Adult Video News
Chapter two explores the creation in 1983 of Adult Video News (AVN), a newsletter initially aimed at the public but gradually transformed into an industry trade journal in the vein of Variety or Hollywood Reporter. In its attempts to provide a more sophisticated, nuanced, and professional set of discourses for adult video, AVN represents a major turning point in this history, focusing on the industry as an industry, rather than merely as content made by unseen, hidden forces. Additionally, AVN repeatedly emphasized and encouraged the creation of quality material as a strategy to gain the respectability that would lead to greater acceptability and profits, a stance it also replicated within its own pages and editorial practices. Ultimately, AVN crafted something new: a space in which to promote, sell, and celebrate adult video.