QAA - PERVERTS Episode 4: Porn Conventions feat Spencer (Sample)
Aired: 2023-12-28
Duration: 09:38


=== Pulling Back Out (03:05) ===

[00:00:00]  *sex noises* sex
[00:00:05]  *outro music* I'm Julian Fields
[00:00:16]  I'm Liv Agar.
[00:00:17]  And this is the Perverts Podcast, where we venture into horny online subcultures and take you along for the ride.
[00:00:24]  It was late at night and I was driving back from Althedena through intermittent rain when I received Liv's message.
[00:00:29]  What's wrong with you these days?
[00:00:31]  You always look like you're about to cry.
[00:00:32]  It's exhausting.
[00:00:34]  This series is supposed to be funny and loose.
[00:00:36]  I'm going skiing Wednesday with my girlfriend.
[00:00:38]  We'll record the porn convention episode Tuesday with my friend Spencer.
[00:00:42]  Pull yourself together before then.
[00:00:44]  I was about to scroll down to read the rest of the message when a Tesla emerged unexpectedly through my lane in a last-minute attempt to catch an exit.
[00:00:51]  I hit the brakes and barely missed its fender.
[00:00:53]  The license plate read, LIVIN' FOR YOU.
[00:00:56]  My hands were shaking as I pulled off into a Sinclair station.
[00:00:59]  The green plastic brontosaurus had been decapitated and smeared in feces by unknown malevolent forces.
[00:01:05]  I'll do the research.
[00:01:05]  A greyed bottle popped under the right front tire as I parked.
[00:01:08]  My vision blurry, I asked the attendant for a pack of Marlboro 27s, and he handed me some
[00:01:13]  matches, sensing he was dealing with an unstable individual.
[00:01:16]  It took three attempts before the card went through.
[00:01:18]  Leaning against the side of the building, I lit a cigarette and pulled the smoke in.
[00:01:21]  Vivaldi's Four Seasons was blaring out of a weatherproof PA speaker.
[00:01:26]  The faint smell of piss and bleach.
[00:01:27]  I finished reading the message.
[00:01:29]  "I'll do the research.
[00:01:30]  Just write one of your pretentious introductions and show up on time.
[00:01:34]  Oh, and happy birthday, pussy.
[00:01:38]  It had been a difficult year in many ways.
[00:01:40]  Life had shifted under my feet.
[00:01:42]  I was sober, yes, but it felt like various of my internal organs were defrosting in slow motion.
[00:01:47]  The dating apps hadn't helped.
[00:01:48]  Neither had the late nights, long walks, and daily baths.
[00:01:52]  I looked down and noticed ash stains on my jogging pants.
[00:01:55]  Liv was right.
[00:01:56]  I needed to pull myself together.
[00:01:58]  A black sprinter van pulled into the parking lot.
[00:02:01]  The back doors swung open and two young women in bondage gear jumped out.
[00:02:04]  One of them finished a tall can of Monster Energy and flung it at an overflowing trash can.
[00:02:08]  The other sized me up.
[00:02:10]  You look like you'd pay me 50 bucks to spit in your mouth and kick you in the balls.
[00:02:14]  I stared at my shoes and said nothing.
[00:02:16]  They strolled into the gas station and began pacing the drink fridges.
[00:02:19]  The rain started up again.
[00:02:21]  Beneath the parking lot lights, a small rainbow was forming.
[00:02:24]  The Vivaldi ended, giving way to an orchestral cover of Jingle Bells.
[00:02:28]  I stepped out from the awning and felt the raindrops on my upturned face.
[00:02:31]  Blue clouds shifted slowly around a dissolving crescent moon.
[00:02:35]  Back in the car, I pulled out my phone and responded to Liv.
[00:02:37]  Skiing?
[00:02:38]  That sounds fun.
[00:02:39]  You're doing great work.
[00:02:41]  This is gonna be a really special episode.
[00:02:43]  Pulling back out onto the highway, I felt a nebulous joy make its way from my stomach to my chest.
[00:02:47]  I could hear the faint squeaking of the windshield wiper as I gunned the motor.

=== Perverts Expo Insights (06:48) ===

[00:02:51]  2023 was almost over.
[00:02:53]  I had turned 40 and survived.
[00:02:54]  There was little to fear.
[00:02:56]  I was very much alive, and surrounded by love.
[00:03:02]  Porn conventions are exactly what you'd expect them to be.
[00:03:05]  A place for very corny individuals to pay to meet the porn stars they drink off to.
[00:03:10]  And on this episode, we're going to do a deep dive into the subculture that these surprisingly large events produce.
[00:03:16]  And let me tell you folks, it's not good.
[00:03:18]  Joining us this week at the Perverts Expo booth is Spencer from the Get Cynical podcast.
[00:03:23]  Welcome.
[00:03:24]  Hello, thank you for having me on.
[00:03:26]  This is my area of expertise.
[00:03:28]  You are a porn convention guy, of course, that's why.
[00:03:30]  Yeah, no.
[00:03:30]  Yeah, I've been to every single one.
[00:03:32]  In fact, uh, yeah, Liv, like, just kind of plucked me out of one.
[00:03:36]  It was like, hey, do you want to talk about how much of a freak you are?
[00:03:38]  I was like, yeah, sure, why not?
[00:03:40]  It's cool that before she put you on to the porn convention research for this episode, your podcast was called Be Happy, and now it's called Get Cynical.
[00:03:51]  Ugh, yeah.
[00:03:52]  But welcome, Spencer.
[00:03:54]  Glad to have you here, and we are now making our way through the double doors.
[00:03:58]  Yesterday was the Women's Convention, the day before was the 420 Expo, and today is the Combo AVN Exotica.
[00:04:09]  Welcome to the Expo.
[00:04:11]  I will start with a read-off from a Vice article in 2019 about their trip to the Avian Adult Entertainment Expo.
[00:04:19]  This is by Jamie Lee Tate.
[00:04:21]  This is, like, I think the biggest American porn convention, but there's, like, quite a few of them, and there's, like, a lot of them outside of America as well.
[00:04:29]  A couple really big East Asian ones.
[00:04:31]  I'm sure.
[00:04:31]  Why?
[00:04:32]  Oh, I don't know.
[00:04:34]  The parties are better.
[00:04:35]  What about Asia?
[00:04:36]  What about that?
[00:04:40]  Just, you know, China's economy, it's growing.
[00:04:42]  There's a lot of commerce.
[00:04:44]  Incredible things are happening there.
[00:04:45]  Honestly, it's mainly Hong Kong, Taiwan, because I don't think... I think President Xi rightfully, like, is stamping down on the foreign conventions.
[00:04:55]  Send in the tanks!
[00:04:56]  Send in the tanks!
[00:04:59]  Hong Kong, where you can go to be blinded by a UV light at the Apes Fest or whatever, and also attend a porn convention.
[00:05:09]  The biggest event in the porn mega-fan calendar is the Avian Adult Entertainment Expo, a giant adult industry trade show that takes place every year in Las Vegas.
[00:05:18]  According to the event's organizers, it attracts over 30,000 people, around half of whom are fans.
[00:05:23]  What about the other half?
[00:05:25]  What are the other half doing there?
[00:05:27]  Are they haters?
[00:05:28]  They're just scoping it out.
[00:05:30]  They're seeing how they feel.
[00:05:32]  Much like Comic-Con, fans can pay to get an autograph or photo from their favorite performers at booths on the show floor.
[00:05:38]  Unlike Comic-Con, some will also allow you to motorboat them for an additional charge.
[00:05:43]  Is motorboating still a thing?
[00:05:45]  I feel like that was never really a thing.
[00:05:47]  Like, is it a thing that, like, 12-year-olds think is epic?
[00:05:50]  I guess so.
[00:05:51]  Yeah.
[00:05:52]  It's, it's like the, it's to titty fucking what dry humping is to regular sex.
[00:05:57]  I do feel like a lot of these guys are that 12-year-old if they just were in, like, a state of arrested development.
[00:06:04]  Yeah.
[00:06:04]  I think if there's anyone in the world who is super into motorboating, it is porn convention guys.
[00:06:10]  So, you know, probably smart marketing there.
[00:06:13]  It's real for them.
[00:06:14]  By my unscientific count, around 80% of the people in attendance were middle-aged men who looked like a computer model based on the average of every single one of my friend's dads.
[00:06:24]  I'm also now imagining a guy who's really into, like, consent, and he's like, um, may I motorboat you?
[00:06:32]  Yeah, okay, I won't do it because that yes was not enthusiastic enough, so, you know, I'll just get my autograph and bid you farewell.
[00:06:42]  10% were younger guys, all of whom had an extreme John Ralphio energy.
[00:06:46]  The remaining 10% fell on the spectrum somewhere between those two.
[00:06:49]  I also saw three women that I think might have been there as fans.
[00:06:56]  Some of the greatest creatures you will ever see on the internet.
[00:06:59]  Like, I don't want to derail this whole episode, but my favorite subculture on the internet, bar none, is the subreddit ChickFlicks.
[00:07:06]  And it's a subreddit for women to share, like, porn for women, basically.
[00:07:11]  And they have this one power user named JuliaIsWet, and she compiles dick-sucking compilations.
[00:07:18]  I think she made, like, 50 of them or something.
[00:07:21]  They are some of, like, the scariest and most fascinating creatures the internet has ever birthed.
[00:07:25]  I love them all to death.
[00:07:26]  We neither want them to die, nor do we think they are creatures.
[00:07:31]  All of the people I spoke to... Wait, I have to sneeze.
[00:07:35]  Never mind.
[00:07:36]  Definitely keeping that in.
[00:07:37]  It's one of those situations.
[00:07:39]  Yeah.
[00:07:40]  You're allergic to, um, creepy guys.
[00:07:44]  Exactly.
[00:07:46]  I'm allergic to women.
[00:07:47]  We were discussing women having a libido and you're like, oh god, I'm gonna sneeze.
[00:07:57]  All of the people I spoke to at AVN made references to specific camgirls and porn production companies as if these were the most natural and widely known topics of conversation in the world.
[00:08:07]  It's fairly cheap.
[00:08:08]  A lot of the models are nice.
[00:08:09]  You get to know them.
[00:08:10]  Said Nick Kunst.
[00:08:13]  Come on, come on man.
[00:08:15]  Dean's younger brother.
[00:08:16]  It's like the grandson of Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now.
[00:08:24]  Who told me he was mostly known as KingNut345.
[00:08:31]  When KingNut is taken.
[00:08:32]  His username on MyFreeCams.com.
[00:08:37]  It's more of a community than it is a random website.
[00:08:40]  Yeah.
[00:08:41]  Community.
[00:08:42]  That is one of the most unpleasant uses of that word.
[00:08:45]  And I've compiled a couple images that Jamie took from that article, and I think they're really, really cool.
[00:08:54]  We've got a droopy-eyed rosacea guy with the kind of rectangular glasses.
[00:09:02]  He's got his hair kind of done up.
[00:09:04]  in a little spike and we've got just the biggest print you can possibly have.
[00:09:09]  Like you can't print wider or larger on a t-shirt and it's in kind of destroyed font, all caps.
[00:09:16]  Three things I love. Cum sluts, blowjobs, big boobs.
[00:09:20]  You've been listening to a sample of the Perverts Podcast.
[00:09:24]  To get access to this miniseries as well as previous QAA miniseries and the entire
[00:09:29]  archive of premium episodes, go to patreon.com/qaa and subscribe for just five bucks a month.
[00:09:35]  Thank you, beautiful gooners.
[00:09:37]  And goonettes.