Porn Moguls Ask For Bailout

It's the water cooler story of the day: "Porn industry seeks federal bailout!"

As CNN reported late yesterday, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild's Joe Francis, in a move that has been effective in generating publicity for both, have vowed to "request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry."

Flynt spokesman Owen Moogan gave CNN an odd comment explaining the nature of "the take here."

"...everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” he said. “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”

Francis, meanwhile, released a statement in which he said 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."

That wasn't the last of the memorable comments. More from Flynt, via CNN:

"People are too depressed to be sexually active," he said. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."

"With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind," he continued in his statement. "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."

As CNN notes, the porn industry is not presently in danger of collapsing.