Larry Flynt: Quit yer whining

Like most business owners, Jennifer Pritchett said she would have been happy just to break even last year. Didn't happen. Pritchett's business was up 13 percent. Colleen Bertino had a similar surprise with her company's online sales: Up 7 percent from 2007 to 2008. "It puts me in a good mood," Bertino said.

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt may be looking (cynically) for a $5 billion government bailout for what he claims is his ailing DVD business, but maybe he's just looking for lust in all the wrong places. Others in the business say sales are steady or growing. And they have the economy to thank.

"People are staying in more, and they're thinking that maybe they should be getting better at what they're doing," said Bertino, whose family-owned Fantasy Gifts has 10 Minnesota locations. "And they're still going up to the family cabin," packing heat of a different kind, she adds.

Pritchett, the owner of five-year-old Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis, which specializes in high-end vibrators, educational sex books and videos, credits the increase not just to couples hunkering down at home ("Our sales always go up in winter"), but also to a new definition of what brings happiness. "Sex is good for you, and I think that newly refocused energy devoted to personal health and relationships has accounted for our success in the last few months."

The trend is nationwide. The New York Times reported recently that sales of erotic paraphernalia are up from coast to coast. Claire Cavanah, a spokeswoman for New York-based Babe- land, said she hasn't seen a spike in business like this since Sept. 11, 2001. Dawn Hill, marketing manager for the "Liberator," has more than the economy to thank. After seeing George Clooney with his foam-cushion sex enhancer in "Burn After Reading," curious customers gave the Atlanta-based company a bump in business.

"This is the kind of pleasure you can enjoy while you're staying home," Hill concurred. "But the lasting part will be increasing awareness."

Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350

Information from the New York Times was included in this report.