A Harvard Business School study has found that Americans tend to consume online pornography at roughly constant levels among the various states. But, surprise surprise, red states tend to be the biggest consumers: “Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election…. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.”
But National Review’s John J. Miller has a very simple explanation. In states like Utah (which was number one in adult content subscriptions per capita), it’s particularly hard to get a “lap dance or a peep show,” so people go online. Of course, this explanation doesn’t undercut, and actually reinforces, the main takeaway from the study: political and moral beliefs aside, everybody likes to get their jollies one way or another. Miller is unwittingly proving that, if the goal of laws restricting live adult entertainment was to improve the morals of the community, they have been unmistakable failures.
But Miller then tries to dispute the very results of the study. He quotes the 2006 General Social Survey: “About 60 percent more Democrats than Republicans confess to having watched at least one pornographic movie in the past year.” Yes, but the key word there is “confess.” The HBS study canvassed anonymous credit-card receipts. Conservatives are sinning; they just ain’t saying so.
