There are many predictions economists could makes about how a modern Great Depression will affect frequency of sex. Two would most likely be:

Prediction 1: Society pulls the covers over their heads and wallows in their measly unemployment checks. Alone.

Prediction 2: Society douses themselves in debauchery and spends their unemployment checks on vibrating condoms and sour apple body lube.

Well, if a recent article by Great Britain's News and Star is to be believed, society is inching their way (very rapidly) to Prediction 2.

Melanie Wilson, Superdrug's healthcare buyer, has noticed a 60% increase in lubricant sales alone. She says the chain has seen a "phenomenal rise in the sales of products designed to enhance sexual pleasures and a rise in the sales of condoms compared to this time last year."

She also notes that pregnancy tests have been flying off the shelves in the past 4 weeks. Uh oh. A bad economy coupled with cheap sex is fantastic, but a bad economy coupled with pregnancy and babies could be disastrous.

Should we expect a baby boom?

The article addresses how in times of economic hardship birth rates have, ironically, increased (they note the early 90s as an example). However, Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of Netmums a social networking site for new mothers, doesn't seem to think so.

“Funnily enough, I saw something on our forums about mums being extra careful with contraception because they can’t afford any mistakes,” she said.

Hm. So maybe we have a silver lining to this rotten economy after all. If we can't control the downfall of Wall Street, at least we can control an upswing in the bedroom.