An interesting study fell into my inbox on the pornography industry and its link to politics.

Over here red states are Republican party territory and blue states are the core of the Democratic movement. Broadly speaking the blues take the east and west coasts and the red the interior territory.

Now a researcher at Harvard Business School has conducted a survey based on a few years worth of credit card receipts from an internet pornographer and discovered some interesting results. The more conservative the state, the more likely it is that they sign up to porn.

This was more than a little unusual. After all, Republicans call themselves Values Voters - people more concerned with morality than live and let live. Nevertheless the state with the highest demographic of pornography sign ups was Utah, the reddest of the red policially. In fact eight out of 10 states that had the most pornography subscribers voted for John McCain.

It would be easy to decry this as conservative hypocrisy but, as my colleague pointed out, perhaps the answer is more complex. The blue staters may just be more tech-savvy and have learnt how to steal this stuff...