Press Release of the Week: A Beacon of Hope for the Big Easy

Finally, after more than a month of bad news out of New Orleans, here's a bright spot, a tale of endurance and can-do spirit sure to warm hearts across the land: Cruising for Sex Returns to the Big Easy.

No, not actual sex cruising, which I'd wager never really left, but "Cruising for Sex," the gay cruising web site that was knocked offline for nearly four whole days in the wake of Katrina:

"For [Founder Keith] Griffith and his employees at Cruising for Sex, the ability to operate from the city they call home is an important step back towards normalcy and self-dependence. For fans of the award-winning free gay cruising Web site, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, it's an assurance that a beloved resource will remain available for years to come."

In the press release, Griffith walks us through the company's ordeal, which began when they lost one of their servers at 4 a.m. the morning after the storm, and additional servers at 10 a.m. But luckily, one of the machines, like The Little Porn Engine That Could, stayed online long enough for Griffith to type up a message explaining to site visitors that they were experiencing trouble and would be back as soon as possible.

The next four days were dark ones -- both literally and figuratively -- in Cruising for Sex Land. Young, nubile men roamed the nation's bars and public restrooms hungry for love but finding none. Others sat at their computers for hours on end, hitting the refresh button over and over, cursing the sort of God who would allow such tragedy to strike. If only there were some other adult sites on these blasted Internets!, the victims of the tragedy cried, banging their well-lubed fists against their laptops.

Luckily, it wasn't long before Griffith and his band of merry adult entertainment peddlers were back in business:

"Because of the nature of our business -- being online rather than brick and mortar -- we have been in the unique position to continue earning money and paying staff and consultants," Griffith said. But just in case you think he's being a little insensitive to those who are less fortunate, he knows their pain: "Among persons who work with the company, two individuals have multiple family members who have lost all their possessions, making this source of income even more vital."

And really, as we've all learned by now, when gay men stop jerking it to images of well-hung boys lathered up in coconut oil, the terrorists have won.

Actually, the most interesting aspect of this press release is that it throws a major wrench in the theory of certain fundamentalist crazies who said New Orleans was being destroyed for its sinful ways. Which had me a bit worried -- frankly, my favorite parts of New Orleans were the sinful ones: its booze, its music (remember that in fundamentalist world, dancing is pretty much like pot -- a gateway drug, but to sex instead of crack cocaine), its tittilating yet tasteful burlesque shows. Would I be next on Angry Old Testament God's hit list?

But now I feel much, much better, since the first business to rise from the ashes of Katrina is one that traffics in affairs of the the loin (and the heart). Maybe New Orleans will return to its old glory after all.