At the Momentum Conference, I had a difficult time picking which sessions to sit in on. Do I go and sit in on Audiacia Ray or Charlie Glickman? Do I sit in with DangerousLilly or Maggie Mayhem? Hear a trailblazer speak on topics I’m familiar with to see what they’re saying or take sessions that will help me grow? What about workshops FOR workshops? A little Inception-y, I know. One of the sessions I sat in on was called “Sex and the Media: Who Wins?” I’m looking to break into other media and become a public face, I understand hardships the adult industry has with media… so I gave this one a shot.

The speaker’s name is Brian Gross and he is often pigeon-holed as The Porn Publicist. He has worked with Def American Recordings and Warner Brothers Records before he took “the plunge into adult” with Vivid’s Steven Hersh (politely name dropping clients such as Lars Ulrich and Gene Simmons to James Deen, Jenna Haze and Sasha Grey).

He said many things concerning the love/hate relationship between the adult industry and media (radio, tv, internet and print) while weaving on and off topic shared his facts and views through client relationships on how the media loves to use sexuality to sell publications/bring ratings – but at what cost? Of course this sparked a few questions to which I hoped Brian would have the time for an interview – and he did!

After a few txts on where and when, we decided on a late night chat over a drink (he Jameson, I Jack- of course) and this is how it went down. Forgive me for getting link happy, we zipped past some names because we know the industry’s characters so I linked for those of you who don’t know who we’re talking about.

Jane Blow: We know media won’t paint an accurate picture for the adult film industry – but for the select sex educators it welcomes (Laura Berman on Oprah for example)- Who have you found to be the most “oh no way, not at all” on a higher level but on a lower level sneak you in the back? As we know that larger companies own smaller ones we may not be familiar with.

Brian Gross: I don’t have much of this specific experience and I’ll tell you why. Producers don’t have that much time to be that all ‘over the place’ for lack of a better term. An example- the producer from Entertainment Tonight will say “I want to do a story on this actor or this actress, can we make it happen?” It’s a yes or no. Same with ABC Nightline. When specific television programs with an interest in sexuality say “We want to do this…” it opens up the negotiation. There are certain topics certainly that are a little more taboo which are harder to get an outlet to promote unless they’re broken through the news. Then they become a news story. It’s really difficult because there is a differentiation between what is a breaking news story and what we are trying to plan as a topic of conversation, as an editorial.

Every major television outlet, whether is cable news or ABC, NBC etc they’ve all covered some kind of sexuality in some way. So, if it fits, and it works, and its news worthy, then they’ll do something.

JB: Speaking of Niteline since it’s one of the recent things I know about because of the James Deen interview- Did Nightline contact you or your people because of this Tumblr phenomenon or how exactly did that happen?

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