Joe Francis, creator of the pornographic Girls Gone Wild video series, and Larry Flynt, founder of the sexually explicit Hustler magazine, are apparently to ask Congress for a $5 billion bailout, claiming that, with XXX DVD sales down by 22 per cent, the pornography industry is in need of support during the current recession.

I spent Christmas with friends and relatives in California and heard a number of people objecting to the $17.4 billion bailout of General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC, asking where the government's financial rescue efforts would end. Now we know! Flynt is quoted as saying, "With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It's time for Congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America."

Since this sounds like an early April Fool's joke, it is clearly an exercise in free self-promotion and any request will undoubtedly be rejected by Congress. However, if it is true that the porn industry is suffering a downturn, perhaps our present economic woes will be to society's benefit. After all, just because people are spending less money on sexual titillation and on gratifying their sexual desires doesn't mean they are any less interested in sex. Perhaps some will find their passions can be equally, if not better, satisfied in the context of genuine relationships. Perhaps they will even discover the joys of true intimacy. Perhaps, for some, even the spiritual reality that results from two forever becoming 'one flesh'.

In truth, the pornography industry is not about to disappear. We might yet hope, however, that at least parts of society might take the chance afforded by the current recession to rejuvenate their lifestyles and interpersonal relationships in the coming weeks and months.

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