In Too Deep

Intro to my book on "Adult Entertainment"

In 1995 I was dragged to Las Vegas – not entirely unwillingly – by friends who wanted to attend the annual “adult entertainment expo.” I expected some kind of business-oriented convention with sordid suits shaking hands and making more or less immoral deals. Little did I know!

Within ten minutes of entering the main hall, I was knocked out, entranced, amazed, bewitched (literally) by hundreds of porn stars posing for cameras, signing autographs, promoting video-cassettes, posters and magazines. I reached for my camera. As I snapped my very first image, I knew I was hooked.

Roaming through the expo aisles, I was met by accomodating and seemingly happy creatures of flesh and blood, some of whom I recognized from movies and magazines. Real, live porn stars, congregated among worshiping fans, business people and the oh so patient expo staff – all as amazed as I was. Could this really be happening?

That trip stuck in my mind as a Disneyland-experience for bug-eyed sleazebags like myself. I made a vow of one day returning, with more cameras, more film and an even more open mind. In 2001 I kept my promise. And in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010... I also tried similar events in other regions of the world, but the Las Vegas experience always turned out to be the best one.

In 2001 I also started talking to the girls (known in the business as “talent”), something that developed into many interviews. I could experience, first-hand, the business changes, trends, the technology, the gossip, the backstabbing, the love, the hate, the people... And, most importantly, I could interact with the girls to try to understand what they were really all about, and not just what they claimed to be.

As the annual conventions passed by, in many ways I felt more and more at home in this most pleasantly surreal environment, where flaunting flesh is a prerequisite and outrageousness almost a must. When people I met in passing smiled and said Hi, it wasn’t mere courtesy but a sign of recognition. I was suddenly inside the industry rather than outside it. This opened some doors and made my work easier in many ways, but it was also a wake-up call. What the hell was I really doing there? I quickly realized that I’m an ambitious voyeur more than anything else. The cameras have in many ways been my protection against an incomprehensible and threatening world. And, as I now realized, against hundreds of porn stars!

Pornography is an artificial (and profitable) construct built on top of the titillating quicksand of sexual instinct, and that usually brings massive criticism from people who can’t understand its true function: letting off psychosexual steam. And that criticism can be fierce. But I have to say that I’ve never peeped into a world as tolerant as the one I encountered at these expos and fairs. The reason is simple: an area or business which is so based in the double command or standard of shame on one hand and desire on the other can never be anything but assaulted by prejudice and intolerance. The people in the industry know that, and have seen a great deal of it – especially the talent. No wonder then that their outsider status engenders a more finely tuned sense of respect and tolerance towards others than in those who lustfully ogle and “covet” but basically do so in contempt of themselves – and thereby others.

Seeing the girls, the shows, the private battles, the fans, the bitching, the compassion, the successes, the failures and everything inbetween in an environment as emotionally warped as Las Vegas made me realise that life is, after all, quite OK. But after many weird experiences in the trenches over a total period of fifteen years, I felt that it was time to sum things up and assemble the documentation. Time to move on. I had, unknowingly, become a bit too involved. I was in too deep.

I’m very pleased that I didn’t proceed with this project until now, quite some time later. The few images from 1995 and 2001 included in this book not only show a different style in terms of porn fashion and presentation; compared to the more recent photos they are visual indicators of very rapid cultural and moral changes (the critics would surely call them “upheavals”). I will present more of these older photos in a forthcoming book, which will, I suspect, in fact turn into a few more books...

I have also turned this work into two main exhibitions, both shown at The Museum of Porn in Art (MOPIA) in Zürich, Switzerland: “Porntraits” (2006), which consisted of medium format black and white portraits of talent, and “Symbiotic Peek-a-Boo” (2009), which was scenes of interaction between fans and talent. The photos in this “In too deep” book are mainly from my trips 2004-2010.

Of course, I would like to thank all the people who helped out in any way during my visits to this delightful Hell: talent, producers, PR people, editors, etc. Too many to mention, but I remember them all with a sense of genuine gratitude.

– Carl Abrahamsson, Stockholm, April 2021

To get your own copy of the photo book In Too Deep, please go here.