When last week happened, I didn't think about sex. I didn't think about the sex business. In fact, I tried to do as little thinking as possible.

Then an awful thing burst my little cocoon of fantasy:

"Will the Internet porn business feel the economic pinch? Probably. Will all this crush the sex market? Never."

A person on a BBS showed all the other posters a link to a webpage. The page had about six thumbnailed images. The images were of President Bush, Osama bin Ladin, the burning WTC towers and other photographs relative to last week's attack. Under each image was a text description telling the surfer that the picture would lead to a downloadable video. The webmaster had the supposed decency to tell the viewer that by clicking on the linked pic, they would be downloading a program. The problem was the links led to a porn dialer and not downloadable video of news feeds.

Outrage was voiced and the webmaster's dialer account was killed and his host notified.

Unfortunately, what this greedy bastard did will not be the last we see of the effort to profit from tragedy. We've already heard stories of callers posing as Red Cross workers who try to get credit card numbers from bereaved citizens. We've seen the reports of those who would try to steal the Social Security numbers of the missing. For as many snakes out there that want to profit from all this, we will find new permutations of schemes.

Sure, we're in a business. Sure, times are going to be hard for a while. Fear will sell far better than sex in this suddenly changed world. We are not George Leigh Mallory. Just because the fear is there does not mean we HAVE to profit from it.

Seven months ago, I started a novel named Incognita Bullfinch. The first chapter took place in the country of Afghanistan under Taliban rule. My story's heroine foiled an evil villain that was a loosely based composite of Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Osama bin Ladin.

I was so proud of my novel. I thought it was my way to give the world a powerful female hero and to shed light on the horrors of the Taliban in one, fell swoop. The best part was, I laced each chapter with good old-fashioned sex. I was inspired and pumped out 13 chapters as if spirits wrote them. I ran into the wall of a writer's block just about the time my heroine was to return to Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, I put my chapters behind the safety of an AVS and promoted the heck out of my novel. I made these images galleries of a lovely model who claimed to have been saved from a Taliban prison by Incognita Bullfinch. I received a lot of praise from other webmasters at the cleverness of my marketing campaign. I was so very proud of my self.

I'm not proud anymore. I removed all my galleries and my novel remains untouched behind an AVS that I no longer promote.

Even though Incognita Bullfinch hates the Taliban and works for the forces of good, I just couldn't bring myself to profit from all this tragedy.

Neither should you.

Its one thing to link to legitimate news sources on your website. It's one thing to fly an American flag on your page to show your support of the U.S. Its a whole other thing to link your porn dialers to images of war.

Before you paste a fear-filled bit of text on your domain, in hopes of selling that browser cache clearing software, think. Before you build that horror gallery with images of death and suffering, think. Before you decide to buy a stockpile of American flags and sell them at highly inflated prices off your site…you had better take a long look at your self in the mirror.

Will the Internet porn business feel the economic pinch? Probably. Will all this crush the sex market? Never.

Think ahead. Right now, sex may be the last thing on surfer's minds, but thoughts of sex never leave forever. We may even see (after the initial shock has worn off) an upsurge in sales. People will be home more. Vacations will not be taken. More now than ever, there will be lonely souls looking for something real and familiar. Nothing is ever as real and familiar as sex.