Many industries have been hit hard by the recession, none more than the porn industry. But why? The lesson in that is something our President should be paying attention to.

The recession in the country is becoming a Depression in the porn industry. Some horror stories were included in an article in the LA Times:

For (Savannah) Stern, 23, the rapid decline of job opportunities in the porn business over the last year has been dramatic. She has gone from working four or five days a week to one and now has employers pressuring her to do male-female sex scenes for $700, a 30% discount from the $1,000 fee that used to be the industry standard.

Less than two years ago, Stern earned close to $150,000 annually, sometimes turned down work and drove a Mercedes-Benz CLK 350. Now she’s aggressively reaching out for jobs and making closer to $50,000 a year.

As for that Mercedes? She’s replacing it with a used Chevy Trailblazer — from her parents.

“The opportunities in this industry really are disappearing,” Stern said. “It’s extremely stressful.”

The poor thing.

But why? Is it because morality has made an unexpected comeback and Americans have turned their backs on porn. Nope. In fact, porn, sadly, has never been bigger. The answer is simple:

“It’s the free stuff that’s killing us, and that’s not going away,” said Dion Jurasso, owner of porn production company Combat Zone, which has seen its business fall about 50% in the last three years…

It seems that many of the biggest websites on the internet are porn based and offer their product for free. It’s hurting the porn stars and its even affecting the new technologies from being born.

The adult entertainment business, which was previously in the vanguard of home video, satellite and cable television and digital distribution, now finds itself leading the rest of the entertainment industry in losses from them.

“The death of the DVD business has been more accelerated in the adult business than mainstream,” said Bill Asher, co-chairman of adult industry giant Vivid Entertainment, who estimates that his company’s revenue is down more than 20% this year.

“We always said that once the Internet took off, we’d be OK,” he added. “It never crossed our minds that we’d be competing with people who just give it away for free.”

So let’s just get this straight. If an entity is giving away something for free, companies that actually charge for similar services will be hurt terribly, hurting it’s employees, and stifling new technology in that industry.

Hmmmm. President Obama are you listening?

When President Obama promises that if you like your plan you can keep your plan he’s leaving out the fact that there likely won’t be a plan offered to you anymore. It would be just as ridiculous for the President to say if you like your porn you can keep your porn. It’s just not in his control. And the truth is that as long as some amateur on the internet is giving it away for free, who’s gonna’ pay?

Once the government offers healthcare for “free,” private insurers will be hurt and likely run out of business. You can’t compete with free. Just ask any porn star.

Just as some idiot on the internet who, when given a choice to pay for porn or just download it for free, what company executive in their right mind is going to pay to provide healthcare insurance to its employees when it’s already paying to support the public option in taxes?

So President Obama, listen to the porn stars. They have something to teach us all.