Risque in Times Gone By

Risque Times Gone By

Norma Jean for VividWhen asked about the risqué talent pool back then, for whatever reason, the first woman that came to The Risque Mind turned out to be Norma Jeane of all people. Some of us remember Norma from around 2000 or so, but according to el jefe she really had her “time” in the business in the mid 1990’s. We rarely hear new stories around here, but come to find out, Norma literally took off out of the business in the middle of the night to head back “home” with a new guy. [True. She also took off owing us a good deal of money — neither the first nor that last to do this, honestly — but back then cell phone plans were a lot different, so we had a “company” AT&T credit card that Norma continued to charge up all the way across the country which added a few hundred dollars to her outstanding total. That was annoying.]

Of course seeing as how our “web, circa 1999” plan had to get a little more broad in its definition [as it were], Norma seemed worth bringing up regardless. To put “1999” in perspective, we registered risque.com in 1995 — less than a year after the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network registered espn.com and a full four years before wickedpictures.com hit the registry. Those were “bulletin board” years, though, so our real “web” efforts didn’t come about until sometime in 1998, although it looks like even we didn’t keep much track of them until September of 1999. [At the risk of being overly depressing that means that some of the women currently working in adult films were three years old when we started. … Um. … Ouch.]

Near as we could tell, the risque site as you see it now basically started its evolution sometime in the mid 2000’s. Not only did the allocation of people to the web project change, but we also brought in some folks rather more dedicated to the concept of improving over time. [I hate to keep defending the founders here, but to be fair, the software involved with deploying and maintaining a web site got A LOT better over that time period too. Back then, even if you had the money to buy the tools, you could set yourself apart from the crowd only if you conquered the learning curve, and it was a steep one back in the day.]

Even More Risque:  Sun Your Ginger Buns

risque site 2001risque site 2005

After these hours of consideration, we all decided that being able to look back on web efforts from a decade and a half ago may not be such a good thing after all. At the very least, it can be a trifle embarrassing. [Yeah, but since when do we have any shame around here anyway?]

The First Risque ClientsBy the way, we also ran across this little Polaroid in our digging, and we felt obliged to include it because … well, because it pictures Shayla LaVeaux and Alexis DeVell, the first two Risqué Clients, coincidentally enough, and from the looks of them they couldn’t have been long out of the XXX womb. [Not to say it’s really that old, but the tall black column in the back of the shot was a rack designed to hold VHS tapes — the “small box” kind that Hollywood movies came in. And we actually put up that wallpaper in Alexis’ living room on purpose. Goodness … ]

Oh! Just in case you had a question about the title, and you don’t happen to have the information right at the tip of your brain, “Auld Lang Syne” translates to “Times Gone By” — at least according to Wikipedia. Of course that must be true because they couldn’t put it on the internet if it were not true. … We’re not exactly sure how they handle true in 1999 vs. true in 2016. … [And for the record, we do know that “Shamus” happens to be an Irish name while Auld Lang Syne has Scottish roots. Still, the “shame us” pun worked perfectly in this instance, whereas something like “Angus” would not. Humor obviates the need for historical accuracy as we all know.]

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