In times of severe economic downturns, there are very few industries capable of remaining unscathed. The sex industry, however, is one that can, because there’s no better way to cheer oneself up than by reading, seeing and/or participating in sexual debauchery.

Rufus Griscom, Brown ’91, graduated into an ailing economy, but after spending a few years hopping around the country as a vagabond, he discovered that “sex sells” and opened Nerve.com, a site devoted to sex, in 1997 with a small staff of three.

Since then, the site, which is more informational than pornographic in nature, has grown to have a dedicated readership of nearly 1.2 million visitors a month, all of whom Griscom hopes to eventually reach with his latest business venture Babble, a site devoted to parenting and culture.

The Brown Daily Herald reports:

And Babble, "the graduating class of Nerve," maintains its own edge. Eschewing traditional parenting magazine models of a sunshine filled, cookie-baking household, Griscom says, "Babble is about the reality of the parenting experience - and the reality is that it's hard, but that it's also very funny and joyful."

Since its launch in December 2006, Babble has grown into a forum for young parents in urban settings, drawing in nearly 1.5 million visits per month. Babble features discussion boards, personal blogs and articles that look at raising children from the perspective of a new generation that has been influenced by a scientific and technological revolution and is skeptical of parenting cliches, according to the site's mission statement.

And so, from sex to parenthood, Griscom has all the bases of adulthood covered -- except for how the rest of us suffering from the financial crisis can survive it too.