AEE 2011: Girding Our Loins

This week Team Fleshbot converges on Vegas for the Adult Entertainment Expo and AVN Awards, a magical, heady time for attention-starved starlets and a boozy, incoherent time for anyone who's been there more than once. But a fun time, regardless.

Both Vegas-hardened veterans and noobie pornstresses who've never ventured out of the Porn Valley bubble to experience the awesome weight of porn fandom will hit the show floor in full pastied finery Thursday morning and go non-stop until that last plane back to Burbank.

In between will be sausagefests, intimate suite gatherings, laryngitis, guerilla nudity, Purel, and maybe a little Herpes.

And those aren't the only things that will still be in evidence from yesteryear: there is always a sense that this will be the last year and that previous years were better.

Laurie Holmes (widow of John) says, "Those conventions were a whole lot more fun in the 80's....I mean a WHOLE LOT," and directors Cass Paley and Jimmy D. lament that the 90's weren't half bad, either.

"Now it's just boring business," says Paley.

Frankly, I've been going since 2002 and I am not aware of anyone who's made a cent (other than bartenders and makeup artists), but I look forward to seeing people in a different place than the same five Porn Valley locations as well as to marvel at the spectacle of the fans seeing Jesse Jane for the first time.

By all accounts, this year will be smaller (Vivid joins the list of companies not springing for booths) but also (and we're not being euphemistic) more intimate-you'll have a better chance of getting close to Kagney Linn Karter with the extra aisle space and without all those booths in the way.

Stay tuned for unbiased and relentless coverage from Fleshbot, including our mission of mercy to straight male porn stars.

· AVN Awards (avnawards.com)