Friday Night at Erotica L.A.

Last night, I ventured to downtown Los Angeles for this year's offering of Erotica L.A., taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Erotica L.A. is an annual event celebrating everything, uhhh... erotic. This year's three-day confab of smut fans and peddlers is expected to host over 50,000 visitors checking out the offerings of hundreds of exhibitors. At $35 per general admission pop, plus whatever it is exhibitors pay for floor space, the show's organizers should reap some decent rewards for their efforts. My complimentary admission, with an official exhibitor's badge, was courtesy of Ms. Tera Patrick and her company, TeraVision.

Erotica L.A. brings out some fairly bizarre people and it brings them out in droves. Each year that I've attended, and I've attended more than a few times, I'm especially amused by many of the outfits donned by a variety of female guests. (And some male guests as well.) I'm fairly open-minded about such things but, personally, my feeling is if you're in dire need of diet, exercise, a tanning bed, and some extreme liposuction, you probably have no business going out in public in that too-tight, too-revealing, spandex outfit. I know I've got little room to talk--mostly, it's the pretty girl shooter in me talking--and I'm not saying I couldn't use some diet, exercise, a day or two at the beach, and maybe a bit of lipo myself. (As graphically evidenced by the image above.) But also notice there's not a stitch of spandex or similar material on me, nor am I, thankfully, exhibiting much pale skin.

Speaking of the image above, that's obviously me with some of the girls of JC's Girls: A Christian organization tending to the spiritual needs of strippers and other women plying the sex trades. I've known the Holy Hotties of JC's girls--none of them in the biblical sense I should add--since they began their ministry a few years back. And I've photographed them on a few occasions for their website and other media materials. I also appeared in a documentary about JC's Girls, that aired on England's popular Channel 4 last year, and I'm featured with them in another documentary which should air and/or be distributed this fall. I missed a screening of the (latter mentioned) documentary a few weeks ago. And, I've never seen what aired on Channel 4. But I'm told by some people who have seen one or both that I'm used as the shows' comedy relief. Movies about religion, in my opinion, are usually in need of some comedy relief... and oftentimes, plenty of it. Sometimes, public exposure comes from the darndest places.

There's something for everyone at Erotica L.A., providing that something caters to one's sexual appetite. There's even an Erotic Museum featuring some pretty damn good erotic photography and other works of erotic art. And, of course, there's the many pretty girls--more than a few of whom I've photographed--who are there representing so many companies whose show-booths dot Erotica L.A.'s landscape. It was fun seeing some examples of my work here and there on the convention floor, blown up into big banners and posters.

If you're in and around Los Angeles this weekend, you might want to trek down to Erotica L.A. for some weekend fun that's definitely not for children or the feint of heart.