Inductivist

In the comment section of the post on cross-national correlation between IQ and divorce, reader An Unmarried Man claims that conservatives live secretly perverted lives. (I'm not sure if he is applauding or criticizing us.)  You hear this often enough, but evidence is rarely, if ever, cited. The General Social Survey asks two questions (that I know of) about behavior that at least some people would call perverted--consumption of online pornography and homosexual sex.

Percent using pornographic site in last month--males

Extremely liberal 31.2
Liberal 30.2
Slightly liberal 41.7
Moderate 24.6
Slightly conservative 22.2
Conservative 17.8
Extremely conservative 18.2

Percent using pornographic site in last month--females

Extremely liberal 17.6
Liberal 8.1
Slightly liberal 3.3
Moderate 4.2
Slightly conservative 3.4
Conservative 3.8
Extremely conservative 0.0


Percent who have had same sex partners in past year--males

Extremely liberal 12.0
Liberal 7.9
Slightly liberal 4.5
Moderate 3.3
Slightly conservative 2.2
Conservative 1.5
Extremely conservative 1.4

Percent who have had same sex partners in past year--females

Extremely liberal 12.1
Liberal 5.1
Slightly liberal 2.8
Moderate 1.8
Slightly conservative 2.2
Conservative 1.5
Extremely conservative 2.0


In the study The Social Organization of Sexuality, the group that most frequently practices anal sex is Hispanics--70 percent of whom are Democrats.

GSS participants were asked if they thought that porn should be illegal. I looked to see which characteristics predict answering yes (sample size = 12,246):


Logistic Regression Coefficients

Age .03
Sex .81
Educ -.04
IQ -.01
Income -.01
Church attendance .19
Conservatism .21
Year -.01

All the relationships are statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level (two-tailed test).  Making porn illegal is favored by people who are: older, female, less educated, less intelligent, poorer, more religious, and more conservative. In addition, support for getting rid of the stuff has dropped over the past 40 years.

The coefficients are not standardized, so don't try to estimate the strength of a relationship from the numbers. Actually, it looks like the most powerful predictors are: age, religiosity, sex, and conservatism, in that order. I was surprised to see that almost half of women support banning pornography, and this number has changed little in 40 years.

Dana Carvey was on to something with his SNL "Church Lady." Funny stuff, but call me crazy: I respect old religious women.

When I was a young man, I remember friends telling me they were skeptical that I abstained from sex and masturbation. "It's not possible. The drive is too strong," they would say. I told them I avoided it because every time I started fooling around with a girl, I saw the flames of hell. It was an excellent disincentive.  I'm not saying it worked perfectly--I had to confess some things more than once. But even though I had girlfriends from age 16 on, I was able to remain a virgin until 24, and only then did I indulge after becoming convinced there was no God. 

This study of BYU students found that while all the young men believe that pornography is immoral, those who are less active in church and who have less religious families are significantly more likely to view porn. Thinking that something that you want to do is bad is not enough to stop you; there has to be some conviction. Personality, I'm sure, comes into play. Principles might not work very well on an unprincipled person, and a principled person who can't find any authoritative principles is in a quandary as well.         

Women