英语原文

在美国，那些表面很保守的人却可能有一颗狂野的心。人们往往喜欢人前说一套背后做一套，毕竟那些得不到的才是最好的。

Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across the nation: the liking for online pornography.

A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.

"When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.

Political divide

Edelman spends part of his time helping companies such as Microsoft and AOL detect advertising fraud. Another consulting client runs dozens of adult websites, though he says he is not at liberty to identify the firm.

That company did, however, provide Edelman with roughly two years of credit card data from 2006 to 2008 that included a purchase date and each customer's postal code.

After controlling for differences in broadband internet access between states – online porn tends to be a bandwidth hog – and adjusting for population, he found a relatively small difference between states with the most adult purchases and those with the fewest.

The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says.

Number 10 on the list was West Virginia at 2.94 subscriptions per 1000, while number 41, Michigan, averaged 2.32.

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 favoured Barack Obama.

Old-fashioned values

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.

Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don't explicitly restrict gay marriage.

To get a better handle on other associations between social attitudes and pornography consumption, Edelman melded his data with a previous study on public attitudes toward religion.

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.

中文翻译

美国色情业：最大消费群体为保守派人士

美国人中红蓝阵营（注释：共和党和民主党两大党的代表色）的界线似乎正变得愈发鲜明，但新的研究表明在一件事上全国上下都没有什么不同，那就是对网络色情作品的喜爱。

通过对一个主要网上成人娱乐网站客户信用卡的匿名调查，这份新的全国性研究发现各州之间的色情作品购买量并没有什么不同。

哈佛商学院的Benjamin Edelman说“谈道成人娱乐业，似乎更能看出人们臭味相投的一面”。

不过，通过数据还是能看出一些消费趋势。研究发现购买色情作品最多的那几个州和购买量最少的那几个州相比，更保守也更笃信宗教。

“一些最激进的人却恰恰成了他们口口声声所反对东西的购买者，” Edelman如是说。

政治立场的不同

Edelman的部分工作是帮助像微软和美国在线这样的公司找出在广告上的失误。他的另一个咨询客户拥有几十个成人网站，不过他说他无权透露那家公司的名字。

那家公司为Edelman提供了从2006年到2008年约2年间的信用卡数据，包括购买数据和消费者的邮编。

通过控制各州之间宽带上网接入的不同，要知道网上色情作品往往很占带宽，并考虑到各州人口的不同而做出调整后，他发现购买量最高的州和最低的州之间差别并不大。

犹他州是购买量最高的州，平均每1000户宽带用户里有5.47份成人作品的订阅；而购买量最低的蒙大拿州则为每1000户有1.92份订阅。Edelman 认为“这个差别并不很大”。

排名第十的是西弗吉尼亚州，每1000户有2.94份订阅；而排名41的是密西根州，平均有2.32份订阅.

色情作品购买量最大的10个州中有8个在去年的总统大选里把他们的选举人票投给了约翰·麦凯恩，只有佛罗里达州和夏威夷例外。而购买量最低的10个州里有6个把票投给了巴拉克·奥巴马。

传统价值观

常去教堂做礼拜的人周日会少买网上色情作品。按邮编划分地区，参加宗教活动的人每增加1%，那天的购买量就会减少0.1%。不过，Edelman发现这些人在一周中其他日子里的开销让他们仍能和全国水平持平。

居住在已通过法律禁止同性恋婚姻的27个州中的居民和居住在并没有明确禁止同性恋婚姻的那些州的居民相比，色情作品的订阅数量足足要高11%。

为了对其它和社会态度与色情作品消费量相关联的因素有更好的了解，Edelman把他的数据和过去一份公众对宗教的态度的研究结果结合起来看。

那些多数居民认为“我对家庭和婚姻仍保有传统价值观”的州和多数居民不赞同这一观点的州相比，每千人要多订阅3.6份色情作品。相同的结果出现在“艾滋病也许是上帝对不正当性行为的惩罚”这一观点的对比上。

Edelman 认为“对这种现象，一种很自然的假说就是逆反心理：越是不让你去做的事，你反而越想去做。”