Fear and Self-Loathing in BerlinOctober 28, 2008
by morbidthoughts
A week later, I think I finally got the partying out of my system. When I arrived in Berlin for the world's largest porn convention, I was cranky about family matters and the stacked-up pile of work that was going to greet me when I returned home. The crankiness went away quickly when I received my first free beer at the first night's welcoming reception by the convention organiser and girls were competing to show me their naughty bits.

Still, taking my free beer with me, I left the reception to search for familiar faces in a foreign land. I quickly spotted Megan of Shane's World, and we had several drinks together before being joined by the people from Digital Playground. Robby D introduced me as the guy that doesn't like his movies, and my ego took a beating when lovely Stoya couldn't remember me from Vegas. I chatted for hours with the newest DP girl, Angelina (previously Ariana) Armani and regaled her with old school tales of Monstar Rawxs. Katsumi kept teasing me over the fact that I was finishing my sentences just so I could gulp down my beer. "Slurp slurp" she mimicked in a french accent that sounded dirtier than it was. Delighted at my company, I hurriedly called up the euro ADT contingent featuring Jacco and Maltedecker along with Harmony Hex to join us. Sparks flew when Stoya and Malte met each other for the first time while Jacco and I guzzled beers after beers until the trains stopped running at midnight and then restarted running at 4am. By the time I made it back to my bed, it was 6am.
Repeating a similar pattern every night, every day I would wake up cursing at 11am and stumbling into the convention at noon. If you asked a layman to envision what he thinks a porn convention is like, that is what the Venus Berlin show is. It's like being at a humongous strip club with 10 stages except I could photograph to my heart's content. Sure, I had no idea who most of the european girls were; but neither did the German attendees as they flocked to nearest bare skin. I had issues communicating here and there so Malte became the German Dith Pran to my Sydney Schanberg. As I navigated through the crowd trying to get shots and perhaps impart some photography wisdom onto Malte, he was busy making out with whatever hot chick that happened to be near him. The crowds got bigger every successive day culminating in a Saturday where I was glad that the Germans didn't seem to be into frotteurism even while drunk.

Half of the exhibit grounds was devoted to people doing business with each other while the other half was about the naked girls. Mixing alcohol with nudity without bouncers is a bad idea as the crowd thought they had free rein to molest the girls, naked or not. I wasn't complaining however when the convention was giving out free beer, weisswurst, and giant pretzels. The drinking would continue long into the night after the show hours ended.

The purpose of any convention is networking. I saw some of the usual folks that I would see at an AVN, but Venus gave me an opportunity to hang out with several people I hadn't seen in two years. One night had my propping up a drunk Tarra White and her dress while the next night had my discussing the European gay industry with several gay men. I was happy as long as I had my beer and my friends.
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