Super Bowl and porn? Do these two things correlate?
This article is from The A21 Campaign, written by Jessica, a research intern who hails from South Africa.
As a foreigner living in the US, I have a number of rather amusing tales stored in my mental library. Indeed, I am quite sure I frightened my driving teacher out when I called traffic lights “robots” (his foot immediately shot on the break as he glanced at me apprehensively).
Yet, by and large, my most embarrassing cultural hiccup happened when I called the Super Bowl the Super Plate. Yes, you read correctly, the Super Plate. The stadium floor is flat, so you cannot blame me...at least, not really.
Yet whether or not the stadium floor is a plate or a bowl, it has a dirty underbelly, and one more and more people are being forced to recognise (alas, I know I use “s” instead of “z”...another one of my cultural oddities).
Dubbed by news presenters as the “most watched” sporting event across the globe, in recent times the Super Bowl’s relationship to human sex trafficking has attracted a lot of controversy.
A number of news articles have even argued that there is no evidence of a spike in human trafficking associated with America’s favourite sporting attraction (yes... I know you don’t use “u” either).
But, over my third morning coffee, I came across a rather interesting, if disturbing, article (I say third coffee because I just woke up, am a coffee addict, and it takes three just to get my brain functioning on a reasonably decent level).
According to as Pornhub’s recent statistics, there does seem to be a relationship between large sporting events such as the Super Bowl and a increased demand for sexual gratification amongst sports fans.
The international pornography site recently released information on pre-game, game and post-game pornography-watching statistics, showing that there was significant increase in viewers in areas with a high percentage of unhappy Bronco fans (post the game on Sunday, which, I will admit, I stopped watching after five minutes due to the fact that I had no clue what in the world everyone was doing).
It seems obvious that some people use pornography as a 'fix' for feeling down, a way of generating endorphins to overcome the sad feeling of losing. Perhaps this information can be used to teach men (I know, that's like an oxymoron) to find better ways of handling grief, disappointment and stress.
In regions with a large number of happy Seahawk fans, however, there was a notable drop in people watching porn online.
Whether or not these men or women were actually out and about soliciting prostitutes is another question for another study, but it is nevertheless interesting that sex and sport go hand in hand, although perhaps not in the way many people would assume.
Rather than the victors, it is was the disappointed Bronco fans that chose to alleviate their heartache through porn. And, regardless of the arguments over whether or not sporting events like the Super Bowl lead to a dramatic rise in trafficked victims, we ought to remind ourselves that human trafficking is an everyday evil that requires everyday solutions.
It’s up to us to provide those everyday solutions, which is why here at The A21 Campaign we believe, however audaciously, that together we can abolish human trafficking in the 21st century, one day at a time.
Please pray for A21 to be very successful in their effort against trafficking in humans, especially children.
This article is from The A21 Campaign, written by Jessica, a research intern who hails from South Africa.
 |
| Jessica, A21 Research Intern |
As a foreigner living in the US, I have a number of rather amusing tales stored in my mental library. Indeed, I am quite sure I frightened my driving teacher out when I called traffic lights “robots” (his foot immediately shot on the break as he glanced at me apprehensively).
Yet, by and large, my most embarrassing cultural hiccup happened when I called the Super Bowl the Super Plate. Yes, you read correctly, the Super Plate. The stadium floor is flat, so you cannot blame me...at least, not really.
Yet whether or not the stadium floor is a plate or a bowl, it has a dirty underbelly, and one more and more people are being forced to recognise (alas, I know I use “s” instead of “z”...another one of my cultural oddities).
Dubbed by news presenters as the “most watched” sporting event across the globe, in recent times the Super Bowl’s relationship to human sex trafficking has attracted a lot of controversy.
A number of news articles have even argued that there is no evidence of a spike in human trafficking associated with America’s favourite sporting attraction (yes... I know you don’t use “u” either).
According to as Pornhub’s recent statistics, there does seem to be a relationship between large sporting events such as the Super Bowl and a increased demand for sexual gratification amongst sports fans.
The international pornography site recently released information on pre-game, game and post-game pornography-watching statistics, showing that there was significant increase in viewers in areas with a high percentage of unhappy Bronco fans (post the game on Sunday, which, I will admit, I stopped watching after five minutes due to the fact that I had no clue what in the world everyone was doing).
It seems obvious that some people use pornography as a 'fix' for feeling down, a way of generating endorphins to overcome the sad feeling of losing. Perhaps this information can be used to teach men (I know, that's like an oxymoron) to find better ways of handling grief, disappointment and stress.
In regions with a large number of happy Seahawk fans, however, there was a notable drop in people watching porn online.
Whether or not these men or women were actually out and about soliciting prostitutes is another question for another study, but it is nevertheless interesting that sex and sport go hand in hand, although perhaps not in the way many people would assume.
Rather than the victors, it is was the disappointed Bronco fans that chose to alleviate their heartache through porn. And, regardless of the arguments over whether or not sporting events like the Super Bowl lead to a dramatic rise in trafficked victims, we ought to remind ourselves that human trafficking is an everyday evil that requires everyday solutions.
It’s up to us to provide those everyday solutions, which is why here at The A21 Campaign we believe, however audaciously, that together we can abolish human trafficking in the 21st century, one day at a time.
Please pray for A21 to be very successful in their effort against trafficking in humans, especially children.
No comments:
Post a Comment