The AVN Entertainment Expo, also known as the Porn Show, was held in two halls in the Sands Convention center next to the CES show, and the co-mingling of geeks and porn people in the lobby was priceless. As one would expect, much of the talent was dressed in very revealing outfits, and if I had a nickel for every CES attendee in uncomfortable shoes shooting sidelong glances (or outright staring) at the copious amounts of flesh on display, I’d be yada yada…  Comedy gold.

The AVN show itself is, like CES, a meeting place of industry people: vendors, talent, publishers, distributers and that kind of thing. Of course, given the product that is distributed, everything is much more…colorful.  The lower level show hall was all small vendors and producers hawking their wares and networking. Sadly, the show down there was much diminished due to the flagging economy, so there were only about 50 booths taking up about a quarter of the available space. The last time I went, this area was jammed full of people hawking cheap DVDs, dildos, Viagra knock-offs, adult vacations, you name it. Most of those categories of businesses were still there, but much fewer of them.

The upstairs hall was much more impressive. This is where the big studios and websites had their booths and the vast majority of the talent congregated to sign autographs, titillate, and look sexy. This area was as big and loud and full as I remember from the past. Heartening to know that some aspects of the porn industry aren’t hurting, I guess! I learned a lot in this area. For example, did you know that there is a particular fetish that involves scantily clad women blowing up balloons until they pop? Well, there is, they have websites, and I have pics to prove it.

Another thing I learned about myself is that I have still have the hots for Barbara Eden as Genie.  Yeah, I’m not sure if should be embarrassed by that or not, but there it is.

Probably one of the most personally interesting things that happened to me at the show involved a stripper that was there dancing to promote her Vegas workplace with a gaggle of other women. It was one of those weird scenarios (not Penthouse Letters weird, just happenstance): I was stopped with a small crowd gawking at some remarkable feat of sexual prowess and she was standing next to me, mostly topless. Normally, from past experiences with topless women, I become incapable of speech.  I guess that between the tiredness from walking around so much and all the freaky stuff going on around me, I was able to chat pretty eloquently (or at least that’s my memory…who the hell knows the reality of the situation). We were making small talk, not unlike I’d made with dozens of people at CES: Where are you from? What brings you to show? And then from there, I don’t how we got to it, we started talking about This American Life, the NPR radio show, and I was shocked (though I don’t know why) to find out it was also her favorite podcast/radio show!

It was bizarre. I’ve certainly had similar conversations with friends or on internet message boards or whatever, but for some reason, having that talk with a beautiful, mostly naked woman just completely blew my mind. In a good way. I mean, I don’t know what I was expecting. Strippers are people too, and if one believes a lot of what one hears, a significant number of strippers are college students making great money to pay their way through school. I guess it was the exposed boobs that were throwing me off. Here was a woman that inadvertently, or because of the setting, dropped the dancer personality while remaining mostly naked and interacted with me on a level that I normally reserve for non-naked people. It was weird, and mind-boggling to me, and, I’m not embarrassed to say, incredibly sexy. More so than any other stripper interaction I’d ever had. I’m not sure what it was I learned there, but I did learn something!

The rest of show was pretty typical. The first day I went was all industry people so it was pretty tame (relatively speaking).  I dropped in on the last day too, since I was in the Sands to see some CES booths, and this was the “public” day, where they let anyone that was willing to pay 100 bucks go in and meet/see their favorite stars. On an observer level, this was the coolest day ever. So many freaks (and I mean that in the best possible way)! Tattoos, piercings, and crazy clothes were the norm. Wearing a suit, I felt like the freak. All the big porn stars were there too. Nina Hartley is the only famous porn star name I can think of, though I recognized a bunch more by their, um, name tags or something. I was able to see the star of the temporarily famous Nailin’ Palin movie, based on the sexy life of Sarah Palin. The resemblance was impressive, in a porn-look-alike-way.

Other notable booths: The XXX Church (Motto: Jesus Loves Porn Stars). They had the best booth freebies ever: Jesus Loves Porn Star stickers, The Jesus Loves Porn Stars Bible, and temporary tattoos. There was also the Adopt-A-Clitoris booth, that, despite its silly name and the stripper pole, was actually for a very good cause. They’re an organization that works to prevent female genital mutilation in Africa and other third world countries.

And then there were the guys selling beer bongs made to look like body parts. In general, not very impressive, except they were wearing Lederhosen, singing German drinking songs, and looking really, really embarrassed to be doing it. Lederhosen! It was awesome! And the booth selling personal lubricant that smelled and looked like beer. Seriously. It smelled like stale beer. The guy said business was booming which was the single most depressing thing I’d heard this year, counting the current economic collapse.