First we learned that red states have more divorces than blue states. And it seems they tend to to have more teen pregnancies. And now it turns out they download more porn per broadband connection. Seeing a pattern here? Yeah, me, too. And these are the people who are worried about our morality? Maybe they should try out ours for a while. See how it works.I'm not entirely surprised. I'm not all that conversant with the red state culture, it's true. I've lived all my life either in New York City or some fifty miles away from it. We haven't gotten around much due to time, money and the fact that when we can go somewhere we tend to head to Western Massachusetts because couldn't possibly be a lot of better places to be in the world.
The closest we normally get to deep red is when we visit my mother-in-law in the Ocala area of purple Florida. The roadside billboards make fascinating reading for the uninitiated such as ourselves. Besides the ones touting tourist attractions the most ubiquitous by turns were huge ads for all manner of ultra-conservative Christian churches and Adult XXX diversions of one sort or another. That kind of says it all.
I think that you have to consider that one reason that red state social conservatives are the way they are is that they like it fine that way. The constant tension between sin and slavation can make every life a piece of epic poetry in a tortured sort of way. Can it be a coincidence that so much of the best American literature comes from the South? It could be all of a piece.
That was always the funniest thing to me too. When I was driving to see the billboards in Florida of all the Adult stops along the way.
ReplyDeleteIn South Carolina I had a delivery one morning early, as I drove down the road to get there I noticed a place along the road..all I saw was a small sign that read free coffee.. I made my stop and coming back pulled in, got my coffee and went inside to sit down. Was my face red when 2 "ladies" came in and said "Don't guess you want any company?". The guys were cracking up laughing at me.. Needless to say, I just said nope, not that way, but you are more than welcome to sit down and we can talk. I wasn't going to let on that I was embarassed...lol Just drank my coffee and went to my next stop...lol
But boy, was I...lol Had not a clue it was a House of Ill Repute as they used to say...lol There was nothing that said it..not a sign anything, just one of those things that was well known to the locals and to the drivers that ran that road all the time.. It is just out side Columbia, SC...
Oh, the stories...lol
OMG! Very funny.
ReplyDeleteI expected Alabama to be a little more twisted since there aren't even sex shops here. But I have to admit I was just GLEEFUL when I read that Utah has the distinction of being the porniest. I'll giggle about that for 2 weeks!
Utah doesn't have that Gothic mystique like the old south does, but it does have the frustration born of massive repression and the fact that they're not allowed to have multiple child brides, at least not legally.
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