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Abstract
This article uses the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas as a lens through which to examine the business and culture of pornography. I argue that adult-industry trade shows are data-rich field sites that allow pornography scholars to move beyond a focus on the pornographic text and examine the wider industry context that gives rise to contemporary porn cultures. These events are also occasions to practice ‘porn studies-in-action,’ a research approach that involves scholars spending time in those places where pornography is made, distributed, and consumed in an effort to better understand how cultural discourses and practices are organized in specific institutional and organizational contexts. Porn studies-in-action is a form of engaged scholarship that can take as its focus any number of cultural sites, from erotic film festivals to feminist porn sets to adult video stores, with the aim of empirically deepening our porn studies archives.
Notes
1. A version of this originally appeared as: Comella, Lynn. 2011. ‘Who's at the Front of the Line at AEE?’ Las Vegas Weekly, January 8. Accessed January 7, 2014. http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/blogs/porno-blog/2011/jan/08/who-aee/
2. A version of this originally appeared as: Comella, Lynn L. 2011. ‘A Red Carpet Recap from the AVN Awards.’ Las Vegas Weekly, January 9. Accessed January 7, 2014. http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2011/jan/09/red-carpet-recap-avn-awards/
3. A version of this originally appeared as: Comella, Lynn. 2012. ‘AVN Day Two: The Expo through the Eyes of a Photographer.’ Las Vegas Weekly, January 20. Accessed January 7, 2014. http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/blogs/porno-blog/2012/jan/20/avn-day-two-seeing/#/0