Bren Ryder

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Photo by Trevor Jansen, click image for complete photo set.

Wednesday night was the Naked Truth Adult Entertainment Award Show. It was the first of its kind in Canada and included a really interesting and diverse group of people from various areas of the adult industry.

I think it was a really great start to an event that will hopefully continue on for years to come. The Naked Truth website is an online social community for all types of adult entertainers, business owners and support workers. The categories and award winners were quite varied: from Favourite Pussy Squirter to Favourite Sex Worker Advocate, from Trojan Condoms and Dita Von Teese to Tamara O’Doherty (Favourite Academic Advocate) and Good Dyke Porn (my earnest, yet minuscule porn company). The unlimited scope of nominees, and the under-advertised voting system could have been the reason we managed to be voted Favourite Adult Website (in the whole wide world!). (That, and we’re The Best, of course.) But, I think that is what made this awards show so interesting and fun. It brought people together who wouldn’t normally be included in the same program. And, like Mz. Scream, the winner of Favourite Pussy Squirter, said, “It’s nice to be recognized, to have this pat on the back for those of us who work so hard and put ourselves out there for the enjoyment of others.” We all had our own way of contributing to the pleasure industry. I was delighted to meet them and I’m happy they know me now, too.

Of course, like any great sexy event, the queers where out in full force.
Here is a sample of the out and memorable award winners and performers in attendance:

• Esther Shannon – Favourite Feminist Advocate
• Zoe from Zoho Salon – Favourite Hair Stylist
• Jenny Magenta – working the red carpet, interviewing, and being glamourous as usual (go to Jenny Magenta Town!)
• Aedan Saint – Spoken word Artist and Mr. Gay Vancouver XXX who performed the closing number. (more about Aeden)
• From the Good Dyke Porn™ camp we had myself, Bren Ryder, Honey B, and the hot couple from ‘Pizza Delight’ scene, Big Booty B and Papa Big Cock.
  *We picked up two awards: Favourite Adult Film Company – Performers Choice and Favourite Adult Website (as mentioned above).

I’m sure there were more but I don’t know enough about them to know their queer status.

For a complete list of the winners go to NakedTruth.ca!

All in all it was a fabulous evening. Samantha Mack was a hilarious host and kept the audience laughing and engaged for the whole 4 hours. There were definitely some flaws, but it was the first one so I’m sure it will only get better and better every year. If I was choosing the course of direction for future shows I would take advantage of the Canadian or Vancouver aspect and narrow down the nominees to relatively local stars. Honouring Dita Von Teese, Belladonna, Jenna Jameson and AVN is cool, but they’re not likely able to attend. As the show gains attention and sponsorship, then, eventually bring in the expensive stars from around the world as guests.
*Just my two cents.*

It was a complete honour to be included in this celebration of sex and the work we do to bring it to the people.

Susan Davis – Favourite Sex Worker Advocate – summed up the importance of the night beautifully in this video by The Georgia Straight.

Currently, I run my porn business in my spare time and I work a day job to pay my bills. It’s an easy, moderately physical job doing window cleaning. I’ve been doing this “shitty job” off and on for about 12 years. I have phases of hating it and phases of loving it. It’s good to get out of the house, to move my body and listen to music on my ipod and work with an immediate return on time invested. But, of course, it’s not really what I want to do with my time and the managers in this industry tend to use control tactics for methods of management, which drives me crazy. I don’t play games in any of my relationships, so why would I tolerate it for work?

Lately, I’ve been trying to work out how I can do both and enjoy both and make money and take time off. There has been some progress in this direction, but more setbacks than anything else.

Then, a wonderful thing happened. I started to hate my job again. I can’t stand it. I don’t want to spend my time doing that shit. It takes away from the much more important work of creating dyke porn, promoting it to the world, and engaging in the porn community as an advocate for ethical and positive sexual representation in porn.

I can’t quit my job out right just yet (though, I wish I could). Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of porn submissions and local people who want to shoot scenes and I need to use the little money that’s coming in for them. But, I’m motivated. I’m motivated by hate. Grrrrr. I hate my job. Ha ha. I don’t hate anything, actually. But, I’m going to pretend that I’m letting this job plant hatred in my heart. Hatred for the godforsaken evil of the fucking day job.

The last time I hated my job I began an experiment in thinking that I had more time in my day than I actually did – just as a mental hokus pokus sort of thing (more flakiness of which I’d be happy to reveal to you, in time). Then I got fired. It was awesome! The best thing that could have happened. And I managed to work the biz for almost a year. Although, I’m still paying back my ex-girlfriend for her support. It’s time for that to happen again, sort of. Here’s what’s going to happen: this crawl towards financial sustainability is going to turn into a walk, then a run, then I’m going cross over to a truly independent producer of fucking good dyke porn. Independent of studios and corporate producers, but more importantly, independent of day job managers that validate their existance by controlling me and my time.

People frequently ask me how they can help to contribute to the success of this business. I’m still trying to figure out ways you can do that for free, but, the best way is to buy a membership. If I have money to pay my bills then I have time to make porn and pay people for their bravery. One of my favourite things about being an entrepreneur is how my work gets money into the hands of queer women around the world. From nothing, comes creative works of sexual expression, and from multiple contributions comes lump sum payments direct to the performer for that work. A beautiful porn economy. Help me to make my dream come true, buy a membership.

This video might be true for me sooner than later (I hope):