As hard up for cash as an aging stripper working the morning shift, the porn industry is down on its knees to get into bed with Washington’s well-endowed bailout program. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt says ^[1], “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion.”

Is this a publicity stunt? A bit of biting satire? An honest plea for help? Knowing Flynt, the answer is: yes, of course.

The irony here is that Flynt has spent his career fighting government, from his first (losing) battle against Ohio anti-porn crusader Charles Keating in 1976, all the way to the Supreme Court, in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell in 1988, and then a 2003 legal fight over — of course — obscenity charges in Hamilton County, Ohio. But today, Flynt’s battle seems to be over getting his snout shoved into the federal trough alongside Chrysler, General Motors, and the banking and mortgage industries in their entireties.

What happened?

Two things happened: the recession and the internet.

The pages of the New York Times, for example, might not contain much in the prurient interest (although fetishes do differ), but free services like Craig’s List have put a serious dent in the traditional newspaper business. Information, it is said, wants to be free. Maybe, maybe not; but people certainly act as though information should be free, or at least really, really cheap. Newspapers used to rely on classified ads to subsidize their newsrooms. Now with Craig’s List running classifieds for free, and all the free information on the internet in general, the newsrooms have to pay their own way.

To date, that’s not working out very well. The New York Times just took out a $225 million mortgage on its own headquarters — and in a real estate market so soft that not even a combination of Flynt’s hottest product and a 100 milligrams of Viagra could restore its vigor.

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.