Porn Stars, As Far As the Eye Can See!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in a kind of glorious haze; I was an attendee at something called eXXXotica New York, a convention of the adult entertainment industry. It wasn't in New York, though, it was in Edison, New Jersey (a hastily chosen replacement for Secaucus, New Jersey, which gave the show the boot after the mayor found out about it).

I've never been to one of these before, though I have worked in the adult industry in some way for over twenty years. I've been to sci-fi and horror movie shows, and the principle is the same: different vendors set up booths peddling their wares, and to hook in the customers they have celebrities of a certain stripe signing autographs and posing for pictures. With this type of show, of course, the talent are porn stars--porn stars as far as the eye can see.

I was there at the opening of the show, before any of the stars had set up shop, so wandered around a bit, soaking it in. It was sort of like James Dobson's vision of Hell (although one organization was handing out booklets titled "Jesus Loves Porn Stars.") Dancers from a nearby strip joint were milling about, either gyrating inside of cages or zipping from station to station on Segways (leave it to the adult industry to make practical use of the latest technology). No nudity was allowed, but some girls pushed the definition by wearing nothing on their breasts but strategically placed stickers over their nipples. And nothing prevented video companies from showing hard-core pornography on video monitors. As some guy I crossed paths in the men's room said, "Fuckin' great!"

The crowd was, of course, almost all male, but there were more women than I would have thought (usually as part of a couple). It was also almost exclusively white, with just a sprinkling of Asians and a few blacks. Sure, there were the kind of guys who don't have enlightened views of women (one guy behind me in one line referred to the girl we were waiting for as a "fine bitch") but mostly the guys who show up at these sort of things, just like the standard customer at a strip club, are meek and easily dazzled by female flesh. This is why the argument that strip clubs bring crime to an area are untrue. Men who go to strip clubs become anesthetized by being so close to naked boobage.

Almost everything connected with the salacious was on sale, from dildos to sexy clothing (one company was called I Love Vagina) to DVDs. But I was there for the stars. I've met some famous people in my day (I once hung out with some of the Detroit Tigers baseball club as they drank in the hotel bar in New York City) but the celebrity face-time I've always valued most has been with those girls who do the yeomen work of fucking for the camera. God bless them.

I used to have much more connection with that world when I worked for Penthouse and I actually interviewed them for the magazine. Now I'm just another chump standing in line, but I still get a rush out of it. This particular show had some of my favorites, two of whom I've written valentines to on this blog: Sasha Grey, who personifies the new direction porn is taking, and Hillary Scott, a tiny bundle of sexual heat (most of these girls are tinier than I could have believed). But I also got the chance to talk to several other favorites, such as Jesse Jane, Lexi Love, Courtney Cummz, Audrey Bitoni, Penny Flame, Sunny Lane, Roxy DeVille, Stoya, and Teagan Presley. But my main target at this show was my new favorite star, Bree Olson (who is pictured). She made the whole thing worthwhile.

What does one say to a porn star? "I think you have a beautiful vagina?" Most of these women, if they want to be successful, make every guy feel like a king. Some do this better than others. When I got up to Sasha Grey I told her I felt like I was meeting a Beatle, and she immediately told me she had just seen Mick Jagger at a club. Wrong band, but I think she knew that and was just making a leap. Grey has a reputation not only for being a woman who performs with an almost scary gusto, she also is something of an intellectual.

For many of the others, I told them what films they had made that I had seen. Some of these girls have made dozens and dozens of movies, but most remember every one they have done, although they haven't necessarily seen them. All of them were nice, but some were more giving of their time than others. Bree Olson, though, really went the extra mile.

Olson, who kind of resembles a Nordic Christina Ricci, burst on the scene last year. She won the AVN Award (the most prestigious of the myriad awards given) for Best New Starlet. I have been spending my summer trying to rapidly assemble a decent collection of her films (I will never have them all, she already has more than 100, and she's only just shy of 22 years old). Her gimmick is the sweet, girl next door type that happens to be filthy during sex, and making that all seem genuine. She's from a small town of Indiana, and has a girlish lilt to her voice, but when she's having sex (much of it of the anal variety) she can let loose a string of obscenities that almost make me blush. She especially has a penchant for referring to herself as a "two-dollar whore." Yowza!

When I got to the head of the line, Bree used her gifts to make me feel like we'd known each other forever. Since I'm a friend on her MySpace account, I knew that her grandmother had recently passed away, so I offered my condolences and she seemed to appreciate that. Then she signed my picture thusly: "You are so cute! I love older men, and wanna fuck you back!" Dear Bree, you have a fan for life!