A Bailout for the Porn Industry?
Larry Flynt comes a-calling for his share of Washington’s great big stimulus package. (Also read Roger Kimball: Why Satire Suffers — An Example from the “Adult Entertainment” Industry.)
Something similar has happened to the traditional porn publishing industry. DVD sales — a staple of porn profits for a decade — have bit the big one in recent years. And careful research performed by yours truly has found a wealth of amateur porn on the web, much of it free. Like newspapers unable to compete with Craig’s List, high-priced adult stars are getting shafted by willing amateurs.
Printed porn is virtually extinct already, or at least on its way out the door. Playboy’s circulation has dropped from millions in its ‘70s heyday to barely half a million today. Penthouse, a mainstay for more than 30 years, went bankrupt and switched over to an all-virtual format. All this happened back in 2003, making (now-former) publisher Bob Guccione a virtual pioneer in the land soon to be inhabited by news publishing titans like Tribune Company and the Sulzberger family. The troubles created by the internet will only be accelerated by the recession.
Already this year, the nation’s financial capital and automaking capital have moved to Washington, DC, from their respective former homes in New York and Detroit. It might prove fitting if the porn industry found its new digs in the land of Larry “Wide Stance” Craig, Bill “I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman” Clinton, Deborah Jeane “The DC Madam” Palfrey, Mark “Virtual Sex” Foley, Barney “Male Prostitutes” Frank, Gary “Monkey Business” Hart, Wayne “Hired His Mistress” Hays, Wilbur “Diving Stripper” Mills, Dick “Suck My Toes” Morris, Eliot “Just Visiting” Spitzer, David “DC Madam Customer” Vitter, and Robert “Packwood” Packwood. Looking at this list, it’s obvious Washington has been subsidizing sex for years. So if the condom fits, wear it.
(Of course, also looking at that list, it’s hard not to think that Ohio has a surfeit of obscenity prosecutors and that Washington has too few.)
But what’s Flynt’s angle? The money shot might be this quote from his prepared statement, where he says, “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.” [Emphasis added.] That emphasized bit is such a bold thrust of in-your-face repulsiveness that it’s extremely hard not to think he isn’t putting us on, and Washington, too — and especially all the corporations that have already willingly suckled on the government teat.
Flynt’s statement certainly plays like brilliant satire. He’s gotten himself national attention for the first time in what feels like weeks, at least. If Washington does somehow end up writing a bunch of big, swinging checks to the porn industry — well, you can bet Flynt wouldn’t have any trouble cashing them. And — who knows? — Washington might even have enough billions to pay for Flynt’s lawyers.
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Stephen Green writes, broadcasts, and enjoys the occasional lovely adult beverage at the home he shares with his wife and son in Monument, Colorado.
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34 Comments
1. Shef Rogers:Flynt is one of the few Americans who’s put it all on the line and paid a terrible price for freedom. He was shot and paralyzed by a religious fanatic. Imagine what that was like for a hyperactive type like him and have a little respect.
Jan 8, 2009 - 11:43 am 2. BMoon:The whole thing reads like some tawdry modern porn flick with Larry, Wall St., politicians playing the part of the sleazy lustful milkman, the meter reader, the pool boy, the dog walker, while the U.S taxpayer plays the part of the skanky, half-witted floozie getting it in the backside at her upper middle-class suburban home.
Jan 8, 2009 - 11:53 am 3. momof3:Oh dear god. It would be such a loss if a porn company went under. less smut, what would the world do? And no, no respect here for Flynt. A man who literally treats women like pieces of meat? He deserved more than a shot in the back. A shot in the groin would have been a better start, if not end.
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:11 pm 4. don:so, the consumer is tapped out, borrowed out, and taxed out; the private sector is wilting and government largess can’t continue picking up the slack via the printing press. Solution? Free Viagra for the over the hill bunch; cardiac arrest in the saddle, also known as weekend specials, should cut down the baby boomers sucking on the social security teat. Legalize prostitution and tax it; next to politics, it is the oldest business in the world. Then legalize all drugs and tax that consumption too: the over doses will reduce the carbon footprint. Buy up the Afghan poppy crop and starve the Taliban’s black market revenue source, and then outsource America’s prison population to Afghanistan. I’m sure we can house a twenty-five to lifer for a dollar a day in Kabul. There’s more than one way to skin a fiscal crisis of the state.
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:12 pm 5. kevin c:Larry (skin) Flynt and Joel Francis of “lesbianism gone wild”. Well , if you pron pukes want a “bailout” id suggest then you follow what everyone else who takes govt $ has to go thru. First, the EPA has to make sure your “green” enough. thats 3 hours of paper work per day skin Flynt. Then OSHA has to make sure your “workplace” is “safe”. Thats means no cameras to get you sued for sexual harassment there Mr Francis. of course, it also means youd have a tough time selling your soft porn trash also. Then of course, the EOC will be hanging around just tomake sure you both have complied with AFFIRMATIVE CONTAMINATION rules. And especially you Mr Francis, you will have to bus all those minority gals from the bad side of town just to be “fair”. Just wanted to let you scum know what you have to look forward to taking govt bailout $. Hope you enjoy your “profits” being “eaten” by the “bailout brothers”.
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:16 pm 6. Stephen Green:Shef,
Matter of fact, I’ve got nothing but respect for Flynt — although a little less so for his product. In any case, I thought that came through. If not, then that’s my bad.
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:20 pm 7. G Alston:“Flynt’s statement certainly plays like brilliant satire.”
Ummm… it IS.
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:40 pm 8. Pat J:More porn, less war?
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:46 pm 9. Staring In Disbelief:It’s GOTTA be satire! It’s too hilarious to be accidental.
Jan 8, 2009 - 12:52 pm 10. LesG:Hey Larry!
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:01 pm 11. jerryofva:Congress has your stimulus package for you…bend over!
Come on folks, Flynt is scumbag but politically he is more of a libertarian then anything else. He is engaged in a grand form of political satire. He is also enough of a hustler that if Congress or some other body doesn’t get the ridicule and comes up with some money he isn’t going to turn it down.
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:02 pm 12. Marie Claude:Do the American guis have no work anymore ? cuz I read that they were surfing on porn sites during their working hours uh oh LMAO
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:49 pm 13. Mark:Of course it’s satire; it would be silly to assume otherwise. And, he makes a very valid point: the bailout money is _all_ mere theft, and it’s essentially none of our business how it’s spent (as any thief would treat money stolen from us).
Jan 8, 2009 - 1:50 pm 14. Matt, Esq.:Probably better people to take the moral high ground then Larry Flynt.
Jan 8, 2009 - 2:10 pm 15. Cybergeezer:Lucky for us Bill Clinton’s not in office today.
Jan 8, 2009 - 2:15 pm 16. ReConUSMC:Those who really need to be “Bailed out ” are Americans like my self that Paid my Bills on time , House payments , Taxes and have never gotten anything from The Fed. State or Local Govt. .
Jan 8, 2009 - 2:30 pm 17. John B:Not to mention I gave my Country 6 years of my Life in the USMC almost getting killed in Nam .
Unlike those being bailed out I had very Conservative Stocks in my retirement funds but that didn’t stop me from losing 60 % of my entire retirement funds . 34 Years of saving and Boom ….. I am in deep S**T .
This was caused by Johnson ,Carter , Clinton and Liberals in Congress and their people they selected to run Freddy and Fanny into the ground . Not one of them is being Penalized for their fraud on tax payers and they are retooling the damn sub prime failure again ?
Those in Congress and those that bought those sub prime loans lost nothing not even their Jobs or retirement funds since they are guaranteed by the Fed. Govt. sadly .
Now they are going to keep the Homes they paid little or nothing on .
America is now a Socialist soon to be Marxist Nation .
Washington DC has been in the sex business all along,,, they’ve been screwing me for years, every April 15th.
Jan 8, 2009 - 5:15 pm 18. John Moore:I detest Larry Flynn, but I did enjoy this little bit of satire. What does it say about the government bailout when the porn pimps are selling their wares to the feds. It’s really a hoot.
BTW, The Charles Keating who first defeated Flynn is the same Charles Keating of the S&L fiasco.
Odd coincidence under the circumstances.
Jan 8, 2009 - 5:49 pm 19. Northern Light:I don’t know why everybody thinks this is a joke, the porn industry has to be saved.
Once upon a time America had a thing called manufacturing that provided exports and helped create a healthy economy. But political leaders decided to get rid of industry in America and sent the whole industry to Mexico. After a few years in Mexico, industry all went to China.
Now America has nothing to export, nothing that is, but porn. America can take comfort in the fact that although it claims the moral high ground over the rest of the world, is still the world’s largest producer of pornography. Pornography is about the only product America still exports. Even more important, it is about the only American made thing that Americans actually buy (besides guns).
If the porn industry is allowed to fail, America will lose its last exportable commodity. The US dollar will sink like a stone and the USA will go bankrupt because it won’t be able to meet the payments on its loans.
You can let Wall St. sink into the sea. Forget about the automobile makers. Nobody, even an American, would buy an American car. But for the sake of your children you can’t let the American porn industry die.
I wonder if silicone could be covered by Medicare.
Jan 8, 2009 - 5:52 pm 20. Jim Baker:The floodgate is now open, folks.
Jan 8, 2009 - 6:08 pm 21. chsw:Flynt and Francis will be waiting a long time for Waxman’s answer – because their names and addresses were withheld.
When the industry does not receive its bailout, I am looking forward to seeing the following headline: PORN BIZ GOES TITS UP.
chsw
Jan 8, 2009 - 6:41 pm 22. ARJIS:Why doesn’t the government bailout all of the victims of Bernie Madoff?
Wouldn’t that be a better use of the money?
Hey, its only $50 Billion right?
Jan 8, 2009 - 8:47 pm 23. Western Comfort:If Larry Flynt is an example of libertarianism in America, it only further serves to demonstrate the deleterious effect libertarian ideology has on our society.
Anyone with a pair of eyes and a brain can look and see what kind of effect a porn habit has upon one. Look at Ted Bundy and the other serial killers who got started by looking at ‘hardcore’ pornography. Look at the millions of men and women who have their lives either ruined or irrevocably changed for the worse by becoming lured in and addicted. And libertarianism defends pornographers? It makes me feel pretty ill (as someone personally affected by pornography) to see this ideology become more and more respected among the political right.
Jan 8, 2009 - 9:11 pm 24. G Alston:#18 Northern Light — “I wonder if silicone could be covered by Medicare.”
No, but it *is* a legitimate tax deduction for those in ‘the industry.’
Jan 8, 2009 - 9:22 pm 25. John Galt:Rev James David Manning of Atlah Worldwide refers to Obama as a Mac Daddy, so it seems only fitting that Obama would bail out his amigos in the porn industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khuu-RhOBDU
Jan 8, 2009 - 10:35 pm 26. Donna B.:Western Comfort — seems like a chicken/egg question to me. Does porn cause people problems or do people with problems seek out porn?
Whichever it is, it’s better to legalize and monitor than to prohibit so it goes underground. Same with the legalization of drugs.
Of course Flynt is making fun of the bailouts and thank goodness he is. The next industry asking for one will be compared to porn. This is good for the country.
Jan 8, 2009 - 10:42 pm 27. Trinidad. Adventist. Gay?!:Enough is enough. Will no one stand up? Is there no alternative to push?
Jan 9, 2009 - 7:14 am 28. TomJW:26. Donna B.:
Jan 8, 2009 – 10:42 pm
Just in time for the newspapers to start crying for a bailout too.
Jan 9, 2009 - 7:33 am 29. Bill Perron:Hey, I want a bailout too, my income dropped 4o% because of the economy, but because I work as an individual one man business the chance of that is about equal to Bin Laden appearing at the Hollywood Comedy Store and getting a standing ovation.
Jan 9, 2009 - 8:26 am 30. DaProf:Heck,
Jan 9, 2009 - 9:36 am 31. myth buster:It makes sense…we are all getting screwed, so the porn industry makes the most sense to be best at screwing …
There’s no dispute that porn and personal problems are a positive feedback loop (also known as a vicious cycle or death spiral), but that doesn’t mean bankrupting the pornographers won’t benefit society greatly.
Jan 9, 2009 - 10:19 pm 32. Mike:17. John B:- “Washington DC has been in the sex business all along,,, they’ve been screwing me for years, every April 15th.”
Amen to that! LOL!
Jan 10, 2009 - 5:54 am 33. fred:——————————————
You liberals need to pay lots of taxes cause someone needs to pay for all the free stuff Obama promised me!
I would imagine getting screwed by the porn industry would feel a lot better than being screwed by the government.
But all playing aside… The porn industry cannot claim to produce as many jobs and linkages with many industries all dependent on each others’ business. No tip in Larry Flynt’s begging bowl.
Jan 12, 2009 - 8:13 pm 34. Mike:Don’t you get it? The porn industry is not asking for a bailout. This is simply a political statement. Americans are stupid!
Jan 13, 2009 - 9:23 pm