File this under "I'm not shocked". Published in the peer-reviewed journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, Canadian psychologists Cara MacInnis and Gordon Hodson had a scientifically sound look at the link between lustful interest in sexual imagery on the one hand, and conservatism and religiosity on the other. It's titled "Do American States with More Religious or Conservative Populations Search More for Sexual Content on Google?"
From the abstract:
"[W]e observed moderate-to-large positive associations between: (1) greater proportions of state-level religiosity and general web searching for sexual content and (2) greater proportions of state-level conservatism and image-specific searching for sex. These findings were interpreted in terms of the paradoxical hypothesis that a greater preponderance of right-leaning ideologies is associated with greater preoccupation with sexual content in private internet activity."
Both in 2011 and 2012, whose Google data sets MacInnis and Hodson studied, "… increased state religiosity was significantly associated with increased searches for sex, gay sex, porn, free porn, and gay porn."
In March of this year, U.S. site Pornhub.com released the attached map, showing the lower 48 states and their populations’ interest in gay porn, specifically. They found that "The majority of states with a high percentage of gay viewers is in the South, where gay marriage is illegal in all states. Dixie loves dicks so much, that the percentage of gay viewers for every single state in the South is higher than the average of the legal gay marriage states." LOL.
src: http://goo.gl/eVd2hs
Published paper referenced: http://goo.gl/W0H523
pr0n site insight and map: http://goo.gl/zBuAuO
Bahahahahahahahahah My region has the highest percentages !!!! Bahahahhahahaha Yet I am prolly the only gay man around that does not watch porn. Bahahahahaha It is prolly the #closet cases .
There have also been studies.. I wish I had them at hand without searching… that have shown those MOST averse and outspoken to homosexuality typically harbor deeply homosexual tendencies.
All this means is that gay men in these states (1) are more likely to need to resort to porn than to real, live relationships with other gay men, and (2) have a greater need to use the internet to procure their porn privately.
While it reveals a (relatively) poor state of gay rights in these states, it is hardly the hypocritical "gotcha" that progressives think they are gloating about.
Sorry Alan but you contradict yourself into your own "gotcha".
Pray tell, how did I contradict myself?
+Paul Spoerry
I was thinking along the same lines as Alan Light. Maybe the states where the population is much more religiously bound, gay men feel the need to stay closeted, and there fore seek private outlets of sexual gratification. Then again it could just be all those sexually repressed bible thumpers who can't be honest with them selves because they have been told that their thoughts and urges are evil. IDK.
What I do find interesting is that Google is keeping track of our solo sexual activities, and making them public in a reported study. Creepy.
LOL… hadn't thought about the tracking but that's funny and slightly creepy.
The first article is talking about porn in general; inclusive of gay porn. So it's has nothing to do with homosexuality. The more conservative/religious states search for and consume more porn. The second one address gay porn consumption but that could be for a variety of reasons and I don't think it specifies.
That said, those who profess the strongest aversion to homosexuality tend to have repressed homosexual urges. This is the study I was referring to earlier:
"The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies."
src: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014