from www.lasvegassun.com – Wearing swim trunks, T-shirt and eau de chlorine, Chase Styles doesn’t know the name of the bar he’s standing alongside, but he is exactly where he wants to be — in a crowd of adult entertainment industry insiders on the first night of the 2010 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo.

The Venetian’s Oculus Lounge is the unofficial headquarters of the adult expo after dark. While a few of the biggest names in the industry make appearances in Strip nightclubs, most of the actors, models, exhibitors and peripheral players skip the lines, cover charges and dress codes and congregate around what they call “circle bar.”

During Styles’ first years attending the annual trade show, he slogged to every porn star-hosted nightclub party, logging 20 minutes here or there before moving to the next one. Now he knows better.

“Everyone eventually comes here, anyway.”

Tonight, Styles reports, AVN Awards co-host Kayden Kross has been spotted. That man, in the white hat, he’s “talent” — and Spanish. “All the girls want him.”

That blonde with spindly legs that loft her to a height that can’t be ignored, she’s “industry,” too.

“She’s beautiful,” Styles assesses flatly like a coach surveying his starting lineup.

“I’m a Libra,” he adds. “I admire beauty.”

All around circle bar, people are admiring beauty. As the clock sneaks toward midnight, the crowd is three to four deep overflowing the standing room and radiating out into the rows of slots where people splay out on chairs, sipping cocktails and talking about each other.

The steady chatter is interrupted by squeals when someone bumps into a long-lost friend. It’s like a high school reunion in Lucite heels.

“Gorgeous” is the word they use when they talk about one another. Some stretch the word out so the “o” almost swallows the “r.” “Gooooooorgeous.”

A 64-year-old in glasses and a gray sweatshirt says it matter-of-factly as he recalls meeting the now-retired Queen of Porn, Jenna Jameson.

“She said, ‘My name’s Jenna Jameson, I just got into the business, and I’m going to be a big star.’ You could tell then. She was gorgeous.”

Poison Ivy, as he’s called in the industry, is preparing to move to Las Vegas. He’s a former video store owner from Scarsdale, N.Y.

He says he opened Video Ranger in 1983 with its small adult section hidden behind a curtain because he “was a little perverted Jewish guy from the Bronx.”

The store is closed now, but his 20-odd years stocking videos and attending conventions have made him a fixture at trade shows.

“The first show I went to had six companies and 12 girls,” he recounts.

Tonight, at least that many actresses are around the bar. Veteran porn star Tiffany Mynx is here and Sunny Lane is, too, but other than a few obvious cases, it’s hard to tell who is who.

It’s a circle bar guessing game: Consumer Electronics Show or AVN?

The girl in a snakeskin dress that seems about to declare itself a shirt is easy to assign. A group of men in suits puffing on fat, stinky cigars, less so.

On this first night, men outnumber women at Oculus by about four to one.

The female porn stars are easy to spot. Each is long and lean with impossible cleavage and escorted by a man who appears to be simultaneously showing her off and tasked with ensuring her safety. When they walk by, a dozen heads turn and follow. Eye contact is held for longer than would normally seem appropriate.

As empty beer bottles and cocktail glasses accumulate on the bar, a proclamation rises from one of the cigar smokers.

“I’ll never get married again,” he declares from inside his cloud. “Well, maybe once more. I’ll get married three times.”