US Online Porn Consumption February 28, 2009

New Scientist reports on a survey carried out on internet pornography consumption. The survey was based on data collected from anonymised credit card records kept by a large online ‘adult entertainment’ provider, plus an earlier study on religious attitudes. It turns out that there is little variation between online porn consumption across the states. However, the most online porn was consumed by the more conservative and more religious states. The survey also revealed that church-goers buy less online porn on a sunday, and 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 1000 people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference also showed up for states where a majority of residents agreed with the statement, “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behaviour”. Quite what this shows is up for debate. But it seems interesting.