Republicans want crackdown on pornography? But they buy the most!

Reuters – Aug 27/2012
Republicans call for crackdown on pornography By Andy Sullivan
The Republican Party is calling for a crackdown on pornography in a move that could pit social conservatives against hotel operators, television providers and other businesses that profit from the sale of sexually explicit material. …. Republicans have added language to their official platform that anti-smut activists said would encourage the federal government to step up prosecution of pornography involving adults. … "Current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be vigorously enforced," the platform says, according to a draft obtained by Reuters. Republicans are planning a Tuesday vote on the document, a nonbinding statement of principles that tackles everything from monetary policy to abortion.

The Republicans want to crackdown on pornography; they want control what you watch. The Republicans want to make abortions illegal; they want to control a woman's body. The Republicans do not want government paid for birth control. After all, if a woman only has sex within the sanctity of marriage why does she need birth control? The Republicans do not want free health care; everyone should have the freedom to choose for themselves (read: fend for themselves). But granted the Republicans do want to ensure everyone has the right to bear arms. God forbid you do anything sexual they disagree with but go right ahead and shoot somebody.

CNN – Aug 23/2012
Strippers look to GOP to 'make it rain' By Ann O'Neill, CNN
[If] past conventions are any indicator, Republicans are likely to outspend Democrats heavily at topless bars and strip clubs, says Angelina Spencer. She heads the Association of Club Executives (http://www.acenational.org), an organization for the nation's 4,000 "gentleman's club" owners. The group talked to members in the host cities of past conventions. "When we compared spending," Spencer notes, "the average showed Republicans spending $150 per person at an adult club, versus Democrats, who averaged $50 a person."

At one end of the spectrum you have the Conservatives or the Republicans and at the other end you have the Liberals or the Democrats. How can anybody explain the above disparity in the spending habits of the members of the two parties in an adult club? Anybody may ask why these people are in a strip club in the first place, but when the conventions come to town, business is booming.

Conservatives buy the most pornography
In my blog "Pornography: Who buys the most? Conservatives!" I cite several studies which equate how religious a population supposedly is to its interest in things sexual.

The Journal of Economic Perspectives in its Winter 2009 edition published the paper "Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?" by Benjamin Edelman, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School in which the author studied the purchasing habits of those buying adult entertainment.

As shown in Table 4, subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality. In states 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."

The author goes on to reveal that the most conservative state in the Union is Utah and the state with the highest consumption of pornography is also Utah.

Final Word
What is the truth? During Michele Bachmann's campaign to become the GOP candidate for president, she put forward not just that homosexuality is wrong but that it is a curable condition. I read about and watched video clips of some of her speaking engagements where one gay, a young man from her home state, heckled her saying he was being ostracized in his own community because of her ideas. I couldn't help thinking that if this young man moved to a more progressive area of the country, San Francisco for instance, he would be welcomed with open arms and nobody, absolutely nobody, would look askance at his homosexuality.

What is the Republican platform? Let's get rid of porn. Let's get rid of birth control. Let's make abortions illegal. Let's not have any sex education. If I'm hung up about sex, I have two options: deal with it or hide it so I don't have to deal with it at all. The Republicans are not the party of the future. They are the party of the past. They are the party of a traditional puritanical world which is trying desperately to hang on but basically no longer exists. Porn? You've got to be kidding me. That isn't even on my list of priorities. If you don't like it, don't look at it. Or should I say: if you don't like it, stop buying it.

References

my blog: Pornography: An investigation
10 articles; 1 set of conclusions; 58 pages; 22,000 words; 4 weeks of research.

I spent the month of October 2010 examining "pornography" and wrote a series of articles covering the various issues surrounding it. After spending an entire month on it writing 22,000 words, I arrived at some conclusions I'd like to share. My "executive summary" reads:

I will not pretend to have exhaustively covered this topic. However, I hope to generate a rethinking of the subject and a more objective discussion of what turns out to be not about pornography but about our sexuality. There are myths; there is misinformation; there are prejudices; there are political agendas which would set out to win at any cost including hiding the truth and twisting the facts. We as a society, as a culture are very uncomfortable about sex. We are attracted by it; we are confused by it and our lack of knowledge about it means we often just try to avoid it. Nevertheless, we are not going to escape it. Not only are we surrounded by it; it is actually part of us. It is time we faced our demons head on.

I give my conclusions to the various issues raised during this 10 part investigation of pornography.

• Porn causes evil? Legitimate studies have found that as the availability of porn in society goes up, the rate of sex related crimes comes down.
• Who buys the most porn? Conservatives.
• People tell personal stories "I know a guy…", "I heard of a family…" and pass it off as scientific evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data.
• What’s the real problem? We are all so hung up about sex, we can’t talk about it. Because we can’t talk about, we don’t deal with it and hide it. It's a sad state of affairs. The real problem isn’t so much pornography, it is our own sexuality.