Posted on 05/28/2004 5:25:59 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
A Mormon Girl Gets Her Start in the Adult Movie Business
Jan. 23 — When 20-year-old Michelle saw the handsome Spaniard who would later become her fiancé, she thought it was love at first sight.
[WARNING: This article contains descriptions of sexual acts that some readers may find offensive.]
"The day we met, he said, 'You're going to be the mother of my children. I love you,'" she remembers. "You know what I mean? I never had that before. I never had a guy be so in love with me."
The couple met on the set of a porn film in a rented house in Prague in July 2001.
Michelle, the daughter of a retired Air Force captain and former bishop in the Mormon Church, was an up-and-coming starlet in the adult video world. She had had some setbacks in her first year in the business, but believed her career was turning around with the Prague trip, which would be her first starring role. Her co-star, 28-year-old Nacho Vidal, was already a well-established star.
The director had told Michelle that Vidal liked her work, and when the pair saw each other they immediately fell into each other's arms, kissing from one side of the house to the other.
"There's nothing bad about you," she told him admiringly as they prepared for the shoot. "You don't know me very well" he replied with a grin.
But when the director finally got the pair to settle down to the business at hand — filming a sex scene — the tone changed. Without any prompting, Vidal got rough during the sex, slapping Michelle's face violently from side to side, and choking her. [Pleased to meet you/Hope you guessed my name]
Afterward, she looked shaken, her face reddened and her eyes watery. But she insisted she was OK. "I look torn up — can you tell?," she asked an ABCNEWS producer who was following her progress for Primetime. Laughing and wiping her eye, she turned away and said without conviction, "I took a beating today, and it was great."
'Belladonna' Is Born
Michelle had gotten her start in the business at 18, when she came to Los Angeles from her home in Utah to look for work as a nude photograph model. When she failed to get modeling work, her agent encouraged her to try porn. She refused at first. "I always hated porn. I thought it was the most disgusting thing in the world," she told Primetime, which followed her career for more than two years.
But she finally agreed. Taking the name Belladonna, like the poisonous flower, she found herself preparing for what she thought would be a simple boy-girl sex scene. She was shocked when the director told her he wanted her to do anal sex — something she says she had never even thought about before. Worried she'd have to go through with it if she wanted to work again, she let him talk her into it. "I was kind of scared. I didn't know if I could say no," she remembers. "I didn't know any better, you know?"
After the session, she was shattered. "I wasn't ready for anal sex.... It was painful. But I can hide it really well." She had just turned 18, the legal age for participation in sexually explicit films.
Michelle went on more shoots over the next few months. Then her agent sent her on a job where she would have sex with male actors in prison outfits — 12 of them. Once again, she tried to back out, telling the director it was "sick," but once again she was talked into it. She had sex — all kinds — with the 12 men. "It was really hard because I really felt like a piece of meat ... in a lion's cage, 12 lions.... I had to do a lot of things I can't imagine anyone wanting to do." She was paid $4,000.
Afterward, she says, she couldn't stop crying. She packed her bags and went home to her family in Utah.
Glimpse of the Big Time
But within a year, she was back, even agreeing to promote the prison movie that had so upset her.
She began to feel that her career was picking up. She got a small part in a movie for VCA, one of the "high end" companies that produce big-budget films, and hoped it might lead to a contract. On the shoot, she met porn legend Ron Jeremy, who was making a cameo, and began to feel like she was fitting in. "The first second I walk in, this girl grabs my breast, and I'm like, Wow, you know, that's like the best welcome ... 'cause then you feel like, Oh, someone likes me, you know?"
Another company considered giving her a contract, but at a meeting, the owner, veteran porn star Ona Zee, sensed that Michelle was not emotionally ready to become an adult star. "There's a part of me that wants to say to you, 'Run for the hills, girl, do something else, because you can be something better,'" she told her.
At the high-end companies — which produce a small proportion of the thousands of adult titles released each year — performers often have contracts and can make six figures by shooting just eight to 10 movies a year. They can pick their own partners and condoms are generally required. Shot on film with elaborate, sets, costumes and plots, the movies can have budgets up to $250,000.
But Michelle did not get a studio contract, and ended up taking a job with a company known for "gonzo" porn — sex-only, amateur-looking productions shot on video. The company, Elegant Angel, was making a film in Prague and offered her a starring role, which she hoped would show the big studios that she could carry a film.
Love Blossoms in Prague
She was thrilled at the attention Vidal gave her during the week in Prague — but wary. "It's weird to have a guy love you that much. That almost scares me because I have a hard time trusting men," she told Primetime, explaining that her first boyfriend cheated on her repeatedly and ultimately left her for a stripper. Privately, Vidal had told Primetime he could never be with just one woman, and would be happy if Michelle's attraction did not lead anywhere.
She came back to Los Angeles by herself, so sore from the week's filming that she says she could hardly walk. But then she flew to Spain to visit Vidal, and their relationship seemed to be going places. She said he could keep having sex with other women, as long as he agreed to be "honest to me, loyal, and just respect me and tell me that I'm number one every day."
She even began hearing wedding bells, telling Primetime, "The second I get married, I won't having sex with men in this business any more."
Wedding Bells
By December 2001, Michelle and Vidal were engaged. As she proudly showed off her diamond ring, saying how pretty it was, Vidal joked in his Spanish accent, "I need to f—k so many girls for that ring."
The couple was in love, Michelle says, but they were fighting regularly. Vidal would sometimes get what he calls "Latino jealous" when he saw her talking to other men at clubs. Michelle told Primetime, "It's hard to be in a relationship with someone in porn."
By now, she was working steadily, even shooting for the same company she shot the prison gangbang for. "I guess now I've gotten past the whole feeling-bad-about-it thing. I'm like, 'OK, I did it and that was pretty damn rough of me' ... Like wow, you know?," she said with a laugh. "I can say that I've done pretty much everything there is to do, and I can walk away feeling a little proud about it, you know?"
The Primetime producers who had been following her noticed changes. At 18, she had said she would never use drugs, but now Primetime learned that she was sometimes high on marijuana during her scenes. She was working without condoms, though she said the risk of AIDS was never far from her mind — or her prayers. "The fans don't like to see condoms ... If I would have said I want to use condoms every time, I really wouldn't get any work," she explained. She contracted chlamydia, which can make you sterile.
And anal sex — which she had be talked into during her first shoot — was now her specialty. "Funny, isn't it? Something I didn't want to do and now I'm known best for it," she told Primetime. No longer a fresh face in the business, she found she had to agree to even riskier sex acts to earn the same money.
Ona Zee, the producer who had interviewed Michelle the previous year, noticed a difference, too. "I said to my husband, Our baby is all grown up and left home. She's no longer the adorable fresh-faced girl that I met ... Now she's really in the life ... Even in the pictures that I see of her, she's much harder, much tougher."
Behind the Smile
During interviews with Primetime, Michelle kept the happy smile she had always had — even when describing things that many people would find disturbing. However, her composure cracked when Diane Sawyer asked why she always smiled. Tears came to her eyes as she said, "Because I like to hide — hide everything, you know?" Then she began to cry, explaining that she hides her real emotions because she wants to show everyone how happy she is. "And I'm not happy ... I don't like myself at all," she said.
Michelle confessed she often felt physical revulsion during her scenes: "My whole entire body feels it when I'm doing it and ... I feel so — so gross." While pretending to be enjoying the sex, she said, she was in fact counting the minutes, telling herself, "Hey, I only have this much time left. Don't worry about it. Get the check. Gonna go deposit it in your bank." She admitted: "You get addicted to the money."
Like other performers Primetime spoke to, Michelle said that during shooting she often imagines herself outside her body. "I call it the 'other half,'" she said.
Bringing Home a Trophy
In January 2002, Michelle's Prague movie won an award at the Adult Video News awards in Las Vegas, considered the Oscars of the adult industry. Things were not going smoothly with Vidal that day — he complained that Michelle "don't do the ironing my clothes... I still 28 and I need my mother," and at the ceremony he openly checked out other women — but there were crowds of admiring fans for Michelle and she soaked up the attention.
After going on stage to pick the trophy, she was beaming, telling Primetime she had worked hard for it. "I think this is the very beginning of my career, like I've just begun," she said.
And at the 2003 AVN awards two weeks ago, Michelle was an even bigger winner, taking home awards for best supporting actress and three other categories.
And you support keeping it that way unless it is shown that it can't be done safely?
Well, then, Al Gore was most impious when he gave only $343 of his six-figure income to charity a few years back. Dubya sets a more Christian example.
Both, however, are equally wrong when they take other people's money for that purpose.
Yep. That's my conclusion.
Not even God can help people who don't want to be helped.
As an Aquinas fan, you should have more insight into the nature of Free Will. She sins of her own Free Will.
You cannot make people virtuous by simply suppressing the instruments of their lust--they still lust and fall. Although, I suppose calling for the suppression of vice gives you a big warm feeling of pride.
Pride and Lust are both deadly sins.
Then pay them to your church. There is no justification for taking other peoples money to run your social programs.
"That we are the rulers of America does not eliminate our duty to the poor."
Your duty is to first obey the commandments. The relevant command is though shalt not steal. That means don't take what is not yours. Your duty is to be carried out of Free will, not coerced. You have no justification to coerce the wills of these idiots, or to take what belongs to others to do so, or to run a con pretending it's to care for them.
BTW, these people are not poor. Others are and you're advocting taking resources from folks that are interested in fulfilling their duties.
So, the practice of Islam, to such a Catholic (I assume Mr. Aquinas is catholic) would not be "intrinsically evil" if done with a good intention but the porn is "intrinsically evil".
So, if you have to choose one of the decalogue to flaunt, you will do better if you worship a false god sincerely than if you commit fornication.
As best I can make it out.
Wrong. Eve was tricked in the garden but she was still held responsible. Why, because she had the information needed to make the right choice. Eve listened too long to Satan after she had already caught and corrected him for twisting God's words, until she believed that eating the fruit was the best thing to do.
She was tricked, but she was still responsible. So are we all. That is the very nature of sin, and yes we are still responsible.
Everyone associated with porn are being "tricked, "deceived". If they could see clearly what it is doing to themselves and others they wouldn't go near it. That they don't see it is in part due to bad choices.
And we as a society are being "tricked" into allowing that industry to exist because we can't see how much harm it does to society. How much it costs us as individuals even when we have nothing to do with it. We've been tricked into believing that people should have the "right" to do this, that there are no victims, that no innocents are harmed in the process.
And we as society are responsble and bear the collective guilt of all those innocents who have been harmed.
In fact, one of the New Testament's main points is that sin has no remedy aside from personal repentance, and this is why neither Jesus nor Paul had any interest insecular law.
Porn is evil for all involved. It violates God's law. A secular law against porn is not something the Jesus of the gospels would value at all.
"Law must be stable, and yet it cannot stand still."- Roscoe Pound
I know of no examples of anyone trying to write laws to limit pornography. I know of examples such as those who photograph men entering pornographic bookstores and strip joints and putting the photos on the Web. I know of examples of refusing to shop at convenience stores that sell pornographic magazines (I am one). I know of examples of protesting outside of pornographic bookstores. But I know of no attempts at writing coercive laws. They may exist, but I don't think the effort is widespread or getting a lot of attention.
Shalom.
Yep. That's the way I read it... You got my point.
The only reason Aquinasfan is screaming so hard for secular law to suppress vice is his own pride in his good temperance and a will to demonstrate it to us all.
He objects to displays of lust with a display of pride....
Let that dumb whore repent, and if she won't repent, let her suffer. Just don't bother me with more secular laws.
People do not have a duty to promote the greater good of society. They only have a duty to follow a society's laws.
There is. Do you have any idea how much society would decay without some of those social programs? My guess is you have no clue. I'm not saying that they are all necessary or that they are all run efficiently. That is a theft of a different kind. But without those programs you would see the costs come in the form of higher crime.
"Your duty is to first obey the commandments. The relevant command is though shalt not steal. That means don't take what is not yours. Your duty is to be carried out of Free will, not coerced. "
Your first problem is that you think taxes ever belonged to you. They do not. They never did. The Bible treats taxes as the rightful property of the government and you are merely the custodian. It's never yours to begin with. It's always the property of the government from the moment you do the transaction that causes the tax to be incurred whether that is buying a product or selling your labor or owning land.
The taxes were set up legitimately by law and voted into law by a legal process which we all signed up for. And we continue to consent to that process by choosing to live in this country. It's not like you can't leave if you don't want to.
Oh, that's cool. Now you try to defend your selfishness by attacking the generous? I was actually speaking more metaphorically since I do what I can, which is not everything.
I am not Batman. I am Don Quixote de la Mancha.
And you are a Trousered Ape.
Shalom.
Yeah, just like Jesus would never visit lepers and shunned sinners from his sight.
How did you get it all so wrong?
It really isn't that hard. G-d designed us to work together, to take care of one another. After all of creation was complete and declared "very good," G-d declared one thing "not good." "It is not good that man should be alone."
It isn't surprising that when the G-dless asked to be left alone, it is so they can indulge in vice.
Shalom.
"Nacho Vidal?"
How did you get it all so wrong?
You wouldn't be judging me, would you?
Jesus may have eaten dinner with a pornographer, but I doubt he would have given that pornographer money. Perhaps Jesus will chide me when I meet Him for refusing to give money to pornographers, or to those who aid and abet pornographers, but I'm not going to lie awake worrying about it.
Shalom.
Now the most judgemental shreiks 'Judge me Not"? LOL
It's an impossibility for me to judge your soul, but I can certainly judge your ideas and statements.
My verdict is: 'dumb'.
It is already unsafe.
Sure, unless your lie injuries the rights of another (say, by defrauding them of their property)
Slander?
No, since the slander injures another's property right (their good name or reputation)
Commit adultery?
Sure. What rights are injured?
Spread pornography?
To consenting adults? Of course.
Does God give us these rights to do evil?
God, if he does exist, gave us free will. We have every right to do evil. We also have to accept the consequences of doing evil, whether in this life or the next.
Properly ordered sexual desire occurs within the bonds of matrimony.
So you say. I disagree. Prove I'm wrong.
This is the natural law that is written on the human heart
Your opinion. Nothing more.
Pornography subverts the proper ordering of sexual desire, putting aside the more obvious evils engaged in by the actors themselves.
Even if this is true, so what?
If you disagree, tell me how sexual desire should be ordered, in contradiction to the natural law.
I have no desire to order sexual desire, other than to require that sex be between adults who have reached the legal age of consent.
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