Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a postal code's religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.
Source: New Scientist
So regular church attendance doesn't cause any genuine decrease in the consumption of pornography, it just shifts the consumption to days when one doesn't attend church. Is it because church takes too much time, or is there a guilt factor which inhibits looking at porn? Either way, I can imagine some church leaders using this to suggest attending church more days out of the week.
Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don't explicitly restrict gay marriage.
So people who don't want gays to marry like looking at pictures and movies of non-gays doing the nasty? I wish Edelman had more information on how many of the online porn subscriptions were to straight sites and how many were to gay sites...
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 thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behaviour."
"One natural hypothesis is something like repression: if you're told you can't have this, then you want it more," Edelman says.
That is a pretty natural and obvious hypothesis. There's another, though, that should be just as obvious: greater pornography consumption correlates with patriarchal, misogynistic views which, in turn, correlate very strongly with conservative religiosity. Perhaps these views encourage a person to seek out porn where women are treated like objects; perhaps viewing women as objects in porn encourages treating them as objects politically. Perhaps both just reinforce each other in an endless, oppressive circle.
I really do think that connection should be explored a bit more. It is, again, natural to think that people who are most repressed sexually will also seek online sources of sexual release or entertainment, but if those sources serve to reinforce the patriarchal and misogynistic attitudes which help create sexual repression in the first place, we have a pretty serious problem here (besides all those obvious ones, I mean).
In principle, it should be good for repressed people to find a source of release because it might serve to undermine repression over time. I know that it won't always and necessarily do it, but it should hurt and that's exactly what we might be seeing here. Maybe we need someone to supply sexually explicit material that definitely isn't misogynistic, but I wonder if would be as appealing to all the Red State people who are currently helping keep online porn sites in business.
There’s gotta be a ‘spare the rod’ joke in here somewhere, but I’ll forcibly restrain myself from making one.
Its interesting to be sure. The author does make a point of stressing that the differences are actually quite minute. That 11 percent quote comes from 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)..”
emphasis added
So 0.2 more subsribers per 1000 broadband households is a pretty small number. The 11% difference noted is really the difference between 0.18 and 0.2. In my opinion that is hardly a damning condemnation of the licentious activities of those who oppose marriage rights to homosexuals.
The study also finds that in regions where there is a higher participation in “…people donating blood, engaging in volunteer activities, or participating in community projects” there is an increase in subscriptions. Urban areas have higher subscription rates than rural, Areas with higher numbers of college educated persons show higher subscription rates but graduate degrees the % goes down…
The author concludes “On the whole, these adult entertainment subscription patterns show a remarkable consistency: all but eleven states have between two and three subscribers to this service per thousand broadband households, and all but four have between 1.5 and 3.5. With interest in online adult entertainment relatively constant across regions, there’s little sign of a major divide.
Its interesting, the differences are so small however I think its safer to say that this isnt a difference that divides us. Conservative or Liberal, blue or red, religious or not when it comes to this data states are more alike than different.
I would be interested in an Austin Cline poll about atheists and what percentage of them look at or buy subscriptions to online porn or any porn.
Who actually buys porn these days? I’ve been getting for free on the internet since I was 16!
I bought online porn once. I was very quickly bored!
Billy Graham reported that hotel managers told him that viewing of porn in hotel rooms went up sharply during religious conventions.
I’ll weigh in as soon as I get back from my participatory social mores research at over at Redtube Laboratories.
In the meantime, here is some useful information about the health benefits of masturbation. The source, interestingly enough, is Fox News, not normally regarded at a liberal redoubt:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,401722,00.html
Health Benefits for Men
Research summarized in a 2007 article in Sexual and Relationship Therapy found that masturbation may help men by:
— Improving his immune system’s functioning.
— Building his resistance to prostate gland infection.
— Making for a healthier prostate.
Australian researchers have reported that frequent masturbation may lower a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer. A survey of men found the more frequently a man masturbates between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to get prostate cancer. In fact, those who masturbated more than five times a week were one-third less likely to develop prostate cancer.
Health Benefits for Females
When it comes to a woman’s health, self-pleasuring serves her well by:
— Building her resistance to yeast infections.
— Combating pre-menstrual tension and other physical conditions associated with their menstrual cycles, like cramps.
— Relieving painful menstruation by increasing blood flow to the pelvic region. This will also reduce pelvic cramping and related backaches.
— Relieving chronic back pain and increasing her threshold for pain.
Health Benefits for Both Sexes
Masturbation rewards both men and women because it’s:
— The safest kind of sex, keeping you free of sexually transmitted infections.
— A great form of stress relief.
— A mood booster in releasing endorphins.
— A natural sleep sedative.
— A mechanism for building stronger pelvic floor muscles, which can lead to better sex.
— A natural energetic pick-me-up.
As Sigmund Freud once remarked at the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society, “the subject of masturbation is quite inexhaustible.” While he wasn’t getting at the benefits (Freud saw self-pleasuring as harmful to the genitals and one’s psychosexual and moral development), the same can be said in how it can improve one’s sexual relationship.
For couples who masturbate on occasion or regularly, sex with yourself can:
— Be empowering, especially by helping you to feel better about your body, genitals and sexual response.
— Deliver some of your most intense orgasms ever, which you’ll now know how to recreate with that special someone!
— Increase your sexual awareness, giving you the opportunity to discover what turns you on – the sensations and movements that work best to give you the greatest of sexual gratification.
— Have the potential to enhance your sex life in general, boosting your sexual confidence and turning you into a better lover.
— Get you or your partner off the hook if neither is available or not in the mood.
Based on the above information, my chances of developing prostate cancer are effectively zero.
I love porn but never buy it..yes I suppose that makes me a vouyer too! LOL. Texas is another of those states that has way to many repressed religious nutcases that find their outlet through the online porn. We hate ourselves for loving it so much ..how is that for Southern Baptist angst!
To Chemosh.
It makes you a voyeur, not a vouyer
Re: ZACK,
Thanks for the heads up.
I’ll try to get healthier now – really, really healthy. LOL
The reason for them viewing porn is because they truly have not been born of God (1 John 3:19). Those who truly love God and serve Him will not continue to disobey Him.( I did at one time). They are just church goers, going through their ritual thinking that would appease God’s wrath, cause I did my Sunday thing. But God says that hippocrites(use to be) will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Matt:24:51). If they are truly love God, and a follower they will exhibit the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace,longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperace. If not they probably are a Sunday church goer.
Joe, if God didn’t want humans to enjoy masturbation, why did he invent porn, and then make our arms long enough to reach?
(Not that we wouldn’t have invented a means even if we couldn’t reach. hehe )
My wife is a PSO (phone girl) and I know a lot of people in the adult industry. Christians make the best customers. A lot of her calls start out with “I’m not gay…” and then it turns into a gay call, Christians especially are uptight about their sexuality and porn and phone sex is an easy and safe outlet for them.
I had a friend who worked at an adult bookstore with “ventilation holes” in the video booths in Springfield MO, home of the Assemblies of God- the absolute busiest time was Sunday afternoon, and it was all churchgoers going for the glory hole action- again safe for them, anonymous and no relationship commitments that might mess up their family life.
A poll by the ajc found that orthodox jewish men bought more porn per capita than any other relions combined
This totally assumes that those that are voting are the one watching the porn. Seeing how ALL states have low voter turnout, the control parameters were not mentioned.
You failed to mentioned any statistical info on the problems that pornography causes on society.