Ella Milano is Video Babe of the Day at www.adultcybermart.com/VideoDay.html
UK – The Erotic Awards are pleased to announce that this year they will present not one but two Lifetime Achievement Awards to legends of the American adult industry – magazine and book editor Dian Hanson and XXX all-rounder William Margold.
Now in their 14th year, the Erotic Awards were created to counteract negative attitudes to sex and and sex workers, in the media and elsewhere, by honouring artists and activists who have devoted their lives to making the world a sexier, more liberated place.
The London-based Awards are organised by veteran campaigner and educator DR Tuppy Owens and a Grand Jury of Conspicuous Sensuality.
The awards herald the most talented, pioneering and influential sex-positive people from the previous year. They are are pansexual and actively encourage disabled artists.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is a non-competitive category. Previous winners include educator Betty Dodson, publisher Berth Milton Sr and film-maker Derek Jarman.
The Erotic Awards raise funds for Outsiders, a charity which for over thirty years has been helping disabled people gain confidence and find partners.
Tuppy and her team create a sensational show and exhibition of the finalists’ work. The winners are honoured with a Golden Flying Penis trophy.
The winners of the 14 categories of The Erotic Awards will be announced at the Night of the Senses Ball in London on 20th May.
www.eroticawards.co.uk
www.outsiders.org.uk/
www.nightofthesenses.com/
About Dian Hanson:
At age 24, Dian turned her back on a career in medicine and moved to New York where she helped launch hardcore sex magazine Puritan. She went on to work on titles as diverse as Oui, Outlaw Biker, Adult Cinema Review, Expose, Juggs, Big Butt and Tight.
But her most successful magazine was probably Leg Show, which she edited from 1987 to 2001, catering to a sexual subculture of fetishists whose needs were largely ignored by mainstream men’s magazines.
She says that studying the intricacies of their tastes, and translating them into words and photos, was a challenge that totally stimulated and engrossed her.
Nowadays Dian is based in Los Angeles where she is Sexy Book Editor for international publisher Taschen. She says that Benedikt Taschen is a fearless publisher of sexual imagery who is truly respected his customers.
Her projects include the authoritative, six volume History of Men’s Magazines; titillating tomes for specialist tastes, such as the Big Book of Breasts and the Big Penis Book; and the monograph Vanessa del Rio: Fifty Years Of Slightly Slutty Behaviour which is available in three editions ranging from the merely lavish to a luxurious art edition costing USD 1500 (GBP 900).
She remains dedicated to showing the world that good pornography equals good art and good fun.
www.taschen.com
About Bill Margold:
Next year, the ‘Renaissance Man’ of porn celebrates four decades working at almost every level in what he refers to as the ‘Playpen of the Damned’.
“We are damned not on religious grounds but for sociological reasons by a hypocritical society,” he explains.
Bill has been an actor in over 160 hard-core films; a scriptwriter and director; an agent and critic; an activist, a fund raiser, a welfare counsellor… and the voice of conscience in an industry commonly thought to lack one.
He has been a tireless campaigner for free speech, notably telling the anti-porn Meese Commission, in October 1985: “In a society that is drug-infested, violence-wracked and polluted by chemical greed…no one has ever died from an overdose of Pornography.”
But his crowning achievement is Protecting Adult Welfare – the PAW Foundation – a not-for-profit organisation which provides advice, awareness training, peer counselling and a support network for anyone and everyone involved in the adult industry.
Bill continues to preach the gospel of X at every opportunity, acting as guardian of the industry’s history and campaigning for ’21 in 2012′, a voluntary agreement by US producers not to use performers below that age.
www.billmargold.com
www.pawfoundation.org
Actor, agent, advisor, activist, acknowledged authority and always articulate, Margold says that he is honored to be thought worthy of getting the chance to fondle a Golden Flying Penis, the hand-crafted trophy presented to winners of the Erotic Awards.
Or, as he put it when informed of the accolade: “It’s got be to less dangerous than those two cooked chickens I worked with in ‘Intimate Lessons’.
Bill’s involvement in the American adult entertainment industry has spanned almost four decades at virtually every level: actor (in over 160 films); scriptwriter; director; agent; critic; activist; welfare counselor… and the voice of conscience in an industry commonly thought to lack one.
He has devoted his life to the letter ‘X’ with an uncompromising honesty and passion, earning him the nickname “Papa Bear” from those he refers to as his “kids” – the overage juvenile delinquents who populate the world of hard-core entertainment.
Among his notable discoveries during his four, eventful decades in the business are Seka, Serena, Amber Lynn, Viper and, more recently Anita Cannibal.
He has been a tireless fighter against censorship, serving for many years as a director of the Free Speech Coalition, for whom his imaginative fund raising efforts have been a highspot of numerous adult industry trade shows.
In 1985 he memorably told the anti-porn Meese Commission: “In a society that is drug-infested, violence-wracked and polluted by chemical greed…no one has ever died from an overdose of Pornography.”
Tired of the favoritism he saw in adult film award ceremonies, he founded the X-Rated Critics Association to present plaudits untainted by commercial bias.
And, recognising that the industry frequently has no respect for its consumers, he invented Fans Of X-Rated Entertainment to give something back to the viewers, via newsletters and annual shows where they could meet and mingle with their favorite stars.
But his most significant creation is Protecting Adult Welfare (PAW), a charitable outreach organization which provides an umbrella of mental, physical, spiritual and emotional support for anyone in the adult industry, from actors and dancers through directors, writers, and crew members, to retail and warehouse employees.
Its programs and services – which include health awareness training and practical financial and career information – aim to help empower participants in the adult industry to improve the quality of their lives.
PAW also provides a peer counseling service which has assisted individuals, families and groups experiencing life-threatening psychological crises, addiction issues – for both themselves and loved ones – relationship stress, and workplace conflicts.
His current campaign is ’21 in 2012′, through which hopes to get the industry to sign up to a voluntary agreement that it will not employ anyone under the age of 21 as a performer.
In recent years Margold has increasingly devoted his energies to encouraging the preservation of XXX cinema’s history, making himself freely available for interviewers and documentaries and creating an adult Hall Of Fame at Showgirl Video in Las Vegas.
As he has said: “There is no future, if in the present, we fail to pay homage to the past.”
In their book Once More, With Feeling, Victoria Coren & Charlie Skelton declared of William Margold: “He is pornography.”