AVN Awards

The AVN Awards, often nicknamed the 'Oscars of porn', were first sponsored and held by AVN magazine in February 1984.

Awards for gay adult video were included in the AVN Awards from 1987 through 1998, but the growing number of categories made the show unwieldy, leading AVN to spin off the separate GayVN Awards starting in 1999.

The current trophy design was created in 2013 for the show's 30th anniversary, led by designer Michael Krasun and supervised by AVN CEO Theo Sapoutzis; the figurine depicts two people in an erotic embrace without explicit anatomical detail.

Each AVN Award trophy is hand-poured from a custom mix of 40 percent resin and 60 percent ground marble, finished with an epoxy coating containing bronze powders, and is entirely manufactured in the United States.

The awards show originally began as the 'Adult Software exhibition' portion of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas before becoming a separate event in the 1990s, initially held at Caesars Palace.

Since 2008 the ceremony has been broadcast in an edited, 90-minute form on Showtime.

A 2006 Los Angeles magazine article claimed AVN Awards nominations often favor consistent advertisers in the magazine, comparing it to Variety choosing and awarding the Oscars themselves, and noting performers courting editors with gifts like dolls and homemade cookies.

Sex writer Violet Blue criticized the AVN Awards as a 'backslapping event' where the same companies and names win repeatedly, comparing calling it a true representation of porn's best to claiming intimacy with a Jenna Jameson sex doll counts as being with the real performer.

Sports columnist Bill Simmons called the AVN Awards telecast one of the most 'secretly captivating' shows on TV, ranking it alongside the National Spelling Bee and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Las Vegas Weekly described the filming of the telecast as tedious, involving many stops, starts, breaks and re-dos, noting that clever editing is a hallmark of the final broadcast.