As the global economic downturn continues, the American adult industry has – like the country’s car makers – asked the government for $5bn of financial aid. Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis and Hustler’s Larry Flynt (pictured) are petitioning the newly convened 111th Congress for the sum “Just to see us through hard times,” Francis said.
He added: “Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation’s most important businesses. We feel we deserve the same consideration. In difficult economic times, Americans turn to entertainment for relief. More and more, the kind of entertainment they turn to is adult entertainment.”
And although some media reports have claimed that consumers are turning to adult entertainment to lift their spirits during the economic gloom, Flynt feels the recession has acted more like a national cold shower. “People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt stated. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex.”
US DVD sales and rentals have reportedly decreased by 22% in the past year, and the $5bn figure requested represents the decline in revenues the industry has experienced from its figures of three years ago.
“With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind,” Flynt added. “It’s time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.”
“The popularity of adult entertainment in America has grown steadily for the past half century,” Francis concluded. “Its emergence into the mainstream of popular culture suggests that the US government should actively support the adult industry’s survival and growth, just as it feels the need to support any other industry cherished by the American people.”
Some cynics have suggested the request, made as the 2009 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo opens in Las Vegas, is little more than a publicity stunt. If that is true then it certainly seems to have worked as the story has been picked up by many national and international media outlets
