilla variety.
3. “…[R]oughly two years of credit card data from 2006 to 2008….” I wonder if the national buying habits change depending on which party has the presidency/house?