“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”
And thank god for that. My back had been killing me since I boarded the plane for Las Vegas and I was not looking forward to lugging my bags around without an anti-inflammatory. I was heading to Sin City for the Adult Entertainment Expo and my bags only faintly resembled the luggage Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Zeta Acosta felt necessary to take with them in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. My tame bag of drugs included 48 Ibuprofen, 16 chewable Pepto-Bismol tablets, half a bottle of Tums, and eight caps of Dayquil all stuffed into a Ziploc emblazoned with Spider-Man’s mug.
[Some images slightly NSFW]
Still, I felt prepared. The Vegas of today isn’t Thompson’s Vegas of 1971. Hell, it’s not even the Vegas of a decade ago. The family-friendly Vegas pushed on us a few years back ended in a broken marriage and sure enough the Harley-riding stepfather, “What happens in Vegas…” showed up. Now frat boys and families who never got the memo wander the over-priced Strip, neither group comfortable with the other’s presence. However, the one aspect of Vegas that has never, nor will never, change is the gratuitous sex – and I was headed into the cleavage of the beast.
The Adult Entertainment Expo is the largest adult entertainment trade convention in the world pulling in just over 22,000 attendees this year. Walking through the Sands Expo towards the large double doors that lead into the convention is like strolling a twisted red carpet. Suits playing hooky from the nearby Consumer Electronics Show line the entryway, snapping pictures of any actresses coming or going from work. It’s all in preparation for the thousands of flashes that are about to greet you.
If it wasn’t for the breasts, you could almost convince yourself that you had wandered into any other convention in the world. Booths create rows in a large hall, bigger companies take up more space, and you can always tell where the free goodies are by the size of the crowd. Endless handouts and PR reps bog you down for hours while you muscle your way through the crowds. Then you turn the corner, only to run face first into a seven-foot bucking penis. Straddled by girls in bikinis, the penis acted as a phallic mechanical bull, thrusting wildly about slamming woman after woman into the ground while the crowd cheered.
Row after row of vibrators, strap-ons, $6000 life-size realistic sex dolls, Obama condoms, bondage gear, and pillows with indentations in them so women with implants can sleep comfortably on their stomachs. It’s enough to make Aphrodite and Adephagia throw up their hands in surrender – and those are just the marital aids. Everywhere breasts accost you. Stars signing autographs, video monitors running through porn, and 40-foot posters proclaiming the release of the latest XXX parody, within five minutes your brain shuts down and tits become almost boring. Granted you don’t want to blink for fear of missing a pair, but even the sight of a gaggle of female porn stars snacking on hot dogs in the cafeteria does nothing for you.
It’s with this blasé attitude that I found myself staring down a wall filled with prosthetic vaginas. I thought back on the Expos of years past. Even as late as 2008, I could recall an Expo that took up two floors and was overflowing with exhibitors, porn stars, fans, and all the free DVDs you could handle. Now, reduced in size, the con felt more like a frivolous celebration of the products than a business convention. The suits that used to pop up throughout the aisles were largely gone and those that remained stuck out like the cheerleader’s father at a college party.
“These will get you rock hard. Last for hours,” a bald salesman for Stiff 4 Hours yelled out at me when I came within ten feet of his booth. “Best there…” He continued before trailing off at the sight of my credentials. “Oh, press.” At the sight of two women walking his way, this time clearly sporting credentials signaling they owned an adult bookstore, his overzealous chrome dome ran after them promising incredible deals if they stocked his product. While some tried to earn a living, most people came for the t ‘n’ a. In addition to the seven-foot mechanical member, AEE also delivered Slick Chix female oil wrestling, a series of naughty stage games for fans, and professional and amateur pole dancing contests. Even with waning attendance over the years, AEE still filled the halls thanks to the overwhelming power of sex.
Casinos have tapped this vein as their latest effort to counter the difficult economic client. On a previous trip to AEE, I stumbled upon an isolated portion of the Mandalay Bay casino called “The Party Pit.” Comprised of a series of gaming tables surrounding a small stage complete with flashing lights, a stripper pole, and, of course, a scantily clad woman dancing to the current Top 40, it mixed the two staples of Nevada: Sex and gambling. Two years later, on a Thursday night I found myself aimlessly wandering Luxor’s empty food court looking for signs of life. At 11 p.m. on a Thursday night, the shops stood closed, most restaurants were locked down, and only a few members of the cleanup crew remained. The casino downstairs, while not barren, was patchy at best. Once-filled seats at Blackjack, now abandoned to stay at home and clip coupons. With one exception: The Luxor’s very own Party Pit surrounded by gamblers and tourists snapping photos. In only a few short years, seemingly every casino on the strip had emulated Mandalay Bay’s mash-up of women and cards. It was easy to see why sex had infiltrated the casinos. Las Vegas, as a gambling town, was stagnant. Just one block off The Strip, rundown motels punctuated For Sale signs sitting atop empty lots that amounted to nothing more than fenced in sections of the desert. Everything about Las Vegas, gambling, big shows, and weddings, had become a cliché in of itself. Losing a fortune on craps because you don’t understand the rules, Wayne Newton, and getting married by Elvis haven’t changed in 50 years. Vegas had to sex them up. The Party Pit, Cirque du Soleil’s naughty Zoomanity, and a wedding reception for two porn stars – even if it was by invite only.
Some salacious version of Lady Luck scored me an invite to Eric John and Vicki Chase wedding reception at the Palazzo’s Sushi Samba. After receiving the approval of a large gentleman named Vinnie the Snakemannn, my friends and I entered to music pounding through the air and a crowd seething around the bride and groom. In the booths, bottles of Grey Goose appeared as if the servers were stocking BevMo’s empty shelves. A few quick searches on our iPhones identified which women in the room we did indeed recognize from our computer screens at home.
“You just touched a Goonie,” my friend yelled. I turned in time to see Corey Feldman disappear behind two bodyguards that put our good friend Vinnie to shame. The presence of Edgar Frog invigorated the party even more and as women started to flash the crowd, the bar began to mirror the same scene I continually came across in Vegas. Wherever there were women acting provocatively, the crowds would appear.
Around 4 a.m. Feldman left the club and, as everyone knows, it’s not a party without a Goonie. Shuffling out of the hotel, we hailed a cab and zoned out in euphoria and exhaustion. Our cab driver tried to overcharge us and I had to threaten to call the cops to get our money back. As he peeled out of the Luxor driveway sending a valet running to the curb, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. If he had had a nice pair of tits, I might have let him keep the money.
