The Cyberspace Adult Video Review (CAVR) awards allow anyone who wishes to vote to honor their favorite female performers, directors, and titles.
For the last eight years, Den – who only goes by one name, has looked over his notes from his self-published reviews to compile his own list – then solicited requests for suggestions. Nowadays those requests come mainly on the boards at AdultDVDTalk.com and RAME, as well as suggestions people email him throughout the year.
"I'd say the final nominations are 80 percent mine and twenty percent fan input," Den told AVN.com
Den used to review 8 videos a day, but has cut the number down to an average of 5 now that he has switched to DVD – he watches every extra, with a fondness for behind-the-scenes footage.
Although he takes a day of here and there – Den watches at least 1,500 adult DVDs a year, rating every scene - that's why his opinion is worth 80 percent.
"I don't have anything else to do – I'm retired," Den explains. "This is something I do because I love watching these things. I'm a fan first, reviewer second. "
The CAVR Awards offer 4 awards – Best New Star, Best Star, Best Director, and Best DVD. The Best New Star and Best Star categories are for women only.
There are sixteen nominees for each category, which are posted on January 1 and the voting begins. The votes come from fans like Den, critics, as well as from a few of the stars and directors that are nominated – but that's not a problem for Den as long as they only vote once.
"One year I had an outlandish number of votes for one company and it was pretty obvious that someone was trying to fix the vote," Den said, suggesting that he had talked to the company and they hadn't attempted to rig it again.
On January 16, the winners were announced. Unlike most awards – CAVR not only announces the winners, but also announces which place each nominee came in.
So while this year Selena Silver was named Best New Star, and Avy Scott was named Best Star, and Jules Jordan was named Best Director and the Best DVD was No Cum Dodging Allowed (Red Light District), whoever is interested can see who came in second, third and so on in each category.
And the winners aren't always whom Den voted for - take the Best DVD category – he wrote on his Website when announcing the awards that, "Fashionistas is the DVD of the Year. Period. End of subject." The rest were fighting for runner-up. Guess you know how I voted."
But he didn't change the results – Mike John's No Cum Dodging Allowed received just three votes more than the Fashionistas.
As a footnote to his contributions as a reviewer and advocate of consumers voicing their opinion in ways other than with their dollars, Den was involved in the early days of amateur video.
In fact, porn scribe Dirty Bob, who lives "just down the street" from Den, attests that Den was the first person to shoot amateur tapes on S-VHS.
In the 80s Den ran Den Video, an amateur company that sold mostly solo masturbation tapes via mail order.
