"Looking at the relative popularity of online adult entertainment among Utah consumers," he wrote in an e-mail exchange with the Deseret News, "one possibility is that Utah consumers find it difficult to obtain their desired adult entertainment through retail purchases. … As a result, Utah residents may be buying online (hence appearing in my dataset), whereas people elsewhere buy retail (hence not in my dataset).

And maybe, says Logan psychotherapist Todd Freestone, the fact that porn is not as visible in Utah makes it more enticing. "If you're seeing it all the time" in cities like Las Vegas, he says, "and it flashes up on your computer screen, then it's not that big a deal."

Utah's No. 1 ranking doesn't surprise Freestone, who works with sex offenders at his Comprehensive Treatment Clinic. Freestone has done searches on Google Trends, typing in words ranging from "swimsuits" to "naked girls," and found that Utah ranked No. 1 or 2 in most searches. A similar exercise by Deseret News reporter Lee Davidson in 2007 found that Utahns were more prone to search for words like "topless" and "pornography" (as well as "Jesus" and "home storage").

"The forbidden is really tempting," University of Utah sociology professor Theresa A. Martinez told Davidson. "Where you have a culture that is known for family values, morality and apple pie, you will also have curiosity and interest in the forbidden."

E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com