Porn economics: Vaginas and gas

As gas prices increase, people across the country are adjusting their lives accordingly by taking public transportation, riding bikes, or staying inside for longer periods, playing more videogames and watching more porn like the activists they are.

But two adult performers signing at this weekend’s Erotica L.A. have found that, unlike their vaginas, the price of gas is inelastic.

“Gas is like food,” said New Sensations contract performer Ashlynn Brooke. “You have to pay whatever it costs to get it.”

Brooke therefore declared the inelasticity of gas. Despite an average price of $4.20 across Porn Valley for a gallon of 87 octane fuel, she said that she would buy it regardless.

In her native Choctaw, OK, it’s different. “I was talking to my aunt and it’s $3.79 there today,” she said. “Plus, it’s easier to walk around in Choctaw.”

Cementing the inelasticity of gasoline is the sheer size of Los Angeles and the unreliability of public transportation.

Sasha Grey, who grew up in similarly spread out Sacramento, recently topped off her Volvo’s tank for $76.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

But despite the horror at the pump (Brooke filled up her SUV for $80), Grey says the geography of Los Angeles doesn’t allow her any options.

“It’s not like I’m going to carpool to a porn set,” she said.

Unlike their vaginas and the demand for goods that can be easily substituted, which are highly elastic, the demand for gas will be inelastic until more porn can be shot at a central location, such as Gram Ponante Towers, Stationary Taqueria, Cyclotron, Heliport, and Refinery.

Brooke does have one solution to oil consumption. At Erotica L.A. she will probably go barefoot to skip around the L.A. Convention Center’s low-pile carpeting, eschewing petroleum-based Lucite heels.

“I’m from Oklahoma,” she said, a likely Green Party candidate. “So I don’t care.”

Previously: XRCO from the outside in; Sasha Grey: A day without porn; Erotica L.A. 2007 in review
See also: Erotica L.A.