A Harvard study has found that the reddest state in the nation, the state that many consider to be the most conservative, and one that constantly reminds everyone of it’s “family values” (like no one else has any but them) is also the largest consumer of subscription online pornography in the nation.  That’s right: Utah.

In fact, 8 of the top 10 states are “Red States”, predominantly Conservative Republican states with “conservative Christian values”.  The study concludes that those states that consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption.

The two year study found that among broadband internet (cable, DSL, satellite, wireless high speed internet, etc.) users in Utah, 5.47 in 1,000 were buying online porn.

One “expert” has said that it is just the tip of the iceberg since the researcher only looked at AOL and MSN broadband records and the anonymous credit card purchases by zip code of a couple of online porn services, and there are hundreds porn services and broadband providers out there that weren’t included in the study.

The do-gooders in Utah have already come-out dismissing this as a Gentile problem (what Mormons call non-Mormons), implying that the 31% of Utahans that are not Mormon consume 100% of the porn.  However, the study doesn’t support that.  The study found that by zip code those areas with increased religious attendance on Sunday had corresponding decreases in porn consumption, but that increased consumption Monday through Saturday more than made-up the difference and put Utah in the lead.

What nobody is doing is calling a duck a duck.  They are skirting around the real issue: Sexual expression amongst sexually repressed people always finds an outlet, and usually not a healthy one.

Sex is as important to Human Beings as eating and breathing.  You need three things for life to continue in this world: You need to breathe, you need to eat and you need to have sex and procreate to ensure the continuation of any species of life on this planet, including humans.  Telling people they can’t have sex (or in any way trying to control how people have sex and when they have sex) is like telling people they can’t eat or breathe.  They will.  Every living fiber in their being tells them they have to, and 2,000 years of anti-sex propaganda can’t undo 200,000 years of biological programming.

Case in point: Catholic priests.  Catholic priests molesting alter boys and other boys in their congregation.  The Catholic Church played this off as a “gay” problem and vowed to better screen priesthood candidates to weed-out the homosexuals.  But these priests that molested alter boys were simply expressing their sexuality in the only way that was readily available to them, boys.  I contend that 99% of them are very heterosexual, but that these boys were the only outlet they had.  The same goes for the Boy Scout leaders who molest Boy Scouts.  They are easy prey for a sexually repressed, sexually frustrated man.  I say this because overall, girls are the victims of most sex crimes I the U.S., not boys.  Just in these instances boys are the most readily available outlet for that particular sex offender.

Think about this, how often are the words “I just can’t believe it.  He is an outstanding member of our church and just the nicest guy” (or some variant of that) spoken by a friend or neighbor when they are interviewed about some poor, “happily” married schmuck being arrested for molesting children?  It’s not openly gay men.  Boys are usually not the victims, either.  The majority of it is married heterosexual men that are out there preying on teenage and pre-pubescent girls.

Again, sexual expression amongst sexually repressed people always finds an outlet, and usually not a healthy one.

In my observations of porn usage the consumer usually falls into one of two categories: Those in sexually healthy relationships who have lots of sex, and good sex at that, who use porn on occasion as just another aspect of their sexuality together; and those that don’t have a healthy and abundant sex life that use porn as a replacement for what they don’t have.

The latter category uses porn to fulfill something that is missing in their life.  They may be in a committed relationship but feel unfulfilled sexually, so they use porn to fulfill what they aren’t getting with their partner.

As a guy I can say with pretty good authority that men in relationships look at porn that portrays sex acts they are interested in but that they cannot fulfill with their partner, or their partner won’t consider fulfilling for them.  This may range from any sex at all, to sex acts such as cumshots, threesomes, group sex, anal sex and many others.  Porn has evolved from mainstream penis-in-vagina to all sorts of niches.  Being successful in any business entails filling a need in the marketplace.  See a need, fill a need (no pun intended).  If the market for porn, and niche porn categories at that, wasn’t there the porn makers wouldn’t waste time and money making it.

But it is there.

There are enough men and some women out there that aren’t getting the amount of sex they need (though statistically men are the largest porn consumers), or of the type that turns them on, that porn has become the multi-billion dollar business it is today.

I feel that some of this also arises from supply and demand of willing partners.  If a woman is sexually unsatisfied at home it’s not too hard to find a willing man that will have sex with her, regardless of whether she is married or not.  However for men, especially married men, finding women willing to just have sex with them is a bit more difficult.  There just aren’t as many women out there willing to just get their rocks off with a married man as there are men out there willing to get their rocks off with a married woman.

So men turn to the next best outlet: The Internet and internet porn.

You see this all the time by the number of “single” men that are really married men cruising Craigslist and swingers dating sites for a quick hook-up; looking for an outlet for their sexual Self that their wife just doesn’t give them for one reason or another.

And the story is always the same: “I love my wife but she just doesn’t fulfill me sexually”.  Whether it’s the kind of sex that turns them on, the sexual variety they are looking for with her (she only does it in the missionary position) or simply enough sex, or any sex.

In her defense, she (and their relationship) was sabotaged from the beginning, from the time they were just children.  They are taught by conservative religious leaders and parents that sex outside of marriage is wrong, filthy and nasty and not enjoyable, but once you get married it will be okay and you’ll have better sex than those pre-marital sex heathens could possibly ever imagine.  You’ll have “soulgasms” with your spouse.

But the message that really sinks in is that sex “is wrong, filthy and nasty”.  You can’t put conditions on sexuality.  It is either good or bad. It was “bad” but now it’s “good”.  You can’t program a girl from the moment she’s born that if she has sex she’s a slut and like a used piece of bubblegum no one else will want you, but now that there’s a ring on your finger you’re not a slut and it’s all okay.

It’s not.  When sex is one of the biggest issues in divorce cases it just goes to show that many sexually incompatible people are getting married just to have sex and when it isn’t the “soulgasms” they were promised they are disillusioned and start looking for compatible sex, good sex, elsewhere: other people’s beds or internet porn.

Twenty-some years of programming just can’t be undone in the single moment a ring is slipped on her finger and the words “I do” are spoken.  Sex will always feel wrong and make her feel guilty, especially if she enjoys it.  In fact, enjoying it may just increase the guilt and confusion since it goes against everything she was told up to that moment.

And Utah is very politically conservative and very sexually conservative.  69% of young people are taught that sex is “wrong” outside of marriage (the bubblegum analogy above is a Mormon one).  I feel for this reason many young people get married just to have sex, so that they can justify their sexual longings and fight-off the guilt about it that has been browbeat into them from the day they were born.  They confuse being horny for someone with being in love with them.

I also think that this one of the big reasons marriages last five to seven years, because that’s how long it takes for the lust goggles to lose their rosy tint and real life to set-in (especially after children come along and sex is less frequent) and people wake-up one morning realizing that outside of having parts that fit together they would never had chosen to spend their life with this person were they not drunk on hormones at the time.

So Utahans (and other sexually repressed people) are getting married for sex, and when it isn’t all that it was cracked-up to be many of the men turn to porn to fulfill what is missing in their marriage; what they were promised they would have if they just walked the conservative, repressed straight-and-narrow.

That is why Utah and the other 7 conservative states in the top 10 are the largest consumers of paid porn in the nation.  That is the duck that everyone is saying isn’t a duck.

In short, those of us with happy, healthy sex lives aren’t looking at a lot of porn because we’re too busy having sex for real.

Yup, you read that right.  Recently I read this exact question posted on an online advice columnist: “My husband asked me for a threesome, is this grounds for divorce?”

Unfortunately this is how many people think.  They are so afraid of their significant others fantasies that they immediately jump to the most extreme response possible.

If I was answering this question I’d of said: “No, his asking isn’t grounds for divorce, but your reaction to his expressing himself is grounds for him to divorce you.”

Harsh?  Maybe.  But this isn’t even really about threesomes.  It’s about a lack of honest and open communication in a relationship, which is the number one issue that eventually leads to anger and resentment and divorce.

This is all due to the lack of a safe and secure atmosphere within the relationship that a person’s feelings and fantasies can be revealed.  All too often doing so triggers insecurity and jealousy and the ensuing anger, hurt and the defense mechanism, belittling, that they get from their partner.  Things nobody wants to experience.  So it’s safer to just not say anything at all.  Eventually the resentment builds and they strike-out on their own, either through divorce or cheating, to fulfill their fantasies and live their life.  The life their significant other is too jealous to live with them, or even listen to.

We hear this all the time, especially from married men that contact us through swinger dating sites we belong to (that might just be because men so actively seek sex, especially through swingers sites). It’s always the same old story: “I love my wife, but she is just too prudish, reserved, doesn’t like sex, doesn’t like the same kind of sex I do” etc., etc., etc. And one of the most read topics on The Swingers Board is the “How do I talk to my spouse about swinging” threads.  Taken a step further, that could be: “How do I talk to my spouse about any sexual fantasy I have without having them reject me and make me feel stupid for having them.”

It’s always amazed me how people will be more open with complete strangers about their darkest sexual secrets then they will be (can be?) with their spouse, the one person they should be able to talk to about anything.

Being secure enough in yourself to not be threatened by your partner’s sexual fantasies is a paramount of a sexually happy and satisfying relationship.  Being open to hearing your partner’s fantasies without judgment or jealousy doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do those things, it just means you have to validate them and not make them feel that they can’t talk with you about them.

Again, lack of communication (and the willingness of someone else to listen) is the biggest cause of cheating and the resulting emotional trauma associated with it when the cheated spouse finds out.

But, until people can get over themselves, this will continue to be a huge issue with romantic relationships.

~ Lucius Scribbens

I am on one today.  I’m on MySpace and there all all these “Sponsored Links” for finding someone to cheat on your significant other with.  Every once in a while this kind of stuff gets me going.  The way general society treats cheating as “normal” but having a relationship where you are honest with your significant other and you’re sexually open, emotionally open, or both as “abnormal”.

I see this when I rummage around Yahoo! Answers.  Those that are not only opposed to open relationships, but go out of their way to say cruel things to the question asker when the topic of an open relationship (threesomes, swinging, polyamory, etc.) are brought-up.  Yet, you can take 10 of those people and statistically know that about 4 of them have, are, or will cheat on their significant other.  And at least 4 of them could be currently being cheated on because of their prudish attitudes toward sex and their partner’s dissatisfaction with their sex life yet think they are in a monogamous relationship.

Society  accepts cheating, to the point where helping people do so has become profitable and ethical enough that mediums like MySpace and radio accept money for their advertising.  Stuff like this:

LonelyHousewives.com: Married Women Dating — Find Married Women Who Want a Date. View Profiles 100% Free. Join Now!

AshleyMadison.com Life is short. Have an affair.

AdultFriendFinder.com: Find a married woman to fuck in your area tonight.

MeetaWife.net: Unhappily Married Women Seeking a Male Buddy. Join Free & Browse!

MarriedButPlaying.com

HousewivesMatch.com: Meet Lonely Housewives –Search 1000s of Local Ads. Join Now

MarriedFlirtation.com: Meet married women for casual encounters

And more.

It’s funny, MySpace will delete your profile if you openly advertise you are a “swinger” or some other form of adult open relationship, yet they’ll allow sponsored links for online cheating services.  I guess money talks louder than ethics, and people don’t pay money to have profiles on MySpace, but advertisers do pay.

I think the common link here though is all these ads are aimed at men.  Do a Google search for “Cheating Men” or “Cheating Husband” and you get a whole different set of results.  Instead of the links being about finding someone to cheat with, the links are all about how to catch a cheating husband, because society loves the story of a wronged woman.

I digress though.  That is probably another post in itself.

The point here being that cheating is considered by general society as being a part of life, a part of being in a relationship.  But being honest and open about needing more than what just one person can provide emotionally, physically, etc., is taboo and alternative, and in the eyes of most: just dirty and wrong.

People will say things like “Did you know so-and-so is cheating on their partner?” and that’s about the end of the conversation.  If the conversation starts with “I heard so-and-so are swingers.” it’s a whole different story though.

For instance, I doubt almost anybody in the private sector has lost a job because they were cheating on their spouse, unless of course it was with someone they worked with and it caused a workplace problem (hell, even my ex-wife or her lover didn’t get fired from that).  But plenty have been fired for being swingers or being in polyamorous relationships.

I was thinking about this as I was on Facebook.  Facebook comes-up almost first on a Google search for my name.  So if I join a facebook group supporting GLBT issues or polyamory or open relationships of any type I could in theory prevent myself from getting a new job if some HR person does a quick Google search on me and they don’t agree with my politics, religion or lifestyle.

Kind of scary stuff when society will scorn you for having an honest relationship where you are allowed to enjoy the company of other people, yet will financially reward companies that promote dishonesty and cheating on your significant other.

So today I am catching-up on my MySpace messages and such and a sponsored link on the right side of my screen is for AffairMatch.com. “Affairs Made Simple” proclaims the headline, and it goes on to advertise: “Married Men & Women Seeking Affairs. Discreet Online Forum. Free Sign Up”

Now on MySpace such an ad doesn’t really surprise me since so many people use MySpace to hook-up with other people, and one of the most commonly asked questions I see on Yahoo! Answers is “I found my partner has a secret profile on MySpace and their relationship status is ’single’. What do you think that means?” Plus, Mrs. Scribbens constantly gets emails from supposedly single guys on her MySpace, and nowhere on there does it elude to the fact that we have an open relationship. Both our MySpace profiles are totally vanilla and non-sexual in nature to protect our secret identities. But I guess these guys still think “What the fuck, it doesn’t hurt to ask, right?” And the correspondence to her always go the same route:

Stranger: Are you married?

Mrs. Scribbens: Yes

Stranger: Are you HAPPILY married?

Mrs. Scribbens: Yes

Stranger: Woud you like to meet anyway?

And it just goes down hill from there.

But MySpace actually allowing advertising that promotes it’s usage as a free cheater’s dating site just rubs me the wrong way. Especially since so many teenagers use it and could see the same sponsored links. What is this saying to them? What it’s saying is “It’s okay to lie and cheat, but not to be honest and open with your partner about your feelings, wants and needs.”

Does that surprise me? No. In my experience I’ve seen that most people can not be honest and open with their partner – the one person in the world they should be able to be the most open and honest with – because of the fear of their response: jealousy, anger, resentment. So they will be more honest with complete strangers than with their own partner. No wonder so many people say things after many years together like “I don’t feel I really even know you?”; “Why won’t you let me in?”. Well, experience has taught them that being honest and open with their partner about their fantasies always causes problems. They become insecure, jealous and defensive – “WHAT?! AM I NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?!” And the fighting and hurt feelings start from there. And then they bitch to their friends about it:

“Why won’t he/she open-up to me? Why won’t he tell me his dreams and feelings and fantasies?”

Well, let me tell you why. Because whenever they do you become all insecure and butt-hurt and then at a later date use what they opened-up to you about to emotionally kick them in the balls whenever you are feeling insecure and butt-hurt again!

So it’s easier to just say nothing until years down the road a couple drifts apart because “they don’t really know each other” and they the find someone new and start the same destructive cycle all over again.

The funny thing is, according to virtually every study nearly 35% of women and 40% of men cheat on each other. And according to one study (I wish I could find where I filed it so I could reference it for you) 60% of women and 70% of men think about cheating and probably would if the opportunity arose and they knew they would never be caught.

So based on this fact alone, nearly 40% of couples do have an open relationship, just one member of the relationship is unaware of it.

So how many really do have open and honest open relationships of one nature or another? It’s hard to pinpoint a figure. I my experience and research the number that pops-up most commonly is 20% of all committed couples dabble in, or have an ongoing open relationship. This can be anywhere from trying a one-time threesome to dating others openly, swinging and polyamory.

Add this figure to the number cheating on each other and you find that 60% of all committed couples have an open relationship of some sort, and another 20% to 30% would if they thought their partner would go for it or they thought they could do it behind their partner’s back and get away with it.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep on living in bewilderment of those that would judge our open relationship while all the while cheating on, or thinking about cheating on their partner.