Another AEE has come and gone. I had the great experience, as per usual, of moderating a panel at the show this year. It was called “What’s the Big Idea: AEE’s First Annual Disruptors Panel.”

Here’s my introduction for the seminar — short and sweet!

A disruption is often thought of as something negative — a disturbance in the force or some sort of problem that messes up an event or an activity. But a disruptor — we’ve come to understand that as something different.

While a disruptor certainly interrupts the flow of an event or a process, that’s not necessarily a bad thing — though sometimes it can be — sometimes processes need to be shaken up or challenged

Today, AVN has assembled a select group of enterprising industry executives who are disrupting the adult space with unconventional approaches and progressive content strategies… Positive disruption and significant shakeups — let’s hear from them!

And here are my main questions for each panelist:

Magnus Sullivan

Here’s some text: GLI services is designed to connect retailers, distributors and manufacturers in an effort to optimize the online shopping experience and increase operational efficiencies via online store, sales and marketing solutions.

You’ve said that your goal with GLI is to “elegantly fuse online strategies with retail to create a competitive barrier to the onslaught of digital pure-plays.” Can you explain in lay terms what GLI is, what that means, and how the hub is poised to help accomplish that super big goal?

Chris Gentile

In very broad terms, we’ve seen this ever-shifting balance between two primary content forms — narrative content and outright fucking — for decades now.

You’ve said that “successful brands need a strong hook or setup to support the actual sex,” implying there’s more to porn than “just” sex acts themselve. Can you explain how your work fits into this balance and what you’re doing that’s innovative and fresh to “hook” viewers — and also the community?

Bree Mills

In a world that claims to respect rights and authenticity more than ever before, we are totally fine exploiting industry creatives and artists by devaluing and stealing their work. For various reasons stemming from stigma and poor sex education to consumerism and “how we buy,” society has rendered porn essentially valueless.

It’s in this environment that you’ve started Adult Time. Do fans in 2019 really want a Netflix-style programming experience for porn? You think the answer is yes — can you explain more about what Adult Time is, as well as how and why you think it will be effective in today’s world?

It was a great panel, full of insight and challenges. What do you think about the idea of shaking up the status quo — is it always good, bad, or a complex mixed bag?

In addition to moderating the panel, I also got to write up a wonderful experience I had at the show for AVN. Here’s the lede for a recently published piece:

As the month of January recedes into the past, the adult industry inevitably heaves a collective sigh. Another AVN Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) has come and gone.

The feelings—the anticipatory excitement for upcoming projects, the satisfaction of seeing old friends (and making new ones), and the outright exhaustion that comes from being in casino-hotels longer that any human really should—are all there as members of the community from ’round the globe make their ways back from whence they came.

Though it’s difficult to pack even more into one’s AEE experience, surprisingly, that very thing happened to me this year. In addition to everything else, I experienced art at the 2019 show.

It’s been said that art and emotion are linked—that it makes you feel something. Not all art impacts all people in the same way, but when you find art that speaks to you, it’s palpable.

Truth: I’ve never felt anything like that.

I don’t get dots and splatter paint. I like photographs, but generally only when there are people in them. “Can’t Buy Me Love” is still my favorite movie. And yes, I know there are endless types of art besides film and photography and painting. My point though is that, in spite of liking lots of things and totally not getting many others, I have never once felt a profound emotional response to art. That is, not until I popped by Evil Angel’s booth at the show this year…

Give “During Our Most Hectic Week, There’s a Mann Watching Over Us” (February 6, 2019) a read over at AVN right here.

And take a moment to remember Chris Mann — he will always be an important part of my life, as well as an important part of the lives of many others.

Image via Evil Angel.

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