The Porno Blog
Bits and pieces from the AVN Awards, AEE Convention and beyond
01.13.09 · 9:09 PM
Stuck between life and art with Stagliano
Oscar Wilde once said, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life,” — but what if your life includes seven federal obscenity charges, the prospect of 30+ years in jail, and seven million dollars in possible fines if convicted? If you’re adult film legend John “Buttman” Stagliano, you don’t waste time with hyperbole; instead, you focus on creating a poignantly political piece for the AVN Adult Movie Awards. Stagliano has made a name for himself creating art that imitates ... Read more...
E-mail
iPod
del.icio.us
digg
Facebook01.12.09 · 6:35 PM
The lesson of AVN: Recessions come and go, but sex is forever
After four days of toys, tarts and porn-obsessed fans, the 2009 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo has packed its pasties and headed back to LA. While the starlets were sexy and the camera flashes as bright as ever, a less-than-cheerful theme prevailed at this year’s adult industry summit: Slightly down is the new up. Fan attendance from a year ago is down anywhere between 10 and 20 percent, with the raw numbers likely to be between 20,000 and 25,000. Business at ... Read more...
01.12.09 · 12:30 PM
End of AEE just means it’s time for next convention
As the Adult Entertainment Expo reaches its close, another adult-industry convention comes to Las Vegas to take its place. Internext Las Vegas 2009 runs today through Wednesday at Rain in the Palms, helping connect digital-media businesses in the adult industry. In an unofficial kickoff, OG Adult Caberet hosted the ninth Girls of the Internet party Sunday. Featuring adult talent known primarily for their Web sites rather than being in films and on DVDs, the party took over one side of ... Read more...
01.12.09 · 12:12 PM
Shopping AVN with porno pro Aurora Snow
As God would have intended it, Sunday was indeed a day of rest at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. Some stalls had already packed up their wares, and the influx of fans that flooded the aisles on the early days of the convention had slowed to a determined trickle. Even porn star Aurora Snow was taking a day off. “My feet are killing me,” she said Saturday night after two days of signings, photos and audio orgasms on the convention ... Read more...
01.12.09 · 8:55 AM
A breaststroke through the porn talent pool with Mark Spiegler
To hear Mark Spiegler tell it, anybody can be a porn star. Of course, you need the looks, the libido and the willingness to try just about anything in the sexual playbook, but beyond those simple prerequisites, getting the attention of the well known adult talent agent, who has represented such stars as Sasha Grey and Belladonna, is relatively easy. Call him back when he tells you to and you’re in. “Punctuality is the politeness of kings,” Spiegler proclaims from ... Read more...
01.12.09 · 2 AM
My first week in porn
I’ll admit it. I’ve seen my share of porn. Hell, I’ve probably seen your share, too. That said, nothing really prepares you for attending porn shoots and interviewing adult talent. The shoots are completely different when there’s no monitor between you and the actors, and the people in the industry (at least the ones I interviewed) are far nicer and more normal than one might expect. Over the past week, I feel like my Vegas cherry finally has been popped. ... Read more...
01.12.09 · 12:53 AM
Porn meets mainstream in elusive crossovers
What does a porn star have to do to get into mainstream advertisements, music videos and movies? For Sasha Grey, it was just being herself. “I never sought any of these projects out,” she said Friday at the Adult Entertainment Expo, “and I’ve been very fortunate enough and very, very, very grateful to have people come to me and seek me out, I believe, because of my own interest in film and music, because it stretches much further than a ... Read more...
01.11.09 · 5:38 PM
Raunch and politics make a hot couple at the 2009 AVN awards
When adult film temptress Stoya won the coveted Best New Starlet statuette at the AVN Adult Movie Awards last night, she knew who to thank: “Each and every person who jerks off to my smut.” Indeed, the acceptance speeches at the annual porn awards show at Mandalay Bay did not follow the, “I’d like to thank the Academy…” format used by more mainstream Hollywood types. While the AVN Awards are often called the Oscars of porn, the awards shows are ... Read more...
01.11.09 · 4:04 PM
Porn convention closes with business down but spirits up
As the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo gathers its videos, toys and attire following the money shot of its 2009 convention in Las Vegas, one theme prevails: Slightly down is the new up. AEE spokesman Sean Devlin, who heads up (no pun intended) the convention’s media operation, arrived at that conclusion in two ways: Someone in the industry said that to him, and it stuck. And, he was running on a treadmill at Canyon Ranch Spa at Palazzo while watching an ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 9:25 PM
L.A. is no Vegas for local porn star Nikki Rhodes
Less than two months after moving to Los Angeles, local porn star and model Nikki Rhodes is ready to come back to Vegas. “I moved to LA for work because I traveled out there, and it was just too much for me,” the petite redhead said Friday at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. “I didn’t like paying for a place out here I was never at, although I love Las Vegas and still want to live here.” Rhodes, who moved ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 8:10 PM
Aurora’s Stories: What’s in a balloon?
I’ve learned about a new fetish today: girls blowing up balloons. Obviously the guys get off on the pain of watching a balloon pop in a girl’s face, but it’s also supposed to be some sort of built- up tension – that as she’s blowing up the balloon the tension mounts as they’re getting ready for it to pop. Another interesting thing was an oxygen bar. It was a small tank of oxygen with a little nose tube, so that ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 6:46 PM
Quiz: Which porn star are you?
Whether you know it or not you’re a porn star. Yea. You. You may not spend your days shagging on camera, hanging out naked with folks like Sasha Grey and Jenna Haze or swapping spit with people who make plastic surgery look like our national pastime, but don’t let that concern you. With this quiz you can explore your porn preferences – girl on girl or BDS&M – your theme song – Motley Crue or Katy Perry – and your ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 6:34 PM
AVN pub editor is slight, but a giant in the industry
On the Saturday of the annual AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at the Sands Convention Center, the event’s busiest man is a thin, un-tall (maybe 5-foot-5) unassuming sort with a slightly Mohawkian haircut and a stack of AVN awards show tickets to dole out. Even Dan Miller’s name is something of a whisper. And this guy is one of the most influential voices in the adult film business? That he is, as the editor-in-chief of the monthly AVN Magazine and the ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 5:52 PM
Back-to-back porn parties turn bathhouse into hothouse
Lavo followed VH1’s lead and offered up a Double Shot of Lust Friday night as not one but two porn stars hosted soirees back to back. Adult film superstar Tera Patrick got the evening started with an autograph signing for her fans. Eager men and a handful of ladies queued up for a meet and greet with the porn legend and a chance to pick up a copy of her film Tera Goes Gonzo. The front cover of the DVD ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 4:21 PM
Moments from a convention: An illicit bar tab and a swiped credential
Twice today at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, I have witness something I have never seen while attending a convention in Las Vegas or anywhere else. I was in line at one of the temporary service bars at the Sands Convention Center, waiting to buy a sugar-free Red Bull on ice, when the guy in front of me paid for an order totaling $16 with a $100 bill. He had a quick conversation with the bartender, who then tossed the ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 3:49 PM
A six-pack of distinctive porn titles
The adult film industry is famous for its distinctively innovative movie titles. Who can forget A Hard Man is Good to Find or On Golden Blond? Some are routine — 8 to 4 was hardly inspired – but most often, the title of a porno film requires more thought than the plot. Six titles I’ve seen this week at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo that, in the wildly tolerant world of porn, merit mention for various reasons: Not The Bradys ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 3:41 PM
GayVN: Blink and you’ll miss it
By some estimates, gay people account for up to 10 percent of the population. And it’s statistically probable that a good percentage of those gay people enjoy a spot of porn now and again. So why were there only four gay-oriented media booths (and one honest-to-Sappho lesbian-media booth) at this year’s AVN Adult Entertainment Expo? That’s a significant drop from last year’s 12 companies showcasing male-male porn product, which included such household names (in gay porn-consuming households) as director/producer/drag queen ... Read more...
01.10.09 · 12:52 AM
Do you have a foot fetish or are you just happy to see me?
The biggest lesson I learned during my first day attending theAVN Adult Entertainment Expo is that porn stars are thrilled when all you want to do is photograh their feet. As soon as they find out they don’t have to pose with you, you don’t have a stack of glossies for them to sign and you don’t want to chat them up about that scene where they did that thing you love (but won’t tell anyone else you love), they’re ... Read more...
01.9.09 · 8:11 PM
Aurora’s Stories: Orgasms, Kegels and Joe the Fan
Porn star Aurora Snow is attending the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo for her eighth year and agreed to report for the Weekly on what AVN is like for an industry insider. Here are her thoughts: Today we had an audio orgasm contest. I’m signing for a booth called FreeAudioXXX.com, and we were trying to get a lot of girls at the show interested in coming into our soundproof booth and participating in an orgasm contest. Not just porn girls; we ... Read more...
01.9.09 · 5:41 PM
Two befitting lines from the late, great Harvey Korman
No porn convention would be complete without a line or two from a legendary comic actor, even if that comic actor is no longer living. But as I scanned the array of male enhancement products at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at the Sands Convention Center earlier today, I remembered a couple of jokes made by Harvey Korman during his last Vegas performance with Tim Conway at the Stardust in April 2003. Of Viagra, he said, “My using Viagra would ... Read more...
01.9.09 · 3:49 PM
Liberation comes courtesy of a circular bed at AEE
At the back of Maxim magazine every month are the low-budget adds, not the full-page, highly produced numbers, but tiny ones for silly sex toys, hotlines and other ambiguousness that might appeal to the horny American male. Among these is the Liberator. A foam wedge that is placed under the woman’s bum during sex like, perhaps, a pillow, the liberator always made me laugh because it bore such a noble title and because I had a college friend who bore ... Read more...
01.9.09 · 1:44 PM
Single-serving condom dispenser aims not to kill the mood
You’ve really got to give it to the small-scale entrepreneurs at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. Take, for instance, Gabriel Carreon, 37, a musician from Costa Mesa, CA, who has invented a personal condom dispenser. He really, really wants you to give it to him. Well, if you’re a lady, anyway. His company is called Don’t Kill the Mood, and the product he’s introducing at the Expo is the C-Box, a small, discreet plastic unit that dispenses single-serving rubbers like ... Read more...
01.9.09 · 12:49 PM
“Girlfriend factor” eliminated with FyreTV’s “master beta”
Internet porn-delivery startup FyreTV just finished its beta testing program, and being geeks who make their living by dreaming up a new way of delivering porn, of course they get big yucks out of calling it the “master beta.” The brainchild of clean-cut 31-year-old Estafano Isaias, the Miami-based startup was the hottest thing at last year’s AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, taking video on demand to a new level by inventing what is basically TiVo for porn. Today FyreTV announced the ... Read more...
01.9.09 · 12:26 AM
Lights, camera, girl-on-girl action!
“Las Vegas is a vortex of porn this weekend,” says Kim Kysar, the product manager of Pink Visual. “There are hundreds of shoots going on.” I believe her. I’m at one – a six-girl, girl-on-girl orgy party scene at a mansion near Warm Springs and Valley View. (If it seems like there are a lot of “girls” in this sentence, consider that there are twice as many having sex in front of me.) Every year, pornography companies like Vivid, Wicked, ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 9:41 PM
A new porn title puts a new spin on “Genie”
Well, this was a hell of a day: I found out that one of the icons of my childhood has been hopelessly violated. Just finished wrapping, or whatever they call it in the adult film business, is the film I’m Dreaming Genie, which is loosely (how else?) based on the famous ’60s sitcom that was centered on a naïve, subservient blonde dressed in a silk nighty catering to a dashing military man. Maybe this film isn’t such a reach … ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 8:41 PM
This iPod accessory always plays good vibrations
It’s no accident that there’s plenty of what they used to call synergy between the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and the much-larger CES gadget fest down the hall — a captive audience of geeks and gadget hounds who like to, well, entertain themselves at home. But the preponderance of products and technology at both shows are directed primarily toward men. At the AVN Expo, I met a woman who boldly builds a bridge for the women. New Hampshire entrepreneur Suki ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 8:22 PM
Porn convention exhibitionists never tire of Big O
There are all sorts of enticing interactive invitations at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, and one of the more novel is the Audio Orgasm contest. And you don’t even have to be physically present at the Expo to enter. The contest is presented by FreeAudioXXX.com, and top prize is $1000 (although it says $500 on the website). If you’re at the Expo, visit the booth, step into the plexiglass recording studio and do your thing over the phone, where it ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 8:13 PM
With Beer Lube, it’s always Miller Time!
There are hundreds of “personal care products” represented in the B2B (business-to-business) trade-show level of the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, from the Naughty Shell shower accessory to Vigralis and other anagrammatical variations on Viagra. But one product emerged as the simplest signal of the economy’s effect on the adult market: Beer Lube, a brand-new product in the crowded personal lubricant market, is just what it sounds like – lube that looks and tastes like beer. The water-based, non-alcoholic lube is ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 8:04 PM
Understanding aural sex, loud and clear
Aural sex: The porn industry digs guerrilla marketing as much as any other industry, and at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, its annual “look what I’ve got” showoff frenzy, if you can get attention in unexpected places, you’ve got an advantage. Sex usually sells, of course, but on the Expo floor it’s already all skin and explicit come-ons. It’s hard out there to pimp your product, to pop out from the field. So kudos to Pink Visual for the most ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 6:43 PM
At a porn trade show, it’s ALL appropriate
I’m a big fan of the human brain and here is why: The brain has this intricate, fail-proof ability to recognize atmosphere and respond accordingly. For example, let’s say you are striding through the home-entertainment center at Macy’s (one of the Macy’s still in business, anyway) and the entire section of wide-screen TVs are showing people doing the horizontal bop, the brain tells us to go, “Wha-a-a-!” Because, you know, we might have just been pricing bath mats or something. ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 6:15 PM
Porn industry experiencing — dare we say — shrinkage
At the CES gizmo expo at the Sands Convention Center, it’s all about finding the Next Big Thing. But down the hall at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, it’s always been about the Next, Even Bigger, Preferably Biggest New Thing. But even the adult industry is suffering from, well, shrinkage, this year. The economy has had a noticeably diminishing effect on this annual bash for flesh, flash and cash: The expo floors (including the downstairs B2B booths, which means business-to-business ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 1 PM
What happens in Vegas … is porn
So you think Los Angeles is the epicenter of the adult industry? Well, you’re right. However, there’s plenty of porn that gets shot here in Vegas, right in your own backyard. Well, maybe not your backyard (you’d hopefully already know about it in that case), but quite possibly your neighbors’ backyard or, even more likely, their bedroom. While the majority of the industry’s talent lives and works in the L.A. area, Las Vegas has enough of a porn presence — ... Read more...
01.8.09 · 12:58 PM
Porn Glossary: From A to you don’t want to know
As with any industry, porn has its own specific lingo. But instead of acronyms for sales stats, porn abbreviations describe the, uh, action on screen. With the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Vegas this week, our office has been buzzing with words that would normally taboo in the workplace. Some elicit giggles, others blank stares and still others furrowed eyebrows, flushed cheeks and the occasional fainting. Rather than calling HR to deal with the questionable vocab, which would probably just ... Read more...
01.7.09 · 3:29 PM
In the world of porn, Isaacs has endured his own trial
In 2007 Ira Isaacs was charged by the Department of Justice with multiple counts of distributing obscene material. The 57-year-old pornographer, who is based in Los Angles, had been producing films since 1999 on the extreme spectrum of the adult industry, so much so that he calls his videos shock art rather than porn. His films include bestiality, simulated violence and scat. Issacs was targeted for prosecution by The Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, a section of the Justice Department formed ... Read more...
01.7.09 · 1:13 PM
Bored at the office? Consider sex work
“Nervous? Why would we be nervous?” retorts male porn star D. Wise. “We’re just some happy-go-lucky people having sex.” Soon, the cameras are on, and so is the action. Within seconds, the short-on-stature, long-on-member D. Wise is literally getting down on a pool table with Alexis and Morgan, two women both in their early 30s with hard, round boobs and bleached blond hair. Morgan’s husband directs the action and takes pictures while Alexis’ fiancé films. “She’s paying for decorating the ... Read more...
01.7.09 · 11:53 AM
Porn industry after $5 billion federal bailout
As the 2009 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo opens in Las Vegas this week, Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis and HUSTLER magazine publisher Larry Flynt are hoping to get a financial bailout for the adult entertainment industry, a spokesperson for Francis announced today. Adult industry leaders Flynt and Francis sent a joint request to Congress asking for $5 billion in federal assistance, “Just to see us through hard times,” Francis said. A stimulus, if you will. “Congress seems willing to ... Read more...
01.6.09 · 5:34 PM
Party like a porn star: Your guide to AEE and AVN after dark
Partying like a rock star sounds fun enough – bottles of booze, trashed hotel rooms and the occasional drunken sing along – but partying like a porn star is something else entirely. It smells better, is far sexier, definitely sports less body hair and makes up for it in certain, uh, other departments. With the 2009 Adult Entertainment Expo rolling into town from January 8 – 11, Vegas steals the naked spotlight from Los Angeles for just four days a ... Read more...
Most Popular
- Most Read
- E-mailed
- 1. Photos: Criss Angel’s buried alive in cement stunt at The Mirage is shut down
- 2. Events guide: Memorial Day Weekend 2013
- 3. Joe Downtown: Tony Hsieh leads Ashton Kutcher on downtown tour
- 4. Meet five additions to Las Vegas nightlife and entertainment
- 5. ‘Michael Jackson One’ is Cirque du Soleil’s best — and includes snow at Mandalay Bay
- 6. Preview: Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Michael Jackson One’ opens at Mandalay Bay
- 7. Superstar DJ Memorial Day Weekend kicks off battle of Las Vegas nightclubs
- 8. Joe Downtown: Restaurant serving 'Fresh American' coming to East Village
- 9. Celebrity preview: Garth Brooks, ‘Pawn Stars,’ Charlie Sheen, Chris Brown, Diddy and Claire Sinclair
- 10. Photos: Jennifer Lopez and Verizon promote Viva Movil at The Venetian