For a site as storied as BurningAngel.com—founded by a punk rock porn star as famous as Joanna Angel—the effort that goes into keeping the site regularly updated with great content featuring consistently gorgeous and non-traditional women is truly impressive. Add in the fact that BA has been a fixture in the porn universe since about 2002—longer than most porn careers—and the notable creativity that’s brought to bear throughout the domain is not only impressive, but also kind of intimidating. It must be a labor of love.

As much social networking community as anything else, BA promotes itself as non-mainstream when placed against other porn sites, but that doesn’t begin to describe its vibe, which ranges from goth to punk to tattooed to … well, pick your alt-label, because none of them really matters anymore. The site transcends labels. Driven by some unspoken (or unspeakable?) force of nature, BA may have been originally inspired by Suicide Girls, but its authentic intelligence and shameless fucking audacity have long since surpassed that other site in the Real Deal department. (The force of nature, of course, is—for lack of a better label—punk rock porn princess Joanna Angel herself, who continues to burn as brightly as she must have blazed almost a decade ago, in that Rutgers dorm, where the idea for BurningAngel.com was born.)

Technically, the site hums along with nary a burp between the click and load of photos or videos, the latter of which are made available in various geek-approved resolutions and formats. Navigation, the make or break for any site, is clear, easy and fast, with requisite information placed where it needs to be. Adverts are few and far between, which is quite nice, and members are provided a plethora of tools with which to create profiles and manage their community settings. Most amazingly of all, a few hours hanging around the site reveals that members really do post to their blogs and/or comment on vids, photos or other miscellany.

Unlike many other so-called community or networking porn sites, this one really is fucking alive, with a decided emphasis on the fucking.