Via Monica at $pread Magazine Blog, Jacqueline Smith of The New Zealand Herald said

Forget jumping out windows and hiding cash under mattresses – the credit crunch is driving Kiwis into sex, drugs and even rock ‘n’ roll.

Wendy Lee, director and owner of designer sex gear retail chain Dvice, says the company’s New Zealand sales could be up about 20 per cent this financial year, and the same sort of figures are coming out of Australia.

“They say people have more sex during recessions and we’d definitely say that was true of what we are seeing,” she says.

See the rest of the Herald article here.

This makes a lot of sense to me. The average car single-month payment on a last-years SUV no one can afford, or even the cash to keep one running for a month… which no one can afford either, one can buy a very good vibrator or sleeve, some nice sheets, maybe a good board or card game for partners, and a bit of lube or other accessories, and be ready to save even more by not going out so much either… which one might also necessary anyway.

The article goes on to say when times get hard people also tend to buy more luxurious food items (for entertaining at home rather than, again, going out), more tobacco and alcohol, and (to complete the classic triptych) more rock and roll.

Paul Pickering, senior lecturer in sales, management and marketing at AUT University, says when people tighten the belt and scrap big-budget investments, it is a common phenomenon for them to reward themselves in other ways.

“It’s compensating,” he says. “When there’s less money in the house and things get tight, people reward themselves with lower-priced, but nevertheless indulgent, items.”

Marketers can take advantage of the trend, as long as they are aware people’s needs change over time – they need to make sure they put products out there to satisfy those changing needs, Pickering says.

Professor Thomas Lange, chairman of business economics at AUT University, describes this “compensation theory” as the way in which people achieve balance in the relationship between work and non-work related activities. Individuals invest time and money to ensure that what is provided in one area makes up for that missing in the other.

“Deprivation, such as that experienced during a downturn are, compensated for in non-work activities, such as ‘investing’ in alcohol, luxury goods or sex life,” says Lange.

Prudish libertine that I am I’d encourage people to recall that “moderation in all things” doesn’t mean be a wimp or a wuss. It just means that whereas one can, and where possible maybe even should indulge one’s self with simple pleasures the satisfaction-to-indulgence curve is an inverted U-shape. Meaning past a certain point alcohol, say, stops being an indulgence and starts being an escape.

But being a libertine prude I’ll also point out one needn’t go to extremes anyway to have a perfectly wonderful time alone, with loved ones, or friends. (Not necessarily all at the same time.)

The main thing, though, is that while at least some of us, and possibly quite a few, are looking at potentially very hard times this crisis isn’t apocalyptic in a way that was conceived of for almost 50-years: it won’t be inaugurated with nuclear exchanges! And so, to wryly redefine a term, we should prepare for a post-apocalyptic crisis: a downturn where instead of soybeans, water filters, firearms, and “enough shovels“ we can make tea, serve a little chocolate, turn down the thermostat, snuggle under covers, and enjoy all the pleasures of life in a temporarily poorer yet altogether civil civilization.

Including, for those of us in the U.S., the pleasure of voting tomorrow to uphold that civilization against those who long for the good old days of bomb shelters, loyalty oaths, racial prejudice, homophobia, superstition, forced pregnancy, and outlawed sex toys.