Adult Entertainment Industry Wants a Bailout
FOX BUSINESS
With the financial industry, auto makers and more getting assistance from the federal government to stay afloat during the recession, the adult industry decided it would try to get something as well.
Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis and “Hustler” magazine publisher Larry Flynt have said they will petition Congress for financial aid along the lines of what the Big Three auto makers are getting.
Francis said that he and Flynt are asking for $5 billion, and that they have sent letters to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Congress and their local Congressman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) with the proposal. Rep. Waxman's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
With the $5 billion, they would "invest in building new means of distribution, and shoring up our distribution right now to prevent further erosion from factors like Youporn and other Internet content that has seriously affected our business over the past few years," Francis said in an interview with FOX Business. "We will use the money wisely, and we will create more jobs."
Francis said that if invited, he and Flynt would drive across the country in a hybrid vehicle to present their plans to Congress.
The press release noted that DVD sales and rentals for the adult industry have decreased by 22% in the past year, partially because people are turning more and more to the Internet for adult content.
"People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in the press release. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."
Francis said he and Flynt would also be willing to discuss the possibility of the government buying equity stakes in their companies, as was done with financial firms.
"If the government would like to be a partner with Mr. Flynt and I, we’re certainly amenable to it," he said.
Flynt's representative said he was unavailable to comment for this article beyond the press release.
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Oh...my...GOD.
Congress sure has opened up feeding time at the trough!!!
First of all, people are not too depressed to have sex. Much like newspapers, why do people need to buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? (I.E. the internet)
Mr. Francis wants to create jobs, but I want to know how much the girls he is filming at bars are getting paid? We don't need more porn stars. We need teachers, doctors, factory workers, and engineers.
Mr. Flynt and Mr. Francis are not at a lack of clients to produce work for them. They are at a lack of audience because sex has simply evolved as far as entertainment goes. People want it to be REAL. They don't want to sit at home locked up in their bathroom with a stash of magazines or holed up in their room with a shoe box full of softcore teenage girls making out with one another at bars they shouldn't be in. They don't need the magazines anymore because the smut they have peddled for years is available at any bar or college party live and in the flesh for free. How many more Girls Gone Wild commercials can people possibly see at 1am on Comedy Central before they realize that it is the same video over and over, just different girls doing the same promiscuous and disgusting acts?
Mr. Flynt and Mr. Francis represent a great portion of what is wrong with our society. They are part of the reason that parents are receiving phone calls that their daughter was spotted on a late night television commercial masturbating on a tour bus with twinkling stars covering her privates. They are part of the reason that men and women no longer respect one another. They are part of the reason that monogamy is met with a shrug.
The success that they have had in their industry was bound to eventually be their undoing. What was once taboo has steamrolled into a fantasy world come to life where people live free of inhibition and consequence. It begins, like most things, in baby steps. Photos of girls in bikinis slightly more revealing than the ones in style last year. That turns into girls topless but with hair covering their breasts. Then it becomes completely topless, since the side breast view became acceptable. Now, 55 years since Playboy was founded in December of 1953, people have lost their shock value when it comes to sex.
No one is surprised when they hear the phrase "donkey show" with a video to prove it really happened. (And if you don't know what that is, I advise you to keep it that way.)
Mr. Flynt and Mr. Francis do NOT deserve our tax dollars. Not when our society has come to the point where the Nativity Scene and mentioning Jesus is frowned upon, but nudity on cable television is "freedom of expression and speech." Not when an "art" exhibit featuring aborted babies is protected by the First Amendment, but I am not allowed to pray in public if I choose because it would offend people. Not when people like Code Pink are allowed to call our troops that protect their freedoms terrorists and murderers.
I didn't sign on to bail out AIG. I didn't sign up to bail out banks that I don't support because I work for one that has not gone under. I didn't sign up to bail out the auto industry because I don't feel that I should have to keep paying Chrysler after my Dodge Neon is paid off in March. So why should you and I have to pay for smut that is killing our culture, our traditions, and our values?