LOS ANGELES –- – Chemistry, a takeoff on reality shows that films seven porn stars left in a house for 36 hours with cameras rolling but no script, won the AVN Award for Best Gonzo Release at the 2007 adult film awards ceremony.

Conceived and directed by New York newspaper columnist Tristan Taormino (she writes a weekly column on sex for The Village Voice), Chemistry was released in 2006 by Vivid Entertainment, the leading adult film studio. AVN dubbed the movie a “new-style gonzo.” It is Taormino’s first film for Vivid and Chemistry 2, is being released this month. She is currently at work on a new generation of sex education films for the studio.

Taormino, who was covering the ceremony for The Village Voice, was on hand to receive her award. “I was completely shocked,” she said.

Taormino is the niece of famed novelist Thomas Pynchon. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in American Studies from Wesleyan University and is the author of three best-selling books and editor of 14 anthologies. She has been featured in over 200 publications and has lectured at top colleges and universities including Yale and Yale Law School, Brown, Columbia, Smith, Swarthmore, Vassar, University of California at Santa Barbara, Colby College, Sarah Lawrence College, and NYU, where she speaks on gay and lesbian issues, sexuality and gender, and feminism.

The award was one of several picked up by Vivid and Vivid-distributed studios in the AVN competition. Others included:

-Best Editing – Film: – Jenna’s Provocateur (Club Jenna/Vivid Entertainment)

-Best Interactive DVD: – Virtual Vivid Girl Sunny Leone (Vivid Entertainment)

-Best Sex Scene Coupling – Film: – Janine and Manuel Ferrara in Emperor (Vivid Entertainment)

-Best Supporting Actor – Film – Kurt Lockwood, To Die For (Vivid Entertainment)