The porn industry as represented by Larry Flynt and Joe Francis (of Hustler magazine and those Girls Gone Wild DVDS respectively) plan to ask for assistance from congress to help the adult film industry in these hard--erm, difficult--economic times. "With all this economic misery," Flynt said, "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."

Now, obviously--erm, hopefully--this is a ploy to highlight the absurdity of asking for handouts from the government. The porn industry, as one of the largest accumulators of wealth in this country is as "entitled" as any other industry could ever claim to be to request money to sustain itself. However, it seems to make less sense to give them money than banks or automakers. Perhaps it's morals--America's puritanical streak--maybe it's the idea of giving to such an underground phenomenon (you don't show off your new porn DVDs quite like a new Lexus), then again it might just be the simple idea that there's no way that sex and it's variations could be in danger of collapsing. Whatever the reason for the hesitancy to give to the porn industry, even "Flynt and Francis concede the industry itself is in no financial danger."

That's all well, and fine, and absurd enough as anything else but I think the most interesting part of this story deals with the idea of "congress rejuvenating the sexual appetite of America." It reminds me of a novel by the name of The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess. In it a government that is trying to save the country/world from terrible maladies of poverty, overpopulation, and shortages. In it, the government realizes that to control people, one must first control their numbers, which is to say to control birth, thus, sex. As the government gets more repressive Burgess shows the picture of man and his State in the extreme manner which he is known for. Heavy doses of homosexuality as good, cannibalism as viable, infanticide as nutrition for the earth, and wars fought literally against nobody, show just exactly the State ultimately entails taken to its logical conclusion.

But, the main character, Tristram Foxe gives this excellent lecture (he is a history teacher) on the cycles of government which I quote below (all ... indicate that I have removed text):

"One achievement of the Anglo-Saxon race ... was parliamentary government, which eventually meant government by party. Later, when it was found that the work of government could be carried on more expeditiously without debate and without the opposition that party government entailed, the nature of the cycle began to be recognized. ...  Now  ... here is how the cycle works. ... We have the a Pelagian phase. Then we have an intermediate phase. ... This leads into an Augustian phase. ... Pelphase, Interphase, Gusphase, Pelhpase, Interphase, Gusphase, and so on, for ever and ever. A sort of perpetual waltz. We must now consider what motive power makes the wheel turn.

"In the first place, let us remind ourselves what Pelagianism stand for. A government functioning in its Pelagian phase commits itself to the belief that man is perfectible, that perfection can be achieved by his own efforts, and that the journey towards perfection is along a straight road. Man wants to be perfect. He wants to be good. The citizens of the community want to co-operate with their rulers, and so there is no real need to have devices of coercion, sanctions, which will force them to co-operate. Laws are necessary, of course, for no single individual, however good and co-operative, can have precise knowledge of the total needs of the community. Laws point the way to an emergent pattern of social perfection--they are guides. But because of the fundamental thesis that the citizen's desire is to behave like a good social animal, not like a selfish beast of the waste wood, it is assumed that the laws will be obeyed. Thus, the Pelagian state does not think it necessary to erect an elaborate punitive apparatus. Disobey the law and you will be told not to do it again or fined a couple of crowns. Your failure to obey does not spring from Original Sin, it's not an essential part of the human fabric. It's a mere flaw, something that will be shed somewhere along the road to final human perfection. Is that clear? ...

"Well, then, in the Pelagian phase of Pelphase, the great liberal dream seems capable of fulfilment. The sinful acquisitive urge is lacking, brute desires are kept under rational control. The private capitalist, for instance, a figure of top-hatted greed, has no place in a Pelagian society. Hence the State controls the means of production, the State is the only boss. But the will of the State is the will of the citizen, hence the citizen is working for himself. No happier form of existence can be envisaged. Remember, however, ... remember that the aspiration is always some way ahead of the reality. What destroys the dream? ... Disappointment. Disappointment. Disappointment. ...

"The governors ... become disappointed when they find that men are not as good as they thought they were. Lapped in their dream of perfection, they are horrified when the seal is broken and they see people as they really are. It becomes necessary to try and force the citizens into goodness. The laws are reasserted, a system of enforcement of those laws is crudely and hastily knocked together. Disappointment opens up a vista of chaos. There is irrationality, there is panic. When the reason goes, the brute steps in. Brutality! ... Beatings-up. Secret police. Torture in brightly lighted cellars. Condemnation without trial. Finger-nails pulled out with pincers. The rack. The cold-water treatment. The gouging-out of eyes. The firing-squad in the cold dawn. And all this because of disappointment. The Interphase. ...

"But ... the Interphase cannot, of course, last for ever. ... Shock ... the governors become shocked at their own excesses. They find that they have been thinking in heretical terms--the sinfulness of man rather than his inherent goodness. They relax their sanctions and the result is complete chaos. But, by this time, disappointment cannot sink any deeper. Disappointment can no longer shock the state into repressive action, and a kind of philosophical pessimism supervenes. In other words, we drift into the Augustinian phase, the Gusphase. The orthodox view presents man as a sinful creature from whom no good at all may be expected. A different dream, gentlemen, a dream which, again, outstrips the reality. It eventually appears that human social behaviour is rather better than any Augustinian pessimist has a right to expect, and so a sort of optimism begins to emerge. And so Pelagianism is reinstated. We are back in the Pelphase again. The wheel has come full circle."

So, let me see: Porn, check; government handouts, check; dystopian British fiction, check; and long quote, check. Looks like I nailed the essentials. Taking that last sentence as a pun, that is exactly the situation: right now in America, it seems that many people are cutting the excess and getting down to the basics. If that means sex with the wife rather than a new Jenna Jameson tape, so be it. It is about time that we realize that we can't have a six bedroom house, a new car every year, and a sizable porn collection. But I think most importantly, it is about time that we realize that it is ridiculous that we should think we could. This latest stunt by the porn industry has shown this absurdity wonderfully.