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Bars are few and far between on the streets of Utah, the Mormon state where moderation and family values are supposedly everything. Mormons account for 60 percent of the state population, and in 2005, Utah ranked as the most conservative state in the U.S. in a report by the non-partisan Bay Area Center of Voting Research of the Hall Institute of Public Policy.
But Utah also topped the list of consumers of porn in the U.S. in the same survey, which showed that it averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1,000 home broadband users.
The Journal of Economic Perspective recently carried a report titled "Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?" by Prof. Benjamin Edelman of Harvard Business School. According to the report, conservative states consume more online porn, overturning the fixed idea that it is the liberal and broad-minded cities that are awash with filth.
Edelman looked at roughly two years of credit card data from 10 online adult entertainment providers from 2006 to 2008 that included a purchase date and each customer's postal code.
The study shows that 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 1,000 people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement 'AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behaviour.'"
The journal New Scientist says the correlation between the frequency of porn consumption and conservative thinking is also clearly shown in political decisions. "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," it said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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