During an interview held in his Beverly Hills office, Larry Flynt told the New York Post that even with the advent of the Internet and both the DVD and VHS formats, there will always be a market for live adult entertainment such as the soon-to-open Hustler Club on 51st Street.
"There's no substitute for the real thing," Flynt told the Post. "The more you get, the more you want. That basically applies to sex."
With the opening of the New York Hustler Club next week, the chains will have grown to nine locations. Flynt told the Post that he plans to increase the total number of Hustler Clubs to eleven by the end of the year – opening one in Detroit and one in Shreveport, Louisiana.
The Hustler Club chain is just part of Flynt’s relatively recent expansion of the Hustler brand, a move Flynt admits was overdue. Besides the Hustler Clubs, there is the Hustler Hollywood retail chain, Hustler apparel, a Hustler Casino, three adult studios that combine to produce around 40 titles a month, and a publishing empire of thirty magazines, including the flagship Hustler magazine.
“I think [Flynt's name] used to be something pornographic, but now it's the ultimate in hip, trendy and cool . . . kids want to wear T-shirts with Hustler on it," Tim Connelly, publisher of AVN, told the Post. "He's built this huge convergence where consumers have an insatiable appetite for [adult content] and his product.
