Like always, this year’s recently completed and AVN-sponsored Adult Entertainment Expo, Internext Expo (the adult internet show), and the AVN Awards Show were well organized and a lot of fun. I love making “the rounds” at the shows and running into porn friends and fans. It’s great to see everyone together in one venue, and to actually get some business done in addition to socializing. It’s too bad that the radical right-wingers couldn’t have been there to see how many Americans want their access to sex left alone!While flying into Las Vegas on a fully booked flight packed with many folks headed to the Computer Electronics Show (CES), I was amused by how many of them admitted that they liked coming to CES so they could also check out the “porn convention.” I overhead similar comments while standing for over an hour in the crowded taxi line at the airport, and even the taxi driver commented that CES directly thrives because of the porn presence that’s also simultaneously in Las Vegas.
In my everyday life and interactions with people and entities around San Diego, I often try to refer to the adult internet world and the porn industry, as well as the gentlemen’s club genre, collectively as “the adult entertainment industry,” but I’m hearing from the curious and voting public that, to them, it’s their beloved “porn industry.” More and more, people seem to be opening up about the importance of sex and porn to their lives and their happiness; and, I feel that AVN is a huge positive in fostering the aforementioned.
While walking the floors of the shows, I constantly ran into slews of sexy and famous porn stars, as well as the “shakers and movers” of the business. I’m like a kid in a chocolate chip cookie factory at the shows, getting hugs from girls I’ve “worked with” on film, and some I hope to also have sex with on film in the future. I couldn’t help but (again) realize how the age difference between the new young starlets and old-fart me is always widening every year; I’ve noticed it in my condo complex, too, where university coeds look younger and younger every year. I don’t feel like I’m all that old, but I’m really noticing the age gap a lot more as I head towards my 66th birthday and 12th year in the wonderful world of porn.
Besides all the porn girl visuals I enjoyed in Las Vegas (thank you AVN!), I noted that the mix of fans continues to ramp up, especially in the area of couples and females. It’s no longer just guys who appreciate and need porn – it’s everyone (well, maybe not YET the hypocritical radical right wing, but even they are human and can’t be snuffing out the realities of sex forever).
The seminars at the shows were fantastic, enlightening, and educational. As one of the plaintiffs in the ongoing 2257 record-keeping fiasco that the government is heaping upon the entire industry in their pandering to the radial and loud religious right, I found the Free Speech seminars and Free Speech Coalition meeting absolutely invigorating. The attendance was overflowing, and the audiences were involved and concerned (indeed, pissed off) about the new Department of Justice regulations increasing the possibility of identity theft and stalking against adult actresses and actors, as well as burdening legitimate businesses and insulting both Free Speech rights and the Constitution. In my opinion, the Republicans need to worry big-time about losing a LOT of voters if they don’t shut down their misguided pandering to the relatively few who boisterously attack the many normal Americans who view sex between consenting adults as part of life.
I’m glad I went to the Las Vegas “porn conventions” again this year. It was fun, and it again showed me that the overwhelming view of most citizen-voters is for the government to quickly and permanently widen that line between Church and State.
Now, as adults who support legitimate porn, let’s keep up the support for it!
