pornochromatic

I’m pretty sure there are approximately 37,000 AVN awards, but here’s a selected list of winners. The full list can be found here.

Best New Starlet: Kagney Linn Karter
Best Actress: Kimberly Kane – The SEX Files: A Dark XXX Parody
Best Supporting Actress: Penny Flame – Throat: A Cautionary Tale
Female Performer of the Year: Tori Black
Female Foreign Performer of the Year: Aletta Ocean
MILF/Cougar Performer of the Year: Julia Ann
Unsung Starlet of the Year: Shawna Lenee
Best New Web Starlet: Lexi Belle
Web Starlet of the Year: Sunny Leone
Hall of Fame: Gina Lynn
Director of the Year (Body of Work): Will Ryder
Best Director, Ethnic Video: Jules Jordan – Lex The Impaler 4
Best Director, Feature: David Aaron Clark – Pure
Best Director, Non-Feature: William H. – Evalutionary
Best Male Newcomer: Dane Cross
Best Actor: Eric Swiss – Not Married with Children XXX
Best Supporting Actor: Tom Byron – Throat: A Cautionary Tale
Male Performer of the Year: Manuel Ferrara
Male Foreign Performer of the Year: Toni Ribas
Unsung Male Performer of the Year: Derrick Pierce
Transsexual Performer of the Year: Kimber James

“How much money do pornstars make?” Ask 10 people and you’ll get at least 5 answers. Now that the economy’s in the toilet, I started wondering if our nation’s pornstars are feeling the pinch like the rest of us.

In a post I did a little over a year ago, I spoke to an industry insider who gave me the following rates for various types of scenes:

Blowjobs: $200-$400
Straight sex: $400-$1200
Anal sex: $900-$1500
Double Penetration: $1200-$1600
Double anal: $2000

Since the ranges of rates for boy/girl are pretty large, I got a second and third opinion just to see how accurate those numbers were. According to Asia Carrera, “New girls can get between five and six hundred for a boy/girl scene, and the rate jumps as you become a bigger star.”

Gonzo porn auteur Seymore Butts ballparks girls’ rates on his site as well:

Solo Masturbation $200-400
Girl/Girl $400-600
Girl/Girl (anal) $500-800
Boy/Girl $500-1200
Boy/Girl (anal) $700-2000
Boy/Boy/Girl (double penetration) $1000-2500
Blowjob $200-500

I think based on these numbers, I’m comfortable guessing that prior to the economic downturn, the average girl who walked off the street and into World Modeling was probably getting about $500-$600 for a boy/girl scene with no anal.

In a post on her MySpace blog 2 weeks ago, Ava Rose said:

The way the economy is right now mixed with the large amount of new girls coming into the industry girls get desperate for work and are charging as little as 700 for a bpy/girl scene. My rate for boy girl is $1500 and my girl girl is $900 but I have worked hard to get the right to charge that amount mostly because being under contract for a big company for 2 years helps make a name for you as a performer. Now i do occasionally lower my b/g rate to anywhere from $1000 to $1200 but only if I love shooting for that certain company such as Belladonna’s company and Elegant Angel

Granted, Seymore and Asia’s estimates were both made a few years ago, but I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear that performers’ pay rates don’t go up too often. My guess is that Ava’s numbers are a bit inflated either because she was a contract girl for Adam and Eve or because she wants to keep rates as high as possible so she won’t have to start doing $700 boy/girl scenes.

The rates girls charge probably haven’t changed much (the floor is probably still about $400-500 for a b/g scene), but the number of girls getting hired is. Penny Flame more or less spelled this out in a blog post she did in February:

…there is such a surplus of girls, and the market is so over-saturated, I know brand new girls who, before this “turn of the tides” would have been fucking every day. Now, girls like Stevie Hart, who are brand spanking new, and fucking adorable, have only done 7 scenes in the past 4 months. Unless you are a big name girl, or have big ridiculous tits, or a ridiculously round ass, the chances of you getting hired enough to pay your shit are zip, nada, zero, bitches ain’t getting paid.

I wonder if the studios’ economic hardships and slowed down production schedules are going to mean a lot less product on the (virtual) shelves in a few months?

A lot has been made of Penny Flame’s impending appearance on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. A lot of people, myself included, wondered whether she’d hit rock bottom or was trying to improve her mainstream name-recognition. Her new blog is being promoted on industry boards (not by her), and after reading it, the answer might be “both.”

Penny’s real name is Jennie Ketcham, and now that she’s left porn, it makes sense to refer to her as Jennie going forward. In fact, she’s actively trying to leave the Penny Flame persona behind her because it’s the only way to move forward with a new life:

…I apologize for speaking about Penny as though she is a different girl than me, but fundamentally, she is. I don’t want to keep separating my actions from hers, but at this point I feel I must in order to separate myself from the little monster created. Because she is a monster, one that has gone tearing through this town crushing everything in her path.

After reading Jennie’s blog, I was really filled with hope for her and her future. Unlike some other stars who leave the business and proceed to trash it (Sierra Sinn, for example), Jennie doesn’t blame porn or anyone in it for her circumstances. She’s an alcoholic and a sex addict and she’s taking it a day at a time. I hope she’s able to maintain her sobriety and I’ll be looking forward to whatever she does next.

Penny Flame is, without a doubt, one of the freest spirits in porn right now. She’s built a career and a following by inhabiting the persona of a crazy party girl who likes to fuck random guys (see: Shane’s World) and it seems to have worked out pretty well for her.

It was announced a couple of weeks ago that Penny would be one of the cast members on the upcoming season of the VH1 reality show, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. The two prior seasons have featured mostly C and D list “celebrities” attempting to deal with their substance abuse issues and possibly trying to breathe a little life into their careers. The season that began filming this month focuses on a much more titillating subject: sex addiction.

Sex addiction is a relatively controversial topic and I’m not surprised that VH1 wants to capitalize on it. This is the same channel that’s cast Ron Jeremy, Mary Carey and various assorted lesser stars on a variety of its reality shows and knows what a draw they are. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing for them and the industry as a whole is up for debate, but tough times call for tough decisions.

Penny has blogged about what the recession has done to the porn business:

The funny thing about the industry, right now, (and we all saw this coming for quite sometime) is that NOBODY IS WORKING. I mean fucking nobody. I was still getting little gigs here and there, but certainly not the 10-15 scenes a month I was used to. And the girls that were doing 15-30 scenes a month aren’t doing a goddamn thing, a ton have resorted to hooking to pay the bills, and seeing as how I can barely commit to something to wear for the day, committing to this kind of “hooker” lifestyle is just not something I can muster my whoriness up to do.

She needed to pay the bills and wanted a post-pornstar career path, so she took a desk job at Metro that she sounded pretty happy with back in February. That’s partially why I was surprised to hear that she’d been cast in this show. My guess is that either not getting to fuck on camera every 2-3 days got to her and she truly has a problem or she’s bored sitting behind a desk and figures that starring in a show on VH1 will add enough notoriety to get her more jobs. The second one seems more likely, but who am I to say? Either way, I hope it works out the way she wants it to.