I went to AVN (essentially the Oscars of porn, a multi-day expo culminating in an awards show) not really knowing what I was walking into. Which, for someone who spent years in adult content, feels a little odd to admit. I knew the people-watching would be good. I knew it would be overwhelmingly heterosexual and heteronormative, and I was right on both counts. But aren't I always right?
Going in, I had a few expectations. I expected to be gawked at, frankly. I expected men to be intrusive in the way they can be in spaces like that, like being in a room full of people who've confused proximity to sexuality with permission. But that wasn't my experience. If anything, I was almost ignored, which depending on the day and the particular chaos happening in my head, is both deeply erotic and its own sick torture. But the real takeaway of AVN was realizing how much work I still have to do around my need to be desired and validated. And while that need hasn't always held this much power over me, I guess in some way or another it's always been there. But lately, with the wild shifts in my life, I find it louder. A desire to be desired by those I desire.
I also think I've been putting off fully processing leaving sex work and the way that departure has quietly reshaped how I see myself. I've been avoiding it because I'm not ready to sit with the jealousy, the hurt, and this deep fear I have of not portraying sex work positively. Sometimes this weird people-pleasing side of me kicks in. This need to be everything to everyone. To have perfectly respectable, nuanced, correct takes about everything. For every feeling I put into the world to be liked by everyone. My rational side knows that's not possible. But knowing something and feeling it are different things.
So when I went to AVN, I wanted to talk to people about AI and porn. Not from the reductive angle of "AI porn = bad," because that take ignores the complicated reality so many in this industry are up against. OnlyFans has shifted the industry in unimaginable ways, genuinely good ways, giving creators far more autonomy over their work and income, reducing some of the more unsavory dynamics of traditional production studios. But it's also created an insatiable hunger in viewers. Not just for content, but for access. For creators to always be reachable, always available. And while that can be good for income, it's also spawned a whole ecosystem of OnlyFans agencies that create exploitative conditions for both creators and "chatters," people often outsourced and underpaid, pretending to be models in fan DMs.
Layer on top of that the growing censorship of adult creators on social media (mind you, the same platforms that leave Nazi propaganda and pro-anorexia content up, but ok?) and the fallout from FOSTA/SESTA and the removal of Backpage. Sex workers have had to adapt constantly, and AI is one of the tools they're using to do it. It can ease workflows, reduce content debt, help creators stay competitive without burning out. These were real conversations I had with independent creators, production teams, small businesses, casual viewers, and even an AI company backed by a porn creator, building tools to help models develop their own prompts and generate their own content. The industry is complicated.
So there I was, having countless conversations, using my brain in new ways. And nothing makes me feel sexier than being able to engage with that complexity. I need to feel smart to feel sexy. I need that sense of accomplishment. And I had it there, pitching my marketing studio, filming content I'm genuinely proud of, having substantive conversations, all in the same room. It felt like hustle in the way that actually feels good. And it wasn't just me. It was every creator there, mostly women, all hustling unapologetically for something more. All crowded under the fluorescent lights of a conference ballroom, physically and emotionally navigating men and their pockets. Walking dollar signs for some of us who are deeply turned on by money.
When I got home, I found out that the few publications I'd pitched, some tech, some sex journalism, about covering AI and the adult industry as a retired sex worker turned tech marketer, hadn't gone anywhere. None of them bit. It stings in a specific way, that rejection. Like the world wants to clickbait sex and clickbait porn but doesn't actually want to hear from people who have lived inside it. Who have something real and complicated to say. I'm proud of what I'm building here, proud that this work exists. And I'm also, honestly, wishing I had a publication behind me. Not because it would change the work. But because there's something I haven't fully unpacked yet about what that external stamp would do for how I see myself. What I believe I'm worth. I don't love that I need that. It's not very unbothered of me.
Something else surfaced at AVN that I'm still sitting with: body representation. There were very few fat, plus-size, BBW creators there, whatever word you want to use. I get that there are organizational constraints I'm not fully aware of. But the idea of what's sexy has expanded so much in the last decade, and I think people are hungry for more of it. More types. I also understand that my ideals of sexy don't perhaps fit the male audience attending AVN. Queer desire and beauty standards are their own thing, though I'll note that everyone loves giant tits and a fat ass. I did spot Adult Time there (and got a camp conversion t-shirt that was definitely too small), but I wanted more queer. I always want more queer.
And sometimes, when I have the emotional space for it, I sit with my jealousy. I'm jealous of sex workers who seem to have a more queer client base. I'm a dyke who, honestly, has only ever really had a male audience, something I have complicated feelings about that I'm not quite ready to fully unpack. I'm still figuring out where a lot of this comes from.
A lot has changed in the last year. A frankly insane amount, in every part of my life simultaneously. My body. My career. My sense of what I want, what I'm building, what I actually deserve, all of it in active renegotiation. Being an earth sign sitting with that much uncertainty is its own particular torture.
AVN didn't fix any of that. But it reminded me that I'm someone who can walk into a room and find the interesting conversation in it. That I have something to say. That when I'm using my brain, I feel like myself.
I just want to make cool shit and do good shit. That's not nothing.
AVN was cool. I heart bitches with big titties.
— more to come, less self-centered, I promise.
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