This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
In 2009, a wave of news media reports claimed that Utah was the number one consumer of internet pornography. The Salt Lake Tribune’s headline read: “Utah is No. 1 – for online pornography consumption.” The opening line of Salt Lake Tribune made it political: “Besides its political bent, Utah’s per capita appetite for online pornography makes it the nation’s run-away red-light state.” Very clever… red-state conservatives are practicing red-light behavior–get it? More specifically, they allege a correlation between people who oppose gay marriage and pornography consumption: “Online porn subscription rates are higher in states that enacted conservative legislation banning same-sex marriage or civil unions and where surveys show support for conservative positions on religion, gender roles and sexuality, according to an analysis published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.”
The problem is this is false.
- One Source Only – The analysis by Benjamin G. Edelman of Harvard and Microsoft uses data from only one pornography group: AVN Media Network. Researcher Jill Manning said in a KSL article: “I think that just focusing on one provider is very misleading and does not give us a sense of the larger issue.” There are many porn groups out there with a wide variety of audiences.
- Hazy Source – The analysis claims, “While it is difficult to confirm rigorously that this seller is representative, the seller runs literally hundreds of sites offering abroad range of adult entertainment.” Oh yeah? Well, I guess I’ll have to take his word for it, because I can’t find information anywhere of what those websites actually are. Which sites were analyzed? We don’t know. What I did find out about AVN suggests something that may tilt the data, as I will explain further down. Founded in 1982, by Paul Fishbein, AVN Media was sold in 2010 to “a European web company.” What is the name of the company that now owns AVN Media? I couldn’t find it. But we are supposed to just accept some data from this mysterious company? What interest does AVN Media have for this study to paint the picture it does–attacking religious conservatives? Is it good or bad for business?
- Paid Subscriptions Only – The title of the analysis is “Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?” It analyzes “subscriber demographics and consumption patterns of those who subscribe to such websites.” How many people pay a subscription to porn? Very few. According to Jill Manning, the variance of demographics of subscribers from state to state is so small, the result is basically meaningless: “Approximately 80 to 90 percent of pornography use online is free, where people are not paying a subscription to use that.” So this data has very little to do with porn consumption as a whole. The analysis even admits, free porn would be more accurate data because “consumers of free content may feel more confident that their usage will remain confidential.” For porn subscription, the data variance is so small it isn’t really significant anyway. Add to that the fact that this is just one source and it becomes worthless.
- Tilted Toward Lower Broadband – The analysis apparently adds weight to states that do not have faster internet: “To analyze subscription patterns, I control for the amount of broadband access available in each region. Broadband connections offer high-speed data transfer—letting images, video, and other graphical materials load more quickly.” ‘Markets Red Light States: Who Buys OnlineAdult Entertainment?’, Benjamin Edelman The difference between the highest porn-subscribing state and the lowest per 1000 people is 1%–quite negligible. But when you limit it to ‘per 1000 broadband internet users,’ the difference jumps to 4%.
- Political Bias – The incompetency of this “analysis” looks pernicious when you see the political agenda at play: “More broadly, measured levels of religiosity in American are high—for example, 68 percent of Americans state that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, according to the National Election Survey. At the same time, social critics like Levy (2005) and Paul (2005) often argue that the rise of Internet pornography is contributing to a coarsening of American culture. Do consumption patterns of online adult entertainment reveal two separate Americas? Or is the consumption of online adult entertainment widespread, regardless of legal barriers, potential for embarrassment, and even religious conviction? …Subscriptions are slightly more prevalent in states that have enacted conservative legislation on sexuality… 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… As shown in Table 4, subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality. Instates 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. 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.” ‘Markets Red Light States: Who Buys OnlineAdult Entertainment?’, Benjamin Edelman It would be convenient for the anti-traditional marriage agenda if that were true, but it’s not. The data is simply too weak to support that premise. But that didn’t stop the mainstream media from taking the bait and using this analysis as a weapon to attack religious conservatives. The Daily Beast declared Utah is running a “hypocritical war on porn” by trying to prevent children from being exposed to it. They say Utah is “one of the top porn-hungry states,” citing this Harvard study. “The heavily-Mormon state seems to have a love-hate relationship with pornography, and a sense of shame over it as well… Porn is the scapegoat for now, but in some years’ time, it could just as easily be a Kevin Smith movie.” Others, like the Salty Tribune, went off about gay marriage.
- Utah’s Unique Democraphics – Another thing that may tilt statistics is the fact that Utah has the youngest average population in the U.S. Young adults are internet-savy and accustomed to purchasing things from the internet. Older folks may prefer buying a dirty magazine instead. Statistics also show Millenials are much higher consumers of porn overall. The Harvard analysis failed to consider any unique circumstances state to state that would skew porn consumption trends.
- Pornhub Ranks Utah At 38th – Pornhub is ranked 15th most popular website in the United States, and is the highest porn site, according to Alexa. So their data ought to be worth considering–a lot more than AVN Media’s, anyway. They place Utah as the 34th highest visitor of their porn. But Utah is only the 32nd most populous state in America, which means they are lower-than-average viewers of the porn. For visits-per-capita, Pornhub ranks Utah 38th. That’s pretty far from #1!
- Little Drop In Viewership On Sundays – The Harvard study compares porn subscription rates to surveys of church-attending populations, and find a slightly lower rate of porn purchase on Sunday. “In particular, a 1 percent increase in the proportion of people who report regularly attending religious services is associated with a 0.10 percent reduction in the proportion of purchases that occur on Sunday.” That number is too low to be worthwhile. A tenth of 1 percent? So basically it is even. Areas with high church attendance have about the same porn purchase on Sunday. Does that make sense? Why would that be? Lots of religious people don’t consider porn a sin, but they do think it is dirty and avoid doing it on the Lord’s day. They consider purchasing smut on Sunday a sin and certainly would not pay for it on Sunday. The most likely answer is that it is the non-religious people in these areas doing the porn purchasing both on Sunday and the other days. This is further evidence against the Harvard study’s conclusion, not for it. But the analysis pretends like 0.01% is enough to show some kind of trend: “This analysis suggests that, on the whole, those who attend religious services shift their consumption of adult entertainment to other days of the week, despite on average consuming the same amount of adult entertainment as others.” Uh, no.
- Gay Themes? – Something else this Harvard study failed to consider was what kind of porn was consumed. There’s a big difference between a casual swimsuit a video and hardcore explicit content. Again, I couldn’t find out which websites AVN Media Network operates, so I don’t know. But one thing AVN is known for is its gay porn awards show. “AVN also sponsors the GAYVN Awards which are presented annually to honor work done in the gay pornography industry. Awards for gay adult video were a part of the AVN awards from 1988 to 1998. In 1999, AVN decided to separately host the GayVN Awards.” Gay porn issues are also part of their “business trends” publication online, apparently: “In print and on the web, AVN Online publishes articles devoted to the diverse adult internet experience, such as a story about the Village TV Gay News.” Does Utah’s ranking in AVN’s data speak to the kind of content Utah porn consumers trend toward? It’s just an idea, and I don’t have the data to show one way or the other. But Pornhub’s data can also give some idea. According to them, only 19% of visitors were women, which is 4% below the national average. The most popular search term was “lesbian.” And only slightly below that was “anal.” One of the top search terms relative to other states was “first time anal.” The viewing habits of porn in Utah is something the government really needs to study to find out what is going on and how to help people. Who is accessing this porn? Is it a problem in their lives? The little data we get from these two porn groups doesn’t help much, and I frankly don’t trust them to give accurate data anyway.
Well, this myth is well and truly busted. It’s too bad church-owned Deseret News didn’t look critically at the data before they plastered the same sensational headline and propagated a false narrative. At least KSL helped debunk it. But pornography is certainly still a huge problem in Utah and elsewhere, in every community.