Venus Berlin 2023

It had been 7 years since I last attended Venus Berlin. Part of the absence had been because of the coronavirus pandemic, but I was also not motivated to go to a foreign show where I did not know most of the producers. Sure, there is a lot of nudity at these European shows, but I’m not the average attendee who seeks out nudity.

These attendees are mostly older men (age 55+) who look and behave like they haven’t pulled pussy in a while. They rush and gawk at the first sign of anyone removing clothing. I think this would happen at an American show too if they allowed nudity. Many are openly aggressive in touching and groping the performers to their discomfort, and I think part of it is the rampant drinking that goes on at these shows. I think the only way to make the attendee leave a performer alone is if the performer asked the person for a tip.

The crowds of these type of people prevent me from actually taking photographs of who I want to photograph. I’m no longer of the age to wade into a crowd, or as Murtaugh would say, I’m just too old for this shit. Whereas in 2016, I took about 3,000 photos; I only took 650 for this show.

DSC04820
Nela Decker

This was the busiest Venus I had ever been to. The organisers are very good in designing the layout and staggering the stage show schedule so that the crowd runs from place to place in a somewhat coherent fashion. I mostly hid in the Brazzers booth when the mob went from booth to booth. Nela Decker performed a stage show portraying a terrorist taking a hostage which was in bad taste given the conflict in Israel and Gaza.

DSC05540
Angela White had the longest lines in the show

Angela White and Mia Julia (formerly Mia Magma) had the longest lines at the convention. From what locals have told me, Mia is now a reality television star and a singer, but her line was too long for me to meet and photograph her again. Brazzers in general had the longest lines for autographs, and crowds circled around Lily Lou when she bared her breasts and encouraged attendees to grope and choke her. Ryan Reid celebrated her birthday that weekend also.

DSC04891
the Brazzers girls
  • Somewhat Safe For Work gallery on Flickr
  • NSFW photo thread on Twitter

Back to Venus

IAFD is composed of a staff of volunteers who mostly spend their time working on what interests them along with running through the gambit of all of the corrections people submit to us. As some of you have surmised, my passion is photography following in the steps of the late Peter Van Aarle who used to methodically approach and take a photo of each person he met at the conventions. Not necessarily to make them look good but document their headshots for the purposes of IAFD.

I have taken over that role in my visits to the conventions where I am not as methodical and am quite biased about who I shoot knowing that I would rather spend time catching up with friends rather than approach a bunch of strangers that I don’t know.

This is what happens to me when I go to the European conventions. I don’t watch as much porn anymore and the scenes I do watch tend to be American since I am in the United States. Further, even if limited, I prefer to understand the dialog. So for the past four years, I’ve stayed away from Venus Berlin given the cost of travel and the limited amount of coverage I can offer you guys. Remember, we’re all volunteers.

Taissia Shanti
Taissia Shanti

Like the SEB show, Venus Berlin features a lot of nudity by women I haven’t the foggiest idea about. Not just German, but French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Czech, and this year tons of Russians. Maybe two or three Americans thrown in. They may not have much live sex beyond masturbation, but the audiences still love what they are seeing.

The difference though between the show is that Venus is very organized and credited to producers of the show and the booths. Of course I didn’t learn this until the last day when I was wondering why everyone seemed to know where to be when the stage show starts and what it will feature. I looked at the program that was given to me on the first day and it was all there!

Some notes:

  • The most popular booth of the convention by far was for modelcentro, a website host for models. There were a group of Russian porn stars there from julmodel agency featuring Henessy that did a show every 15-30 minutes.

    Henessy
    Henessy
  • The second most popular booth was Salma de Nora, a Spanish producer based in Germany, which featured an international melange of pretty girls including the Romanian Julia de Lucia, Italian Valentina Bianco, Japanese Brazilian Miyuki Son,  and Spaniard Chiki Dulce. Unintentional comedy happened when I spoke almost exclusively in broken Spanish to Valentina even after she told me she was Italian.

    Julia de Lucia
    Julia de Lucia
  • I gabbed a lot with one of the few Americans, Kenna James, about veterinary schools.

    Kenna James
    Kenna James
  • Anny Aurora has developed an American accent when speaking English since I last talked to her, which was shocking because that was only nine months ago. What a lovely girl in person.

    Anny Aurora
    Anny Aurora
  • I caught up with Tarra White who greeted me with her boobs the first time I went to a European show. She is now one of the organisers of the Prague show.

    Tarra White
    Tarra White
  • My flash broke at the end of the first day from the amount of abuse it took from people jostling for their own photographs. The flash just fell off the camera while its foot still was still attached to the mount of my camera. I had to borrow a power drill just to remove the foot from my camera so that I could try to utilise a backup flash. When that didn’t work, I had to get creative in my exposures.
  • Which reminds me, it’s always good to see my boys Malte, Jacco, and Whitey.

Oh yes, the photos:

Venus Berlin 2012

Well despite last year proclaiming that I needed to take a break from going to the Venus show, I went to Berlin anyway because I wanted to see my European friends. Besides my best German friend, Malte, said he couldn’t afford going to America for the AVN show.

This year’s show was run by new organisers, and I appreciated the efforts they went to try to accommodate the attendees. When there were long lines for people to pick up their badges, staff met people in the lines with temporary badges (1 day)  so they that could get into the show right away. They could pick up their 4 day badges later.

The show shrunk for the fourth consecutive year where I only spent most of my time between four booths.: my host booth (UKAP), Girlfriend Films’, Pierre Woodman’s, and Salma de Nora’s. The international presence was very low with fewer American, Czech, and Hungarian girls compared to previous years.

Carolina Abril Silvia Rubi

Meet Carolina Abril, Silvia Rubi, and Julia de Lucia.

I followed these three Spanish girls around so much. I ended helping them network with my friends. My friends even joked that I had stalked those Spanish girls so much that they were now following me. That’s why we ended up calling it “Stalk”holm Syndrome. I don’t think they have done any American productions yet but they liked to exhibit themselves. If you asked nicely, they treated you nicely. Thank you, girls.

For the rest of the photos.