Everyone is talking about the Oscars. But in early January, there is another very important award show that rarely gets coverage: The AVN Awards, or, as some of us like to call them, the Woodies. This momentous event is the Oscars of Porn, and anybody who is anybody who has sex on camera for a living is there. But outside of that little world, no one seems to care about who wins — it’s a tremendous oversight on behalf of the entire industry. Let’s wake up and smell the douchebag, people: pornography IS mainstream. It’s come a long way since the grandparents of porn, revered favorites such as Kay Parker, John Holmes, Seka, Aunt Peg, Ron Jeremy, and Ginger Lynn (the list goes on), spread themselves across the world on 35 mm. And it’s come a long way since the first AVN award was handed out in 1984.

It’s just not a taboo anymore, either. Who doesn’t know about DP and Bukake? But we digress.

The point is that pornography is becoming more and more acceptable, and mainstream film is becoming more and more pornographic. So why the stigma? Do we NOT like boobs? Do we NOT like penises? Do we NOT like sex? Do we NOT like filming sex? Come ON. That’s what we’ve loved since we were wee children in the bathroom of the Scarsdale Presbyterian Daycare Center, and Mrs. Andrews wasn’t looking. Well, the cameras came later. So let’s just get over the hang-up already and start paying more attention to stuff like the AVN Awards.

The AVN Awards allow us to keep a pulse on what is really on the minds of most Americans — sex. It’s thought about every six seconds. Even Shakespeare had it on his mind: O! O! O! O! Unless, of course, his wife was just as much a fake as he was. But once again, we digress.

18 million American homes may tune in to the Oscars this weekend, but scene can promise you that more than that will be tuning into each other or themselves — with the help of movies that probably have won a Woodie, and popped one — when the show is over. Maybe this is why we have seen the sexualization of the modern blockbuster. A prime example of this trend is the gratuitous sex scene in the third Matrix movie. As Trinity and Neo rock it in the rock cavern, audiences are forced to cross their legs uncomfortably.

The reason: what they once considered to be private has been made public by the silver screen. However, those who are uncomfortable are total squares. Sex was never private. Just ask Kay Parker. While the act may be, the portrayal of it is not. ‘Fess up. It’s time to swallow the AVN’s and find yourself a Woodie.