Hustler’s Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild’s Joe Francis say they’ll ask Congress to hand out $5 billion to help the adult entertainment industry get back on its feet — or, perhaps more appropriately, back on its back.

The two say adult DVD sales and rentals have slipped 22 percent over the last year. While Internet porn traffic is growing steadily, the industry isn’t profiting enough, the two assert. They believe it needs support — “just to see us through hard times,” Francis says. (And yes, he really did use that adjective.)

Flynt said the following in a statement released Wednesday:

“People are too depressed to be sexually active. 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. 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.”

Congress has yet to issue any official response.

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