Online Porn Capital of the US: Utah!

[3113]

A study by Benjamin Edelman, an assistant professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, titled “Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?” and published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that subscriptions to online pornography sites are “more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality.”

Here are some of the report’s findings:

1. In regions where more people report regularly attending religious services, overall subscription rates are not statistically significantly different from subscriptions elsewhere.

2. Subscriptions are slightly more prevalent in states that have enacted conservative legislation on sexuality (regression results on file with the author). In the 27 states where “defense of marriage” amendments have been adopted (making same-sex marriage, and/or civil unions unconstitutional), subscriptions to this adult entertainment service are weakly more prevalent than in other states ( p 0.096). In such states, there were 0.2 more subscribers to this adult web site per thousand broadband households, 11 percent more than in other states.

3. In states where more people agree that “Even today miracles are performed by the power of God” and “I never doubt the existence of God,” there are more subscriptions to this service.

4. Subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where more people agree that “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage” and “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.”

5. Tancer (2008), finds that adult escort sites are more popular in “blue” states that voted for Gore in 2004, while visitors from the “red” states that voted for Kerry in 2004 are more likely to visit wife-swapping sites, adult webcams, and sites about voyeurism.

An article about the study on the NewScientist Web site also makes this observation:

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.

Story here. And here's the chart indicating which states have the most subscribers to online porn:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/blow/aug/pornstates.jpg

It looks like all those incest and loving wives readers are from Utah!

 

[TE999]

It looks like all those incest and loving wives readers are from Utah!

Now I understand why there's all those raving, incomprehensible and condemning PM's and e-mails for stories in that cat.

 

[AchtungNight]

This doesn't surprise me. I wonder where Texas is on the list.

 

[Verdad]

A reader left a great comment on the article page:

If people want to view porn via the Internet, *paying* for it betokens a lack of initiative and intelligence more than it indicates a lack of morals.

 

[slyc_willie]

This doesn't surprise me. I wonder where Texas is on the list.

We're not oppressive enough.

 

[DesertPirate]

In the 80's the University with the highest student pregnancy and STD rates was BYU.
Those kids got out of the folks house and went nuts
Why would anyone think things had changed all that much?

 

[midwestyankee]

The statistics that resulted from this study simply do not warrant the conclusions described in the article. It's just another case of an innumerate journalist leaping to fantastic conclusions on the basis of wild assumptions and a desire to write something that confirms many readers' preconceived notions about the world.

For anyone who wants the truth, read here.

 

[3113]

The statistics that resulted from this study simply do not warrant the conclusions described in the article. It's just another case of an innumerate journalist leaping to fantastic conclusions on the basis of wild assumptions and a desire to write something that confirms many readers' preconceived notions about the world.

For anyone who wants the truth, read here.

Darn it! Don't give me facts. You just ruined my new story about a nice Utah man and his online porn subscription to Loving Wives....

 

[midwestyankee]

Darn it! Don't give me facts. You just ruined my new story about a nice Utah man and his online porn subscription to Loving Wives....

To be fair, the problem with the study was not that it failed to find that people in Utah buy a ton of online porn, but rather that it could not make the correlations to religious observance that the article claimed. It's entirely reasonable for you to set up your story as you described. How many loving wives do you think he had in mind?

 

[oggbashan]

Most people don't understand what statistics can prove or disprove.

Once I was asked to explain an apparent correlation between the placement of welfare offices and the demand for social services because the directors thought that the presence of an office stimulated demand.

My first search was through the ancient files. The directors' predecessors had opened offices where there were already recorded concentrations of demand.

I went back to the original data that had been summarised to create the report that mentioned the correlation. The data had been aggregated by office location even if the demand was from a location at a considerable distance. Apart from the previous concentrations in urban areas that had led to offices being opened, the aggregation had created the correlation. I informed the directors that there was no significant correlation.

The directors closed some offices to see whether demand would decrease. It didn't. The complaints increased because the remaining offices were further away from the people requiring services. The costs increased because the workers had to travel further each day to deliver services and couldn't provide services to as many clients in a day because too much time was spent travelling between the remote office and the clients' locations. More staff had to be employed to meet the demand just because of travelling time.

I tried, several times, to explain to the directors why the original report was statistically unsound. I was wasting my time. They couldn't understand the statistics.

How many reporters actually understand statistics? How many of their readers do? How many of them believe that the following statements are logical:

A. A cat has four legs
B. A dog has four legs
Therefore a cat is a dog and a dog is a cat.

Many statistical reports in newspapers are just as sound as that.

Og

 

[3113]

To be fair, the problem with the study was not that it failed to find that people in Utah buy a ton of online porn, but rather that it could not make the correlations to religious observance that the article claimed. It's entirely reasonable for you to set up your story as you described. How many loving wives do you think he had in mind?

Depends on how he can find that resemble his sisters gotta toss in the incest there as well.

 

[DesertPirate]

Og, anything that can produce opposite results from the same data and be correct, (statistics, as taught in Universities today), is not a science, it IS rumour, gossip, and bullshit!


Remember, Statistics and "modern" Economics were created by out of work mathemeticians in the 50's draw your own conclusions why they suck.

With all the research that went on in the 50's a mathematician that was out of work couldn't have been even average.

 

[incubus666]

Using a little simple math and the only information that seemed to give any workable data. I figured Utah had 4,470 people who had porn subscriptions.

I then did the same thing with New Jersey. There were 8,380 subscribers in NJ.

As someone said. He is using statistics like a drunk uses a light pole. Nore for support then for illumination.

 

[3113]

Using a little simple math and the only information that seemed to give any workable data. I figured Utah had 4,470 people who had porn subscriptions.

I then did the same thing with New Jersey. There were 8,380 subscribers in NJ.

Maybe the 4K in Utah download more than the 8K in NJ? It's not, after all, the number of subscribers so much as the number of times one subscribes that makes one a pervert...yes?

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

The main flaw in this article is the implied association between a public "sex negativity" and Republican voting patterns. There are a lot of Catholics who feel guilty taking a shower naked and fall in line with Humanae Vitae who are also loyal, rank-and-file Democrats.

Conversely there are your ultra-libertarians in sagebrush country who couldn't give a damn where other people stick their appendages, and are perfectly fine with people marrying their chickens if that floats their boat. But they're going to be reliable Republican voters nonetheless.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Using a little simple math and the only information that seemed to give any workable data. I figured Utah had 4,470 people who had porn subscriptions.

I then did the same thing with New Jersey. There were 8,380 subscribers in NJ.

As someone said. He is using statistics like a drunk uses a light pole. Nore for support then for illumination.

4,470 people out of 368,536 in Utah = 1.21%

8,380 people out of 8,724,560 in New Jersey = 0.096% (the most densely populated state, last I heard)

That is a world of difference with, more than twelves times as many per population unit.