OAKLAND, CA — When the going gets tough, the tough dump their respectable jobs and go where they perceive the money to be: porn. That’s increasingly becoming the story as the economy slips and slides in directions that the average American can barely comprehend and hardly plan around.

A case in point concerns Rock Lee, one-time owner of a Subway Sandwich franchise based in Oakland, CA. When he noticed that fewer people were stopping in for a $5 foot long, he decided that it was time to look for employment and cash opportunities outside of the sandwich shop’s glass doors.

According to PR Web, such a move is “quite unusual,” but those within the industry likely don’t see it as anything other than humdrum. After all, the adult entertainment industry draws its employees from somewhere and that can just as easily be slathering sandwiches, as answering phones, graduating from college or even selling stocks and bonds.

Lee, possibly representing the head of a new wave of incoming adult content providers, produces amateur footage of Bay Area residents and others for his own site, RockLeeInc.com.

As Lee sees it through freshly non-mustard stained lenses, “The online adult industry is recession proof.”

Having relatively little experience in the business, Lee opines that “With the recession going on, people are spending less on outdoor activities and more on indoor activities like computer and TV entertainment. Millions of people visit adult-related websites every month, whereas only a few hundred visited my restaurant.”

Throwing off the overhead associated with maintaining a physical location appealed to Lee – and many others ahead of him.

Also like others before him, Lee decided to create the kind of visual entertainment that he himself felt was lacking. In this case, “I just want to see real, unedited amateur models from around the world. I got tired of seeing the same pro models today in ever adult DVD.”

How many disgruntled fans will become hopeful industry professionals is unknown, but if Lee’s abandonment of a successfully branded franchise is any indication, the future of adult content and the ability of its producers to thrive should prove interesting.