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The cash-strapped masses may be spending less on restaurants and entertainment, but not necessarily on the quality of their sex lives--and manufacturers of sexual aids are broadening their lines to meet the demand.

To wit: Trojan now offers a condom that comes with a disposable vibrating ring. Durex, another condom maker, sells a vibrator and a line of lubricants. Even Philips Electronics (nyse: PHG - news - people ) has joined competitor Hitachi (nyse: HIT - news - people ) in the vibrator business. "We're much more open now to experimenting sexually," says Louis Friedman, chief executive of Liberator, a maker of sex toys in Atlanta. "We’re seeing countless new products being sold to a much larger audience than people realized. Even the more conservative retailers have begun to come around."

Indeed, Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ), Walgreen (nyse: WAG - news - people ) and Target (nyse: TGT - news - people ) now peddle sexual aids, including condoms, lubricants and personal massagers. Walgreen's Web site features a "sexual wellness" tab, behind which are listed not only contraceptives and fertility tests, but also pleasure-enhancing dietary supplements, romance-themed costumes and games, massage oils and lotions, and the "Emotional Bliss Femblossom" vibrator. (Representatives from Walgreen's and Target were unavailable for comment; a Wal-Mart communications manager would say only that the chain "has a diverse mix of shoppers who visit our stores each day, and we are committed to providing customers with the selection of products they expect to find in our stores.")

In Pictures: The Mainstreaming of the Sex Industry

Poor as we all may feel lately, it seems there's at least one bright spot in having to hunker down at home. "This industry is shielded in a way," says Katy Zvolerin, director of public relations with Adam & Eve, another sex toy maker. "It does seem people use us even more heavily in bad times." (Not that there's much of a correlation between recessions and birth rates--if people have more sex during a recession, they are being careful about it.)

Chad Braverman, director of product development and licensing at Doc Johnson, takes a more sober approach to the coming months. "I don't know if I'd say our industry was 'recession-proof,'" he says. "We need to be proactive in creating a quality product that's going to sell. And there's a lot more competition than there was 20 years ago."

The sex industry traces back to 500 B.C., when traders from the Greek port of Miletus sold olisbos, an early version of the dildo. Today, the business of sex (including pornography) now runs into the tens of billions of dollars. (No official estimates are available; Wall Street analysts don't tend to track this stuff.) And while print and video sales are ebbing, as more free adult content has become available online, sales of un-reproducible sexual aids are still healthy.

The survey, released yesterday, found that nearly 33 percent of Fairfax 10th- and 12-graders reported having had intercourse, compared with almost 48 percent of 10th- and 12th-graders nationally. For all categories of age, sex and ethnicity, the survey found the rate to be lower than the national average. Students of Asian and Pacific Island descent had the lowest rate of students who reported having had intercourse.

Teen behavior in Fairfax has improved in several ways, according to the survey: Drug use, gang involvement, smoking and drinking have declined since 2001. The data revealed, however, that students who reported having had sex had a tendency toward high-risk behavior, such as having multiple sexual partners and gang involvement. The survey also found that Fairfax teens continue to feel depressed and consider suicide at slightly higher rates than across the country.

The report did not compare sexual activity of Fairfax students to the activity of others in the region or nation of similar family income levels. With more than 1 million residents, the county has the lowest per-capita crime rate in the inner suburbs of Washington, high-performing public schools and the second-highest median household income of the nation's large counties.

James R. Baugh, a pediatrician who several years ago helped develop the school system's family life education curriculum, said the county's higher income and education levels could have an impact on teen sexual activity.

"Educated people have more information at their fingertips, and they transmit that to their kids," Baugh said. "So much with teenage sexuality is about a lack of information." When information about prevention and risks is "given in a repetitive manner, they get it," he said.

County leaders said the survey underscores the effectiveness of the school system's sex education curriculum and after-school gang-prevention program. "What this report tells us by and large is that current strategies are making a difference," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the county Board of Supervisors and a leading advocate of the county's anti-gang initiative.

But officials said more progress is needed. The report comes as county and school leaders are navigating the worst budget season in a generation. Deep program cuts will be necessary to eliminate a shortfall of at least $500 million for the fiscal year that begins in July. School Superintendent Jack D. Dale has said the school system might be forced to cut funding 8.5 percent for after-school programs, such as basketball, hip-hop dance and math clubs. Such cuts, he said, would reverse progress made with high-risk students. The program would survive, but fewer activities or clubs would be offered each day.

"The more opportunities we have for kids after school, the better," said Peter Noonan, assistant superintendent for instructional services.

Denise Raybon, the county's risk-prevention coordinator, told supervisors and School Board members that the survey showed students who have participated in gang activity or used drugs have been exposed to more extracurricular activities. That means that county programs are reaching more children in high-risk groups, Raybon said.

Dale said the county's family life education curriculum emphasizes premarital sexual abstinence. In addition, he said, today's young people are "swinging back to more responsible moral values" when it comes to drugs, sex and alcohol.

Five years ago, a proposal to survey Fairfax students about sex was shot down. The School Board agreed to allow the county to include questions on sexual activity in this year's survey because longstanding opposition from Christian conservatives has died down, said School Board member Kaye Kory (Mason). She and some county officials said the survey does not present a complete picture. It included no questions about oral sex, for example.

Raybon said she was comfortable with the survey's methodology, which asked questions pulled word for word from two national behavioral surveys, one conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one by the National Institutes of Health. The county surveyed 22,251 students in sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades, with proportional representation of ethnic and gender groups. The survey was conducted in February and compared with national survey results from last year. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Richard Moniuszko, Fairfax schools' deputy superintendent, said the survey results could be shared in health classes for middle and high school students. "They think everyone is doing drugs and having sex, and it's really not that way," he said.

To view more detailed survey results online, visit http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/youthsurvey.

It may seem like ancient history now, but not long ago the mortgage industry was turning ordinary people into millionaires. One of them was Sharmen Lane, a high school dropout who, like many other young women during the boom, found her way into an obscure banking job with the clunky title "mortgage wholesaler." Her experience—and the experiences of other wholesalers like her—offers a glimpse into the recklessness and indulgence that drove the industry to ruin.

The rise of mortgage wholesalers from grunts to rainmakers is one of the more curious developments of the housing bubble. Wholesalers work for banks and other lenders. The wholesaler's job is to buy loan applications from independent mortgage brokers so that lenders can turn them into loans. Wholesalers are paid on commission: the more loans they generate, the more money they make. During the housing boom, lenders typically approved the loans and then packaged them into securities. That path—from mortgage brokers to wholesalers to lenders to securities—turned out to be a road to disaster.

But as the housing bubble inflated, wholesalers—though hidden from public view—became high-earning superstars. Lane, a manicurist before joining now-defunct subprime lender New Century Mortgage in 1997, says she brought home $1 million in 2002 and $1.2 million in 2003.

Eventually the deal-making turned frenetic. Multiple wholesalers began inundating mortgage brokers with offers for the same applications. Some brokers chose to exercise their power by asking for something extra in exchange for their business: sex.

Dozens of former brokers and wholesalers say the trading of sexual favors was so common that it came to be expected. Lane recalls one visit to a mortgage brokerage near San Jose (Calif.) in which the manager lewdly propositioned her in his office. She says she declined the advance, and he didn't sell her any applications. But other female wholesalers didn't have the same qualms about crossing the line. "Women who had sex for loans were known very quickly," says Lane, who left New Century before it failed in 2007 and now works as a $200-an-hour life coach and motivational speaker in New York. "I didn't want to be a mortgage slut."

WHOLESALE CORRUPTION

Investment bubbles always spawn excesses, and housing was no exception. The abuses went far beyond sexual dalliances. Court documents and interviews with scores of industry players suggest that wholesalers also offered bribes to fellow employees, fabricated documents, and coached brokers on how to break the rules. And they weren't alone. Brokers, who work directly with borrowers, altered and shredded documents. Underwriters, the bank employees who actually approve mortgage loans, also skirted boundaries, demanding secret payments from wholesalers to green-light loans they knew to be fraudulent. Some employees who reported misdeeds were harassed or fired. Federal and state prosecutors are picking through the industry's wreckage in search of criminal activity.

Now wholesalers, who for a brief moment rose to prominence, are an endangered species. The failures of large subprime lenders like New Century, BNC (a unit of Lehman Brothers), and GreenPoint Mortgage, owned by Capital One, threw thousands out of work. Some lenders still in business have curtailed or shuttered their wholesale operations.

In the end, the wholesalers were undone by the same people who allowed for their rise: their Wall Street overlords. During the boom investment banks bought as many loans as they could to pool together and turn into securities. In 2006 the top 10 investment banks, which included Merrill Lynch (MER), Bear Stearns (BSC), and Lehman Brothers, sold mortgage-backed securities worth $1.5 trillion, up from $245 billion in 2000. To keep the supply of loans coming, the investment banks increasingly took control of the industry's frontline players as well.

(CNN) -- A ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in California appears headed for a narrow defeat, exit polls showed.

Voters in California, Arizona and Florida weigh in on constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

Proposition Eight, which would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California, was losing -- 53 percent to 47 percent, according to the polling. If it were to pass, it would undo a state Supreme Court ruling in May legalizing same-sex unions.

The projections in California differed from Arizona, where voters approved a measure to amend the state constitution so that only a union between one man and one woman would be recognized as a marriage, CNN projected.

The measure passed by 56 percent in a reversal of direction from 2006, when a similar measure on the ballot failed.

Arizona, California and Florida were the only states to weigh constitutional amendments banning same-sex unions, down from 11 states in the 2004 election. Results are still pending in Florida.

The projected results were just some of the hot-button issues in an election where ballot measures were dominated by social issues from abortion and affirmative action to suicide and drug policy.

As of 1:30 a.m. ET, CNN had projected results on most major initiatives, based on actual results and exit poll data from key areas.

Fifty-seven percent of voters in Arkansas supported a measure to prohibit unmarried sexual partners from adopting children or from serving as foster parents. The measure specifies that the prohibition applies to both opposite-sex as well as same-sex couples.

Voters in Colorado rejected a measure defining a person to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization," which would have applied to sections of the Colorado Constitution that protect "natural and essential rights of persons."

Nebraska voters approved a measure to prohibit state governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to people based on race, ethnicity, color, sex or national origin. Results on a similar measure in Colorado have not been announced.

Michigan chose to become the 13th state to legalize marijuana for medical purposes by a 64 percent margin. Massachusetts also had a proposed initiative to decriminalize penalties for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

Voters in Michigan also chose to amend the state constitution to permit human embryonic stem cell research with certain restrictions. The embryos, which must have been created for fertility treatment purposes, would have to have been discarded otherwise, and they may not be used more than 14 days after cell division has begun.

South Dakota rejected a proposal to prohibit abortions except in cases of rape or incest or where the mother's life or health is at risk. A similar measure that did not include exceptions for rape or the health of the mother was on the ballot in 2006, but voters rejected it 44 to 56 percent

Results are still pending for California's Proposition 4, which requires physicians to provide parental notification to guardians of minors at least 48 hours before performing an abortion.iReport.com: Watch Prop 8 debate in Utah

In Washington, 58 percent of voters supported a citizen initiative to allow adults with six months or less to live to request lethal medication prescribed by a physician. A physician is not required to comply, but anyone participating "in good faith" with the request would not risk criminal prosecution.

Many states also weighed budget-related proposals that could significantly affect how state revenues are generated.

In Massachusetts, voters have rejected a measure to cut the state personal income tax rate in half for 2009 and eliminate the state personal income tax starting in 2010. A similar ballot measure failed in 2002.

A citizen-initiated measure in North Dakota also proposed cutting personal income tax rates by half. Voters in Colorado and Minnesota were asked to consider increasing sales taxes. Oregon's Measure 59 would allow taxpayers to deduct the full amount of their federal income taxes on their state income tax returns.

Voters in eight states considered proposals related to gambling and lotteries, including Maryland, where current law prohibits the operation of commercial slot machines. Voters approved a constitutional amendment to authorize the use of video lottery terminals, or slot machines, at certain locations in the state, to fund public education.

Californians could face jail time if voters approve Proposition 2, which outlaws the confinement of pregnant pigs, calves raised for veal, and egg-laying hens "in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely."

The study, which tracked more than 700 12-to-17-year-olds for three years, found that those who viewed the most sexual content on TV were about twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who saw the least.

"Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy," said lead researcher Anita Chandra. "We found a strong association." The study is being published today in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

There is rising concern about teen pregnancy rates, which after decades of decline may have started inching up again, fueling an intense debate about what factors are to blame. Although TV viewing is unlikely to entirely explain the possible uptick in teen pregnancies, Chandra and others said, the study provides the first direct evidence that it could be playing a significant role.

"Sexual content on television has doubled in the last few years, especially during the period of our research," said Chandra, a researcher at the nonpartisan Rand Corp.

Studies have found a link between watching television shows with sexual content and becoming sexually active earlier, and between sexually explicit music videos and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases. And many studies have shown that TV violence seems to make children more aggressive. But the new research is the first to show an association between TV watching and pregnancy among teens.

The study did not examine how different approaches to sex education factor into the effects of TV viewing on sexual behavior and pregnancy rates. Proponents of comprehensive sex education as well as programs that focus on abstinence said the findings illustrate the need to educate children better about the risks of sex and about how to protect themselves, although they disagree about which approach works best.

"We have a highly sexualized culture that glamorizes sex," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association. "We really need to encourage schools to make abstinence-centered programs a priority."

But others said there is no evidence that abstinence-centered programs work.

"This finding underscores the importance of evidence-based sex education that helps young people delay sex and use prevention when they become sexually active," said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth. "The absolutely last thing we should do in response is bury our heads in the sand and promote failed abstinence-only programs."

Chandra and her colleagues surveyed more than 2,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17 three times by telephone from 2001 to 2004 to gather information about a variety of behavioral and demographic factors, including television viewing habits. Based on a detailed analysis of the sexual content of 23 shows in the 2000-2001 TV season, the researchers calculated how often the teens saw characters kissing, touching, having sex, and discussing past or future sexual activity.

Among the 718 youths who reported being sexually active during the study, the likelihood of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant increased steadily with the amount of sexual content they watched on TV, the researchers found. About 25 percent of those who watched the most were involved in a pregnancy, compared with about 12 percent of those who watched the least. The researchers took into account other factors such as having only one parent, wanting to have a baby and engaging in other risky behaviors.