AVN Awards

The AVN Awards are film awards sponsored and presented by the American trade magazine AVN (Adult Video News) annually to honor achievements in the global adult entertainment industry. The awards are often called the "Oscars of porn".

The award ceremony occurs in early January during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. AVN sponsored the first AVN Awards ceremony in February 1984. Since 2008, the show has aired in a form edited for time on Showtime, which is usually broadcast in a 90-minute time slot.

The awards are divided into over 100 categories, some of which are analogous to industry awards offered in other film and video genres, and others specific to pornographic/erotic film and video.

Awards for gay adult video were a part of the AVN Awards from the 1987 ceremony through the 1998 ceremony. The increasing number of categories made the show unwieldy. For the 1999 ceremony AVN Magazine began hosting the GayVN Awards, an annual adult movie award event for gay adult video.

Design and categories

Award design

The design of the AVN Award changed several times before and is in its present form since 2013 when it was redesigned as part of the 30th anniversary of the awards show. The redesigning was led by Michael Krasun, and supervised by AVN CEO Theo Sapoutzis. Krasun was a veteran with 25-plus years experience in designing, fabricating and building of restaurants, nightclubs, airport facilities and theme fixtures around the world. The makers aimed to create an artifact that represented "sexual expression, integrity and exotic flair", and after months of work arrived at a figurine that showcased "two people in a very erotic embrace, yet without any explicit details of the bodies on display". This impressive resultant figurine was conferred the official AVN award going forward. All the trophies are hand-poured and custom mixed containing 40 percent resin and 60 percent ground marble, making them very sturdy. An epoxy coating with mix of bronze powders is applied as final finish. A solid black stone base with award winners details is engraved on front side. The artifact, from its inception to fabrication, was accomplished entirely in the US.

Award categories

• Best Actor
• Best Actress
• Best Supporting Actor
• Best Supporting Actress
• Male Performer of the Year
• Female Performer of the Year
• Male Foreign Performer of the Year
• Female Foreign Performer of the Year
• Transgender Performer of the Year
• Director of the Year
• Best New Starlet
• Best Director
• Best Non-Sex Performance
• Best Cinematography
• Best All-Sex Video
• Best Renting Title of the Year
• Best Selling Title of the Year
• Best Film
• Best Video Feature
• Best Foreign Feature
• Best Tease Performance
• Best All-Girl Sex Scene
• Best All-Girl Feature
• Best Newcomer – Gay Video
• Best Bi-Sexual Video
• Best Gay Video
• Best Actor – Gay Video
• Best Supporting Actor – Gay Video
• Best Director – Bi-Sexual Video
• Best Director – Gay Video
• Best Screenplay – Gay Video
• Best Sex Scene – Gay Video
• Best Non-Sexual Performance – Bi, Gay, or Trans Video
• Best Gay Alternative Video
• Best Gay Solo Video
• Best Gay Specialty Release
• Best Videography – Gay Video
• Best Alternative Adult Feature Film
• Most Outrageous Sex Scene
• Best Sex Comedy
• Best Trans Newcomer
• Breakthrough Award
• Best Performer of the Year – Gay Video
• Best Male Newcomer
• Best Director – Foreign Release
• Best Classic Release
• Best DVD
• Best High Definition Production
• Unsung Starlet of the Year
• Best High-End All-Sex Release
• Best All-Sex Release
• Best MILF Release
• Best Director – Feature
• Best Director – Foreign Feature
• Best Boy/Girl Scene
• Best All-Girl Couples Sex Scene
• MILF Performer of the Year

Honorary award

• AVN Hall of Fame

Listed winners

The winners of the AVN Award in various major categories since they began in 1984 have been listed.

1984–1989

• (f) – film
• (v) – video

1990–1994

1995–1999

• From 1999 onwards, AVN Magazine began hosting the GayVN Awards, an annual adult movie award event for gay adult video.

2000–2004

2005–2009

^[1] The category, introduced in 2007, was first called "Underrated Starlet of the Year (Unrecognized Excellence)". It has since been renamed to "Unsung Starlet of the Year".

2010–2014

2015–2019

2020–2024

2025–2029

Hall of Fame

Reuben Sturman Award

• 2000 – David Sturman, General Video of America West
• 2001 – Ed Powers, Ed Powers Productions
• 2001 – Mark Kernes, Senior Editor, AVN
• 2002 – Gloria Leonard, Past President, AVA and Free Speech Coalition
• 2002 – Elyse Metcalf, Retailer Elyse's Passion
• 2003 – Mel Kamins, General Video of America, Cleveland
• 2005 – Harry Mohney, Déjà Vu Showgirls
• 2006 – Robert and Janet Zicari, Extreme Associates
• 2007 – Paul Cambria, Clyde DeWitt and Louis Sirkin
• 2011 – John Stagliano
• 2013 – Lasse Braun

Reception and review

Originally, the awards show was part of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but it grew and garnered more attention over time, allowing it to be established as a separate event in the 1990s. The event started out as the "Adult Software exhibition" of the show, which attracted as many as 100,000 visitors in addition to those attending CES. When the show became a separate event, it initially moved to Caesars Palace, but it has since moved to other Las Vegas venues.

The New York Times noted that the "precise criteria for winning an AVN are not, well, explicit". A writer from Los Angeles magazine wrote in 2006 that awards often go to consistent advertisers in AVN magazine. In his article, the writer stated: "Imagine the editors of Variety choosing the Academy Award nominations—then handing out Oscars to the winners—and you have a pretty good idea of how much manipulation can go on behind the scenes during the run-up to the AVNs. [...] Actresses trying to secure a nomination stop in to schmooze at the magazine's Chatsworth offices. [An agency] client once presented dolls of herself to editors and writers. Another baked cookies". Violet Blue, the sex writer, described the Awards as "big backslapping event where the same companies and same names win year after year... To think of the 'porn Oscars' as a true representation of porn's very best is like having sex with a Jenna Jameson love doll and telling your friends you had sex with the porn star".

In 2013, actress Tanya Tate offered some insights into the industry in an interview with the Huffington Post about the 30th AVN Awards at which she was nominated for an award. She stated: "If you are more popular with the fans, companies are more likely to book you for their production", "Being nominated for awards help build your recognition with your fan base. People that win male and female performer of the year are generally solid consistent talent that are open to many 'levels', and some of these performers already have higher basic rates than others".

Sports columnist Bill Simmons commented that the Awards were "the most secretly captivating telecasts on TV" alongside the National Spelling Bee and Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Las Vegas Weekly described the production of the telecast as "tedious" with many stops and starts, breaks, and re-dos - "Clever editing... is a porn hallmark". Michael Grecco, who filmed the 2009 Awards for his documentary Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look at an X Rated Industry, commented, "This is like covering the Mardi Gras parade. This is where people really express themselves with their full facade."

See also

• Transgender Erotica Awards
• Pornhub Awards
• XBIZ Awards
• Venus Award
• Sexual Freedom Awards
• SHAFTA Awards
• F.A.M.E. Awards
• XRCO Awards

External links

• . January 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. IMDb.
• (archived 2 December 2016)