From www.losangeles.decider.com - The 13th annual Erotica L.A. convention, held at the city’s massive Convention Center, was an exercise in the surprisingly tame business side of the adult industry. On the way downtown, my fellow attendee and I had racked our brains with the possibilities of what might take place at a porn convention, having never attended one. Would bare boobs be hanging out left and right? Would seminars involve, say, real sex acts onstage? Would we get invited to orgiastic after-parties at some '90s-style mansion in the Hollywood Hills? Well, no, no, and—less shockingly—no.
On its third and final day, the convention floor was relatively quiet. A few hundred attendees milled past booths of sex toys and “naughty” T-shirts with phrases like “Boob Man” or “Got Dick?” across them. Spread across one floor of the Center, more than 300 booths lined the walls and interior, creating a central path where porn stars and starlets stood posing for fans and singing autographs in front of blown-up, sexy pictures of themselves. Feeling more like a racy health fair than a major industry showcase, we ambled past booth after booth, where business owners sat smiling with their wares (mostly sex toys) splayed out in front of them, sometimes meekly handing a flier to convention-goers.
The first eye-grabbing booth we came upon was for a product called Fleshlight, which proclaims itself as the No. 1 selling male sex toy in the world. A “masturbation sleeve,” the device is essentially an oversized flashlight (for discreetness!) with a rubbery fake vagina poking out the top. Next to the pretty lady manning the table of vagina tubes was a truly breathtaking wall of different Fleshlights, all lined up in a grid to show the different textures, orifices, and the option to have a porn star’s signature upraised in the squishy “Superskin.”
From there we wandered past booths of porn DVDs, racks of Lucite heels in a kaleidoscope of colors, portable stripper poles and stages, and other bachelor-party amenities. On the main row—the Walk Of Fame of this convention—tanned, buxom porn stars stood in front of tiny bar-style tabletops while dozens of eager fans (almost all men) lined up for autographs and pictures. Waiting in line, they continually snapped photos of the stars, even if other men were gripping onto them. One older man, wearing a tucked in T-shirt and sporting a long, grey ponytail with matching moustache, held onto a starlet gingerly while she vamped for the camera his friend held, winking and curling her upper lip while he nervously smiled.
I took a break in the women’s bathroom, where I found a gaggle of women getting ready for some sort of event that involved thongs, star-shaped pasties, and fishnet bodysuits. As I washed my hands, I heard the following exchange between two of the women, one who was aggressively yanking the pasty on her left nipple.
Woman 1: Ugh, I hate when these stupid things aren’t on straight. I can feel it all day and it fucking bugs!
Woman 2: Yeah? You can feel it?
Woman 1: Yes, I can feel it. [Looks to her friend.] If I had fucking implants I wouldn’t, though!” [They both laugh.]
Upon returning to the floor, I decided to meet Belladonna, the porn star I interviewed earlier in the week. Fans crowded around her signing area, which was expected given her popularity and longevity in the industry. At 28, she’s been working in adult films for ten years. Unlike other porn stars at the convention dressed in bikinis or skin-tight mini-dresses, Belladonna wore a girlish blue and white polka-dotted dress and sparkly red headband. Like the other girls, she smiled and posed, sometimes letting the men pretend to spank her while pulling her skirt up and making an “uh oh” face for the cameras.
We chatted with her for a few minutes, and she mentioned this year’s convention was significantly downsized from recent years due to the recession. The line of men waiting to have their Belladonna DVDs and photos signed were peering over my shoulder, silently urging me to skedaddle, so I thanked her and wandered along. Walking away, I realized I never had a conversation with anyone while nearby posters and DVD covers showed them spread eagle and holding penises.
On our way out, we stuck our heads in one of the sexual seminars put on by L.A. sex superstore The Pleasure Chest. Titled “Fantasy Lap Dance,” the seminar featured a woman dressed in a black dominatrix-style get-up with huge heels giving step-by-step instructions on lap dancing, using another woman wearing some kind of breast harness as the model to perform on. The rows of seated chairs were only about half filled, and many in the audience sat flipping through the convention booklets, perhaps resting their feet before heading back onto the floor. The female instructor onstage struggled a bit to explain each move while the techno music from the convention floor blasted nearby, nervously laughing and encouraging audience members to join in with their partners. Two women in tiny skirts and platform moon boots wandered by, peering in before continuing on their way.
Losing interest in the seminar, we also flipped through our booklets and realized we saw every booth and almost every porn star at the convention. For as much as we’d imagined hours upon hours of eye-popping porn-world mania, we'd seen all the faux vaginas and discounted porn DVDs to be seen on the convention floor. A decidedly wholesome margarita beckoned at the nearby tourist spot Olvera Street and we bid adieu to Erotica L.A.
