Greek sex industry having hard times…

Irish sex-toy retailers be warned, the recession has hit the Greek sex industry pretty badly this year.

Ireland’s sex shops be warned is a report from Reuters is anything to go by, as the recession has finally caught up with Greek sex-toy retailers and erotic shops as Greeks spend less on erotic toys, pornography and lingerie.

Athens Erotic Dream – Greece’s biggest sex fair – opened it’s gate this past weekend to a disappointing opening.

The organisers of the event, which was first held the year the recession started in 2008, are extremely pessimistic about it’s success this year, at it’s height attracted 20,000 to 30,000 visitors.

The annual show attracted big crowds when it opened in 2008, at the height of Greece's debt-fuelled economic bubble. But interest has wilted alongside the Greek economy, mired in its fifth consecutive year of recession.

This has thrown into stark light the challenges facing retailers with only a quarter of the 350 sex shops that were open in Athens five years ago are still trading.

The Reuters article quotes retailer Marianna Lemnarou saying that amidst the gloom of the recession, Greek people just seem to have lost their mojo,  "We're making just 20 euros ($25) a day, if at all, some customers just don't feel like having sex - others can't afford to buy our stuff in the crisis."

A return to the drachma, should Greece leave the Euro could make things worse as nearly all sex toys in Greece are imported from Greece or Poland and a devalued drachma would make them unaffordable.

Ironically Ireland only had it’s first ever “sex festival” Bliss this year and despite the recession it was considered a success as more Irish people are evidently less prudish about sex then they once were.

Maybe the Taoiseach could have livened up his rallying cry to the Irish people to vote “yes” on the Fiscal Stability Treaty yesterday, by extolling the advantages to sex industry of Ireland of keeping exporters of sex toys like Germany happy with us…