Twistys Treat of the Year Contest Sparks Outrage (UPDATED)

Shady drama at Twistys.com as voting porn fans demand answers

Sources say ‘the fix was in’ — full report below

For weeks, the Members Forum at Twistys.com has been abuzz with talk of irregularities in Tristys’ “Treat of the Year” contest.

Although the voting period for the 2014 contest ended last month, the winner and runner-up were not announced until today. In years past, the winner was announced almost immediately after the conclusion of voting.

Suspicion set in on the forum when Twistys failed to announce the winners promptly.

Then, in a post written in advance of the site’s official announcement, Twistys production manager, Rob, stated that Nicole Aniston had won the contest, and Vanessa Veracruz was runner-up.

And that’s where things get really interesting…

A trip to Costa Rica to shoot for the site was part of the prize package for the contest’s winner and runner up. However, a VP from Twisty’s corporate owner, Mindgeek, had reportedly made the call that Twistys wanted only boy/girl performers on the trip.

Twistys and its sister sites had been acquired by Manwin (now MindGeek) in 2011. Manwin’s official statement at the time noted that “Twistys has a glamorous approach to creating content, and provides a softer take on adult entertainment.”

That was then, and this is now. “They’re transitioning the site to be harder,” one insider said of MindGeek.

The company has decided to edge Twistys away from its “glam-core” base. . . and so is was decreed that boy/girl shoots would be required in Costa Rica.

However, not everyone at Twistys was aware of this dictate — and neither were the the performers who tirelessly promoted Twistys and its contest for months.

Two such women are all-girl performers Elle Alexandra and Vanessa Veracruz.

Reached by telephone, Alexandra told TRPWL that Twistys’ Rob informed her last month that she was “in the top three” for the contest, and asked if she had a valid passport to make the trip to Costa Rica.

“I told him sure, but I needed a week’s notice to get an expedited passport.”

According to Alexandra, after the voting ended Rob informed her that Nicole Aniston had received the most votes, and Vanessa Veracruz had come in second.

Elle, he said, had come in third, beating Sophia Knight — also a girl/girl-only performer — by one vote.

 

Two sources inform TRPWL that Aniston, who had not shot boy/girl content in some time, agreed to work with a male performer in Costa Rica on the condition that Twistys bring Veracruz on the shoot as well.

Veracruz told TRPWL that she worked very hard on this year’s contest — arranging giveaways of DVDs and 8×10 photos.

“I put in a lot of time and effort to connect with fans on a daily basis,” she said.

Rob reportedly took to the forum to post that Aniston was the winner and Veracruz the runner-up specifically because he didn’t want the MindGeek brass to pass off boy/girl performer and Mindgeek contract star Madison Ivy — who had placed fifth at best —  as the contest’s actual runner-up.

Eventually, however, management indicated they would compromise: seeking boy/girl content, they would bring Ivy to Costa Rica, but would still honor Veracruz’s standing as legitimate runner-up.

That was everyone’s understanding until this morning — when the Twistys site saluted Aniston as Treat of the Year, and Ivy as runner-up.

And, in what appears to be a bit of proactive damage control, the link to the Twistys forum — which is overrun with complaints about the contest — was removed from the Twistys homepage.

Fallout

Rob quit his position at Twistys this week, and this scandal has been cited at the reason why. His Twistys Twitter account is gone too.

 

Replaced by a new one.

According to sources at Twistys, Madison Ivy had been selected for the shoot before the voting began. “They were going to bring her [to Costa Rica] no matter what,” is how one insider described the situation, citing “cost savings” as Mindgeek’s motivation in selecting someone they already had under contract. But it also appears they actually believed that Ivy, an established performer with hundreds of scenes under her belt and 178,000 Twitter followers, would either win or place second in the contest.

They were wrong.

Twistys/MindGeek’s decision is particularly perplexing because of the history of the site: as Elle Alexandra points out, “the top-rated scenes in Twistys history are, number one, a scene of myself and Aiden Ashley, and number two, a scene with Malena Morgan and Celeste Star. All four of us are girl/girl only performers.”

And the question that Twistys fans and performers alike are asking is: Why have a voting contest at all if the VP is going to veto the results and pick his own winner?

Getaway

Today’s formal announcement b y Twistys of the winner and runner-up came after the duo had already arrived in Costa Rica.

That’s right, the winners of a contest were announced after the prize had already been awarded.

The outspoken Alexandra was outraged by this series of events. “Twistys has been my favorite company for my entire career. And now they have no love for their Gg-only performers,” was one of many comments she left on the forum.

And today Alexandra found that her booking with Twistys for this Saturday had been canceled.

This sentiments were echoed by Veracruz when she spoke to TRPWL earlier today: “It upsets me because I love the site,” she said. “There’s a certain class to it.”

The header of Twistys.com still reads: “Beautiful Nude Girls in Erotic Photos and Porn Videos”.

“It’s upsetting that they insisted on a boy/girl performer when their site is built on girl/girl and solo glamour”, said Veracruz.

Adult performer (and 2011 Twistys Treat of the Year) Emily Addison adds,

They apparently have a new idiot running the show over at Twistys. He doesn’t like solo sets or g/g. It seems he wants to push Twistys to being a harder site. but why? They already have Brazzers. Vanessa did win fair & square the TOTY Runner-up. What a fucking scandal!

I feel bad for Madison being in the middle of this. I’m sure it is all a way to cut costs. Way to go Mind Geek, or whatever you call yourself now, your new buffoon is going to be the end of Twistys. The members don’t deserve to be treated like this. Vanessa definitely didn’t deserve to be crushed like that. And Madison doesn’t deserve to be in the uncomfortable ‘fake winner’ circle… I will never shoot for the site again or anyone else affiliated with Manwin/MindGeek. Disgusting. Shame on you.

Alexandra says, “I went on hiatus in July, and when I came back this month, Twistys was one of the few companies I wanted to work for. I’ve shot for Twistys since I was 19 , but I won’t again because they obviously don’t respect me because I’m a girl/girl performer.”

The final word goes to Shap, a.k.a. “The Guy Who Started Twistys”:

I remember our first Twistys Treat of the Year. We decided to have the voting be members and non members. I didn’t know what to expect. I had an idea who the 2 or 3 girls the members wanted were. I knew the 2 or 3 girls I wanted to win (for marketing purposes). And then there was the girl who won. She won fair and square. She wasn’t my top 3 choice and she wasn’t the members top 3 choice. But she hustled her ass off and she won. And you know what? While it really upset members … fair is fair and she got the grand prize and she was crowned Twistys Treat of the Year.

If you have a competition and you have a set of rules and criteria that everybody expects to be used to decide the winner and runner up, when the time comes and your choice isn’t the winner or the runner up it is a real shitty thing to do to screw over the rightful winner(s).

 

UPDATE: MindGeek/Twistys is now banning customers and models from its forum who have spoken out about this fiasco.

They’ve actually banned 4 of 8 top finishers in the past four Treat of the Year contests!

And then…

 

Members have been canceling in solidarity with all-girl models since this story broke…

…and now, it appears that Twistys may be trying to slow the hemorrhaging of members by preventing them from canceling their memberships…

If true, this is what’s known as a move of dubious legality.