LAS VEGAS, NV—The 2018 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, which wrapped up at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday, generated coverage in the mainstream press that centered around two names in particular: Stormy Daniels—and Donald Trump. In what was certainly an unexpected twist of fate, the Trump administration started with a pledge to crack down on the porn industry, but by the time the 2018 AVN Expo rolled around a year later, it was Trump himself who provided perhaps the biggest burst of publicity the adult industry has seen in years.
Of course, Trump likely did not intend to anoint himself as the president most closely linked to porn. His reported affair with Daniels—and alleged six-figure hush-money payout to her—did that for him.
According to a Washington Post report on the AVN show, the industry is welcoming the newfound attention.
“Adult-film executives said they welcomed the spike in interest as the industry works to climb back from the Great Recession and fight off DVD piracy, which has cut into a key revenue stream,” the Post reported on Saturday.
"Any exposure is good exposure," producer/director Bree Mills told the paper, adding that the mainstream coverage can only help the industry’s efforts to establish itself as “no longer something men in trenchcoats feel they have to hide from their wives."
Daniels herself appeared at the show—and while she remained mum on The Donald through the weekend, she did make a surprise announcement via Instagram and Twitter Sunday that she has inked a new exclusive directing contract with Digital Playground after 15 years of doing so at Wicked Pictures. She also popped into Little Darlings strip club on Friday night, which the Los Angeles Times could not resist noting stood just two miles down the road from the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.
The club billed Daniels as “the president’s mistress,” but she did not actually give a performance at the club, but rather a mere “personal appearance.”
“The start of her appearance caught several patrons off guard when she finally took the stage around 1 a.m. The emcee—Donny—introduced her again as the president's mistress, and the 38-year-old Daniels, wearing a black, low-cut dress, smiled and flashed her breasts. The whole thing took a few minutes,” the Times reported.
After her brief stint on stage, Daniels was ushered to a booth in the back of the club, where patrons lined up to get her autograph, or snap a selfie with the suddenly-world-famous porn star.
“She allowed several men to stand behind her as she took off her top and let them put their hands on her breasts. She was all smiles. So were the men,” according to the Times account.
Daniels, already a member of the AVN Hall of Fame, was nominated in four categories at Saturday’s AVN Awards show, but she came away empty-handed.
In January of last year, Trump’s incoming appointee for United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, promised that the Justice Department would “effectively and vigorously” prosecute obscenity cases, and would likely resurrect the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, a special anti-porn unit that was shut down by the Justice Department under President Barack Obama, who placed a low priority on obscenity prosecutions.
So far, however, the feared anti-porn crusade by Sessions and the Trump administration has not materialized.
Mainstream media outlets found several non-Trump/Daniels angles to cover at last week’s AVN Expo, as well. The Australian news site News.com.au—owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia—explored how AVN staff selected the AVN Award nominees, while Men’s Health identified six trends in porn for 2018 to come out of the AVN Show. Among those trends, the magazine predicted that the year would see more “female-driven” porn productions, as well a bigger budgets and more action-packed storylines in feature-length adult films.
