My night at the British porn awards
24th December 2013
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I have a bit of a weird relationship with porn. My liberal, equality-loving brain says ‘down with that sort of thing’, nobody should be objectified in that way for my titillation.
But I gotta admit, I like looking at nuddy ladies and given my stature as a “man” ‘porn’ is often my only route to getting an eye full of lady parts. It’s a horrible moral dilemma – but enough of that. I got an email inviting me to attend the SHAFTAS (like the BAFTAS but for people who do it on camera for money - see what they did there?).
Having nothing to do on a dark December Thursday night I opted to be the guest of Television X (one of those naughty TV channels, yes people still order porn off the telly – who knew!) for a celebration of who can put where and for how long, and from how many people – most convincingly.
Celebrating 18 years of spreading smut across the airwaves this was a big bash in a Leicester Square ‘superclub’ with a fairground theme – lots of puns about rides and screaming if you “wanna go faster.”
So I went for a night out also attended by some people I don’t know off TOWIE, Big Brother and BBC Three to celebrate the best of British wank-fodder.
With categories to hand awards to shows containing the word ‘sluts’, ‘whores’, ‘gang bang’ and ‘spunk’ I was expecting a night of pure filth. What I witnessed was not that at all.
Standing in the ‘press pen’ (basically me and a few photographers) it wasn’t exactly the full-on debauchery I expected with some nicely dressed ladies stepping in front of the sponsors board for some snaps and a few words.
It struck me that far from the image it purveys, the porn industry is a pretty normal industry at its core. Porn stars milled about talking about ‘working together’ and how they ‘hadn’t seen each other in ages’.
It was very civil, and there were no bare breasts in sight (shame!) – at this point, not being part of the adult inner circle, I gotta admit I was a bit bored. Where was the scandal? I expected to either be appalled or aroused, but just felt sleepy.
Chatting to popular MILF Tanya Tate (she’s won the award for the ‘mother’ people would most like to cop off with for three years running) I could have been talking to any woman, doing any job – well until the casually dropped references to some of her ‘work’. She was nervous and really proud of what she has achieved.
It became clear that at this level these women are not exactly “exploited”, neither are they ‘sluts’ or ‘whores’ they are simply women doing a job. Tanya explained they get a script and agree everything pre-shoot, if they don’t like it, they don’t do it. Not exactly the world of sexual coercion bemoaned by detractors, nor the fantasy world of sex starlets that pervs like to dream about and touch themselves.

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