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I think that it was Mark Twain who said that there are 'lies, damn lies and statistics' and I'm sure he was implying that you can make statistics say just about whatever you want them to say. I'm sure he's right about some statistics too but I have to say that I love statistics because they can sometimes reveal what so many people would like to have remain hidden.

And when it comes to some statistics that have just been released then all those religious people who rant about how pornography is destroying American culture and how it's evil and they would never look at it or even subscribe to it had better just take a deep breath and maybe admit the truth.

And the truth is?

The truth is that if you live in one of the conservative states ... one of the states where Christianity is considered to be the sign of a model citizen ... then you're more likely to look at porn than if you lived in somewhere like California. And these statistics can't be made to lie because they didn't come from responses to surveys ... they came from documents that don't lie ... they came from credit card receipts.

Benjamin Edelman from the Harvard Business School conducted a nationwide survey into porn consumption recently. He didn't call people up on the phone to conduct the survey; he didn't send students out into the field to stop people in the street. He didn't do any of those usual things that we associated with surveys ... he just looked at credit card receipts.

A major adult entertainment provider gave him access to anonymised credit card receipts for almost two years from 2006 to 2008 that allowed him to see which states and postcodes the purchasers came from and the days on which they purchased their porn fix and some people might think that the results are amazing. Those of us who have worked in the adult industry off line won't be amazed by it at all because we've already seen where the people come from who buy whatever adult product we're selling off line.

In America the state that consumed the largest amount of porn was Utah. Yes folks, that's right ... the home of the Mormons is a hotbed of porn consumption and any sponsor who wants to produce a site featuring Mormon sex is going to make a fortune. I can see it now ... Mormom Milfs ... Mormon Anal and the absolute killer would be Mormon Interracial ... now there's one that's guaranteed to make a bucket load of cash for whoever produces it.

Also of interest is the fact that eight of the 10 top porn consuming states voted for McCain in the last presidential election while six of the 10 lowest porn consuming states voted for Obama. Residents of 27 states that voted to oppose gay marriage contain 11 per cent more porn consumers than states that didn't oppose gay marriage.

And if you compare this survey with others that have shown states where residents most agreed with a statement like 'I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage' the credit slips tell a different story and they don't lie. People in those states where they would like you to think that they have old-fashioned values about family and marriage actually have 3.6 per cent more porn consumers per thousand than states where the majority disagreed.

And oh dear ... in states where the population thought that 'Aids might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behavior' the credit card slips don't tell lies here either. Those states who think that immoral sexual behavior causes aids have that same 3.6 per cent more porn consumers per thousand than other states that disagree with that statement.

The news really doesn't get much better when it comes to the days on which people bought porn memberships either. You would think that after a good god-fearing hell-fire and damnation sermon on Sunday morning the residents of those religious states wouldn't be likely to rush home and buy a porn membership ... but you would be wrong.

Sundays only saw a less than 1 per cent drop in the amount of porn purchased compared to other days of the week.

I said earlier that those of us who have worked in off line adult related areas wouldn't be surprised by those figures and that's because we see that trend all the time. Talk to sex workers, talk to adult store staff, talk to staff at strip clubs and they'll all tell you the same thing ... some of their best customers are those who are the most vocal in demanding that they be shut down, moved on or even sent to prison.

And it's sad in a way that these figures confirm what we've known all along. Now wouldn't it be so much better for us and for them if, instead of being two-faced about their involvement with porn, they admitted it and became real people?