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Ah, awards season. The red carpets. The screenings. The parties. The best actress contenders posting naked selfies to potential voters.
It’s little noted by the mainstream media, but right now — early January — is the thick of the adult film world’s cutthroat run-up to the Adult Video News Awards, porn’s version of the Oscars. And while there are many differences between the Academy Awards and the AVNs — like the categories, which stretch well beyond best actor and actress to best group sex scene, best oral sex scene and a few that can’t be published in a family magazine — there are more than a few similarities.
“Oh, there are a lot of parallels,” notes Brian S. Gross, a veteran publicist for the adult industry. “There’s definitely campaigning going on to try to get a step ahead and win awards. Companies throw For Your Consideration events and show off their work. Publicists write press releases and send them to adult websites — sort of like studios do with The Hollywood Reporter. Pretty much everything that goes on during Oscar season goes on here as well.”
The AVN Awards have been around since the 1980s — porn’s VHS-fueled golden age — and, like the Oscars, they’ve helped launch major careers (Jenna Jameson, Sasha Grey), suffered their share of controversies (like the time Andy Dick got ejected from the ceremony) and spawned plenty of imitators (the XMA Awards, sometimes described as the Golden Globes of porn).
As with the Academy Awards, the nominees are decided by a lofty group of professionals — or at least the folks who write for and publish Adult Video News, the industry’s main trade — although there are fan-voted categories as well, like favorite body, in which pretty much anyone with an iPhone can participate. Which helps explain why, around this time of year, certain social media feeds are inundated with racy FYI posts by adult stars courting votes.
This year’s big night takes place Jan. 25 at — you can’t make this stuff up — the Virgin Hotel in Las Vegas. “If you win,” says Gross, succinctly summing up the benefits of any award trophy, “it means you can ask for more money. You can up your rate.”
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