Whether you agree with our video reviews or not, you have to grant that we here at AVN see a lot of porn. Tons. Piles. In fact, considering the thousands of tapes we review every year, collectively we see more sex than anyone could - or would, for that matter - ever imagine. This is especially true at awards time, when the staff begins slogging through the various nominees, trying to decide which tapes/scenes/stars are award-worthy. \n Naturally, one side effect of this process is to begin focusing on those little, niggling things that make us all crazy. This feature is born of those discussions. Sure, there will be hate mail. Sure, we're going to step on some toes . . . but we're critics, damn it. We get paid to offer our opinions. We aren't naming any names, but we feel sure the guilty parties will feel the little hairs standing up straight on the backs of their necks, and know they've been recognized. \n Don't be surprised if you disagree with some of our opinions. In fact, some of the staff couldn't even agree on these objet d'hatred. AVN is, by and large, a democratic organization, however, and the grievances that follow represent - for the most part - the majority opinion. Here then, in alphabetical order, is a list of things we're frankly sick of looking at; things we never want to see darkening the visage of adult film or video ever again.
Anal Drainage \n Some of the more Hardcore directors have taken a liking to showing us the, uh, caramel-colored dribblings from a girl's gaping sphincter after a particularly energetic anal. Thanks, but we prefer to suspend our disbelief where butt sex is concerned.
Audible Direction \n This is an obvious one. Directors, if we can hear you on the final edit, something probably needs to be done to fix the sound, don'tcha think?
Badly Done (Read: Most) Gangbangs \n The gangbang as an (oy) art form is deceptively difficult to do well. Some directors can pull it off; most directors can't. The "more is better" mentality behind these slipshod productions is part of the problem. More crap is more crap.
Bad Music \n When people in the mainstream think of porn, they still reference our bad "wokka-chu-wokka" soundtracks from the late '70s and early '80s. Know why? Most porn music still sounds like that. For Bob's (where "Bob" is whatever smut-friendly deity you choose to invoke) sake, expend a little effort, people! Either get better music, or clean up the audio and let the video run without. We - and your audience - will thank you.
Blaring Music \n See Bad Music, above. Now, imagine that same bad music mixed WAY TOO FUCKIN' LOUD! Imagine not being able to hear the dialogue. Imagine not being able to hear the moans. Now, imagine the sound of erectile tissue going soft all across the land. \n You get the idea.
Condom Conjuring - Now You See It . . . \n . . . now you don't! And always just in time for the cumshot! Safe sex features are fine, but this sudden, magical leap in continuity screams to the viewer, "This dude onscreen has been jacking off for the past hour so he can come." This, in case you missed it, is a bad thing.
Crappy Box Copy \n The next box that comes through these offices touting its contents as "Magnifcient", has the wrong "their", "to", "it's", or features any other similarly embarrassing blurbs wins the company owner an hour in the corner with a dunce cap on his head, and a dart-board painted on his ass. If you aren't a grammatical genius, fine. Find one! It's only your livelihood, after all.
Credit Dyslexia \n Your performers have names. Learn them. The least you can do as a producer is spell the performer's names correctly on the tape and the box. Oh, and if you produce tapes without credits, knock it off! Every tape should have credits, arranged so you can identify the performers without having an embolism.
Cum Bubbles \n There's a very fine line between rising lust and rising gorge. Girls blowing bubbles with the cum in their mouths doesn't just cross that line, it erases the motherfucker! Spill it, drool it, whatever, but the perverted Mr. Bubble act has got to go. \n
Cummy Faces \n Why this practice in straight adult tapes hasn't been made a class three felony before now is a question that begs to be answered. Nobody - absolutely nobody - wants to see these cutaways of some porn stud grimacing like a thunderstruck mare while he fakes having an orgasm! If you have to cut away from the action, cut to the woman's face. Or the skyline. Or the furniture, for that matter! Anything!
Cutaways During the Action \n This sentiment has been uttered before, but apparently the point hasn't gotten across: don't cut away from the sex! With the possible exception of Bob Saget, few things in life are more annoying than watching a tape that cuts away from the action just as it's getting interesting. Don't show us a candle burning down, a plane taking off, a rocket launching, and especially don't cut to another sex scene. It's bad enough to fuck up one scene by interrupting the melee, why would you want to fuck up two? Besides, how can you be certain that both scenes will appeal to any one viewer? You think they're just going to fast-forward through the one they don't like? You're dreaming, chuckles, you're dreaming.
Death Grip, The \n Okay, porn studs, it's a heartless sentiment, but here's the deal: Our business is sex. Fucking. A carpenter's no good without his tools. Do what you gotta do to get it up, and if you can't, get out. And don't try the "let's see you do better" argument. With the exception of Mark Kernes, we all have enough good sense, or enough abject fear, to not drop our drawers on camera, and Mark isn't allowed to anymore.
Detective Stories \n Does anybody out there really think there's anything fresh about the idea of doing another fucking porno-world take on the hard-boiled-detective-meets-the-luscious-femme-fatale story? Well, you're wrong! In fact, it's a rare week when we only get one tape in with this storyline. We don't care how many of these George Kaplan or Martin Brimmer potboiler-with-no-boil scripts are still running around out there, enough is enough!
Dubbing \n Whether it's overdubbed moans, or cheesy, replaced dialogue on a foreign release, "good dubbing" is a contradiction in terms. We'd much rather listen to an actress moaning enthusiastically in German than your receptionist moaning half-heartedly in English. And if you think your customers won't want to read subtitles, how do you think they feel about unbearable, badly-acted overdubs? \n
Fake Tits \n Okay, this is the biggie. We know we're going to take a lot of heat for this, but here it is: Without exception, every person in this office, men and women alike, prefers real tits. We would love to never see a pair of after-market jugs again. And ladies, if you think yours are a vast improvement, good for you, but we beg to differ. Big or small, firm or flabby, tart 'n' tiny or big 'n' baggy, we'd just rather see the real thing. \n A lot of girls in the biz are told right out of the gate that they won't get club bookings unless they get boobs that are bigger than their heads. First off, plenty of strip club patrons feel the same way we do. Second, the club hires you to feature for your name, not your tits. Third, do you think that if women stopped getting implants, the strip clubs would just shut down and go away? Hardly. Finally, we aren't in the stripping business, we're in the porn business. Anyone who's ever cringed while watching a pair of plastic mams crease on the underside like an overdone Jiffy-Pop bag as a girl takes it from behind knows that what's good for the starlet isn't necessarily good for the dancer. \n For all you girls who have implants, we aren't saying the honeymoon's over. We just wish you'd gotten a second opinion: Ours.
Fence Painting \n For those who don't know, this is the practice of pretending to eat pussy by sticking your tongue out a mile, and moving the tip the tiniest bit over a girl's clit. Some girls do it `cause they actually don't eat pussy, some directors demand it so they can "see the action." Either way, fence painting is an evil blight on the face of the land, and will be dealt with most severely. If you're eating pussy, get in there! We don't care about makeup, we don't care about taste. If your face doesn't look like a glazed donut when you finish the scene, you blew it.
Flashes on Camera \n Photographer's flashes going off during the scene is exactly the kind of thing that makes everyone associated with the video look like an idiot. Hold the stills until after the action! Edit around the flash! Get a clue!
Fouling The Sex With Schtick \n There are some funny guys in the business. Many performers pride themselves on snappy patter, wacky voices, bizarre faces, or their ability to do comic parts. \n All that is great, but once you pull your dick out of your pants, shut up, huh? The last thing we want you to do is try to make us laugh while you fuck. Fans at home aren't chuckling at your antics; they're going limp as the sex suddenly turns into the last reel of Ace Ventura.
Girls Who Don't Do Anal, But Do \n There's nothing less erotic than watching a girl wince in obvious pain as she gets prodded in her posterior. Frankly, ladies, if you'd rather be flossing with a razor blade than taking it up the ass, we'd rather be flossing with a razor blade than watching you do it. It's gonna show, it's gonna be obvious. If you don't do anal, don't do anal.
Girls Who Don't Do Girls, But Do \n See Fence Painting, above. If your first thought when you arrive on set is how you can avoid actually touching the other girl's snatch, then guess what? You shouldn't be there. Save us the grief of watching another lame girl/girl scene, and yourself the hours of therapy. Stick to dick.
Girls With Braces \n Images of sticky fumblings in the backseats of cars and pubic hair torn out by the roots. Bad juju.
Guys In Animal (Or Politician) Masks \n It was cool the first hundred times. Give it a rest. \n
Guys Naked From The Ankles Up \n All right, folks, here's a little reality check: we're in an image-driven business, right? How fuckin' ludicrous do you guys think you look, standing there with nothing but your socks on? You can whine all you like that your feet get dirty, or cold, but that's why warm water was invented. We'd rather see dirty soles than some dork wearing nothin' but his gym socks. \n Shoes and socks are, of course, infinitely worse.
Guys Who've Gone From Being Icons To Eyesores \n There comes a time in every racehorse's career when the old stallion gets to retire. He can still trot around the track, but on his own time. We certainly aren't pointing any fingers, but there are a few old-timers who have, uh, overstayed their welcome in front of the camera. \n It's a new world out there. More and more women are watching porn, and they demand beautiful people. Much as we love you fellas, your beautiful days are over. A last stab at dignity, however, can still be had. Direct the vids, make non-sex appearances, and fuck your brains out on the side. In private.
Hairy, Bobbin' Man-Asses \n Somehow, several shooters out there seem to have gotten the idea that folks watching straight porn want to see lots of footage of the guy's fuzzy butt while he pounds some starlet senseless. Please! If we want to overdose on hirsute he-man backsides, we'll either pop in a bear-fetish video, or send Big Bob Pouliot running down the halls butt-naked.
Hemorrhoids \n Again, the rising gorge concept. Don't work until they're gone. That simple.
Lipstick Kisses \n This is the face-to-face counterpart of Fence Painting, and it makes us want to scream. We don't care about your fucking lipstick! If your make-up isn't smeared when you finish necking with someone, you did it wrong.
Looping \n Which, for you novices, is repeating footage to lengthen a scene. It's the video equivalent of wallpaper: follow it along, and the pattern repeats. Any video containing looping automatically loses a point off its rating.
Long, Long J/O Scenes \n Again, this obviously doesn't apply to gay porn. In straight porn, however, the long, lingering cutaways of guys beating their frequently flaccid meat are about as good for business as frost is for oranges.
Marital Strife \n Without expending too much energy or imagination, there are at least 3,476,985 permutations of the Husband/Wife Catches Significant Other Cheating and Goes On Sex Rampage plot, and we've seen 'em all. Twice. Surely, there must be something else a couples vid can focus on. Like maybe sex.
New Companies Named "________ Angel" \n We've got nothing against the original group of Angel companies, but all the pseudo-duplicates that have followed after, hoping to capitalize on their predecessor's success, are just annoying. Give us a break already.
Obnoxious Onscreen Copy \n A big percentage of the tapes we view have "for screening only" burned onscreen, and often this isn't a problem. When the letters occupy the middle third of the screen, and cover up most of the action, that's usually a bad thing. Depends on the video, of course. Sometimes it's a blessing in disguise.
Performers With ILWMFD (I Like Watching Myself Fuck Disorder) \n This is basic stuff: if you have to look at the monitor during your scene, try to be a little less obvious about it. Watching the director is every bit as bad. Just fuck, willya?
Performers With SNADD (Screen Name Attention Deficit Disorder) \n You've made up your screen name, now lie in it. Keeping up with the multitude of performers who change their names, or worse, the spelling of their names, every fucking week is giving us all night sweats. Pick a name, and stick with it.
Phone Sex Ads Interrupting The Action \n Who came up with this brilliant idea? The next tape that rolls through here with ads in the middle gets a 0 rating, and a quick trip to the circular file.
Porno Virgins \n Does presenting a 26 year old porno chick with big fake titties, shaved pubes, pierced genitals and a tattoo on her ass that says "Jake's Property" sound like inspired casting or outright fucking laziness? Producers, get a clue; If you're going to trot out the old Virgin Discovers the Joys of Sex chestnut, at least get a girl who can pull it off.
Reminiscence & "Remember When" Stories \n Remember when someone sitting around, writing or reading a diary, writing their fantasies, or reading someone else's, was a fresh and original plot device? You do? Does it seem like ancient history? It should, because those days are long gone. \n
Ridiculous Pube Trims \n Girls, girls! What is with the pubic hair? Either shave it all off, or leave it alone. Trimming is fine, but these little Hitler mustaches gracing some of our most beautiful pudendæ have absolutely got to go!
Slobbering & Drooling \n The veritable rivers of saliva that accompany every single blowjob these days have gotten way out of control. Suddenly, every time a pretty babe gets near a cock, she ends up foaming at the mouth like a hyper-thyroid St. Bernard. Once again we're walking that fine line between getting off and throwing up.
Smiling At The Camera While Fucking \n Certain Europorn producers find it necessary to have the girl smile at the camera during the entire sex scene, even in features. This is simply so wrong, it's hard to even know where to begin. For one thing, we want to see a girl fucking, not performing. It's like watching a video filled with bone-riding spokesmodels. Imagine Vanna White spinning letters while taking a dick up the ass. \n Okay, that scenario actually is kind of hot, but only for sheer twistedness. Generally, smiling, "happy" sex is also really boring sex.
Spitting \n Spitting in faces, spitting in mouths, spitting in assholes, spitting on cocks or pussies . . . this is Publisher Paul Fishbein's personal campaign. Spitting is one of those things that's great in the moment, but not so hot to watch. As Paul puts it, "The minute they spit, pop out the tape, the scene's over."
Strobing \n This technique is done in post to make a really cheap video look like it was just a cheap video. When used correctly, it can be a very effective technique. Unfortunately, so few editors know how to use it in an appropriate way that strobing has become the bane of porn fans everywhere as we sit through hours of staccato sex.
Sweaty, Bobbin' Man-Asses \n This is the proverbial Hairy, Bobbin' Man-Ass made that much worse by a coat of thick sweat. This leads to a shiny, clammy backside that undulates across the screen, occasionally exposing an equally moist, pink asshole surrounded by thick, wet matted hair. Not great subject matter for straight porn.
Talons \n Few things can send chills down the spine quicker than the vision of some porn babe with terrifying, inch-long, twat-tearing, scrotum-shredding, rectum-rending fingernails wrapping her hand around a dick, or slipping her fingers into an orifice. Unless you're a dominatrix, your fingertips should be as smooth as a baby's butt.
Titles With The Words "Sorority", "Nurse", "Cheerleader", or "Stewardess". \n Sure, some truly great videos have been released with these words in the titles. Now, however, common sense will tell you that there are just too fucking many! Directors, if you want to guarantee that your videos will languish in total anonymity, or can be differentiated only by their numbers, these are the kinds of titles you want to go with.
Vids With "Debutante" In The Title That Aren't Ed Powers' \n Ed saw the idea hanging ripe on the tree, and plucked it. The whole crop of imitators are just worms in the apple. See New Companies Named "________ Angel" for clarification.
Vomiting in a Regular Release \n For some people, vomiting is a fetish, and that's fine. Recognize, however, that - like all fetishes - the vast majority of your customers probably don't want to see it in a non-fetish tape. If you want to make rainbow shower tapes, more power to you. But by including vomiting footage in a regular release, you run the risk of hurling profits, good ratings, and your customer base right along with it.
Woodless Woodies \n Unless it's a plot point, there is absolutely no excuse for ever showing a limp dick during a sex scene. Do whatever you have to do: shoot more footage, edit around, or shorten the scene. We never want to see some guy trying to squeeze his crowless cock into shape. If the rod ain't rigid, we have no use for it, and neither should you.
