Would a woman ever pay to have sex with a man at a brothel? If you believe Heidi Fleiss, the clearly unstable yet strangely charming former “Hollywood madam” (she served 21 months in federal prison for tax evasion related to her dial-a-hooker business), the answer is yes.

Hence the ultra-modern, oyster-shaped complex she has designed to be constructed just outside a town in the Nevada desert with the very unsexy name of Pahrump. Fleiss is convinced that the frustrated housewives of America want nothing more than to drive to one of the most godforsaken places on the planet to pay hundreds of dollars to be groped by an off-duty and probably homosexual Chippendale.

Her ideas are detailed in a sadly compelling new HBO documentary, Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal (Crystal being the name of the proposed brothel location, as well as a snide reference to crystal meth, to which Fleiss appears hopelessly addicted).

As Fleiss mentally and physically disintegrates throughout the film, you get the feeling The Stud Farm might have been one of the greatest PR con-jobs of all time. But for all the suggestions that Fleiss was planning to open the place up to gays, thus guaranteeing profitability, I like to think she was genuinely interested in the brothel as a social experiment. For that reason alone I hope she cleans up and gets her licence.

The current recession is proving extremely challenging for adult filmmakers, who are not only wrestling with anemic consumer spending, they're also competing with a nearly infinite supply of free, amateur videos from countless user-generated sites, not to mention a glut of traditional inventory.

This is the first time I can say that we're absolutely feeling the effects of the economy, says Steve Orenstein, president and founder of Wicked Pictures: There was a line we used to use about this business being recession proof. When people talked about the economy, we'd say our business is fine. But look, now you'd have to be blind and deaf not to see that there are problems.

Orenstein hasn't cut any pictures out of the production pipeline -- he still plans on making 48 films this year because, he says, cutting back on pictures would only cut back on his profits. He is, however, looking at ways to reduce expenses.

At the retail level, all the store owners I've talked to say their rental sales are off 10 percent to 15%, says Paul Fishbein, founder of Adult Video News, an industry trade group. Producers say sales are down at least that much. We've identified the reasons we think sales are down. First and foremost, there's a glut of product. The laws of supply and demand have been turned upside down. We're on par to put out 15,000 new releases this year, which is just insane. Secondly, there's a battle with pirated or free material on the internet -- much like the music industry, adult [movie] producers are trying to figure out how to stem free or pirated content.

We're finding consumers don't want to pay $30 or $40 apiece for DVDs when they can subscribe and get DVDs in the mail. Prices are often higher for adult DVDs, and sometimes people don't want an extensive library of adult titles -- there are some movies that are great to see once or twice, but you don't want to own it. It's really changed the dynamics of the industry. Studios must innovate or start distributing digitally, says Tony Medrano, vice president of business development at SugarDVD.

The new set of guidelines from the Indian Censor Board have asked filmmakers to refrain from using caste names that could in any way undermine or hurt any section of the society.

This came in the wake of protests by some organisations, which voiced out concerns against objectionable dialogues in films like Maharadhi, Kantri, Ready and Gorintaku. In fact, the filmmakers were also asked to apologise.

However, the filmmakers are unhappy and are up in arms against the Censor Board. We have never hurt anyone intentionally. The guidelines are unwarranted, says Tammareddy Bharadwaj, president of Producers' Council.

Many filmmakers like Dil Raju feel that the guidelines will curb the creativity of the filmmakers. Films mirror the reality. Where’s the originality left if there are so many restrictions, opines director EVV.

Meanwhile, the filmmakers have given a strong representation to the Board, requesting for revoking its decision.

A measure that would make it more difficult to investigate and punish prostitution crimes in San Francisco has qualified for the November ballot, opening another passage in the city's long fight over decriminalizing the sex-trade industry.

Proponents of the measure were able to collect more than 12,000 signatures, including those from three members of the Board of Supervisors, to put it on the ballot, according to the Erotic Service Providers Union, the labor group backing the measure. The same group was unsuccessful in putting a similar measure on the ballot in 2006.

The measure would end San Francisco's First Offender Prostitution Program for men who have been arrested for soliciting a prostitute. Men who go to "john school," which was created in 1996, pay $1,000 and attend a class on prostitution in exchange for the district attorney's office dropping the misdemeanor charge against them.

Mean minded politicians such as Mayor Gavin Newsom this week said the measure would severely hamper the city's ability to investigate and prosecute sex-trafficking cases.

The main goal of decriminalization, proponents say, is the safety of prostitutes. Maxine Doogan, a founder of the Erotic Service Providers Union, wrote in an e-mail: We want the right to make reports of crimes against us without being retaliated against by the Police Department.