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.
Your second problem after wrongly thinking that taxes were ever yours to begin with, is that you ignore the other commandments. Like "Love the Lord God and Love your neighbor as yourself."
That implies good stewardship of what God has given to you. It implies that you fulfill your duty to be part of the social order and government which God ordained. It implies your duty as part of that government to carry out the duties that God said government should be responsible for.
And when you look at what God said about government and what He told certain Kings and said about rulers, you find that goverment does have many responsibilities and is specifically charged with cause of the poor and needy.
God made us responsible both as individuals and as the government for the poor AND needy. Some try to claim that since God charged us with this individually that government has no role. But that is not the case, as a careful study of scripture indicates. He charged us both as individuals and as government.
Again, I don't deny that there are bureacrats and politicians who waste our resources, that some programs are counter productive to their goals, etc. We should work together to eliminate such abuses while not shirking the responsibilities that have been given to us.
The harm being done to society is not being done by these idiots as you lay it out. For your info God didn't interfere with Eve's decision anymore than He did with Adam's. He told you to shake the dust off your feet if they don't listen. Who is it that is entitled to interfere, pass judgement and sanction?
Here's the nature of the damge being caused.
"how much society would decay without some of those social programs? ...higher crime"
Theft is theft, whether it's done with a gun, or a vote.
"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.
BS! My efforts and trade were done under mutual agreement. All and everything involved in those transactions belong to us. The govm't never had any part of it. The govm'ts only justification for existance is to protect life and rights. The cash value is ours. It was never the govm'ts and nowhere in the Bible does it say it belonged to some govm't.
"The taxes were set up legitimately by law and voted into law by a legal process which we all signed up for."
No, we were born into the situation and nothing ever justifies theft. Including the power of a majority that votes to take it.
...or am I misreading something?
Yeah Lan, you misread me, my FRiend.
"You cannot take something that was ROTTEN at the core and ever come up with something good." By "you," do you mean, "me"?
- Of course not, Lan. I'm talking in the generic use of the word *you*.
By *you,* I mean *one*, or *we*.
"A cult with half the planet's population -- incidentally -- makes one ahellova an army."
- Actually, it's about 20 to 30 million.
(Based on estimation of of the Muslim Brotherhood, which adheres to 14th century Al Banna/ Wahabi teachings)
- Approximately 2-3 percent of muslims are believers in the violent parts of Muhammeds teachings, to convert infadels to Islam, or to kill them. Conversion by force. Unfortunately, the majority of muslims who don't really follow these teachings? Won't condemn it either.
"Now let's say you & I set out to get real Christians all riled up enough to war against the other half of the world's population, alright?
Might not we use images from American's porn industry to do so, while pointing out precisely what our Bible had to say on the subject?"
Ok, but I can point to where Christians are told by Jesus, to not condemn the sinner.
He stopped a mob of Jews from stoning a prostitute:
"He who is without sin, cast the first stone"
See? He didn't condemn her, He just told her to "Go, and sin no more."
I'm not asking you to believe what I believe here;but there are four differant accounts, by four differant witnesses of Jesus life. (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and in not one instance will you find him advocating violence against anyone. Not once. In fact, he stopped Peter, when he cut off the ear of a soldier with his knife. He even laid His hands on the soldiers ear, and healed it.
Yes the old Testament is full of documented violence, but you will not see it advocated by Jesus. Not the case with Muhammed or his words.
"Yea-yea, I read & see their deeds here all day long, my friend.
Such a Godly, compassionate bunch.
Witnessed some "devout" Muslims on 9-11, also.
So many Godly humans eveywhere one looks, y'know.
Yes, and Christians as a whole, condemn these deeds. Again, not the case with Islamics. There is hardly a peep, when a terrorist attack occurs.
- Sure, there are hypocrits. But I haven't seen Christians as a majority, or even as a minority, go to church, and as part of their religious duty go out and announce "war on the infidel". Are there exceptions? Sure.
The abortion clinic bombers come to mind.
Koresh's Branch Davidian cult, Jonestown cult. And how many do we have here? A handful, a couple hundred wackos.
-VS. 30 million devout Wahhabi wannabe's who do their act, in the name of Allah, and the majority of muslims don't say a word. In fact, they get rewarded with trips to Mecca.
Jesus condemned violence, Muhammed condoned it.
Christianity uses persuasion to convert, Islam uses coercion.
In fact, the "Prophet" Muhammed killed over 700 people himself. In one raid on a village, he ordered over 2000 women and children beheaded.
Sound familiar?
"Why do you suppose Khomenie called the United States "The Great Satan"?"
-Because *WE* (read the collective U.S.) believe in equality of all people.
We believe all men and women are created equal, and that we are endowed inalieble rights by our *creator*.
Muslims in fact, do not.
The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)
The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts. In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.
Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.
The "common folk" however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts.
Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit, are Free male Muslims.
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
Non-Muslims are never treated as equals.
(There is even a hierarchy for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will go to heaven, while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)
" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam; the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. - Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair:
So, Lan...Do you see why the Islamo-facsists REALLY hate us?
It's because we contradict their *order* of things...and *that* is a good thing.
This truly is a battle of "Us vs Them."
Source:"The Enemy Is not Just Al Qaeda" - By Robert Spencer
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13454
Source: Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/4462
Victims are innocent; Eve was not a victim; Michelle is not a victim.
A child is tricked and innocent, and a victim, becasue a child does not have the resources to avoid being tricked, and so God does not hold her responsible. A victim, by definition, does not deserve her fate.
But you just said Michelle is like Eve; when you are tricked, but responsible, you are NOT INNOCENT. God treats you differently than He does a child, because He apparently thinks you can be tricked yet still have the resources to avoid the trickery -- like Eve. Therefore, you are not a victim. Eve was not treated as innocent by God, neither are you and I in our sins. We agree.
So, biblically, you can be tricked and still responsible and you can be tricked and not responsible. You are seeing Michelle as a child, when by her own words she started the story leaving her home to pose naked for money. The very earliest thing we know about her is when she was intending to sin. We have no information behind that; I'm sure there was a stage in her life, just like mine and yours, when she was tricked but innocent -- but by the time we get to know her, she is passed that moral stage.
The entire liberal moral error can be summed up by reading this thread. The stubborn error of the liberal moral system is to treat adults like children; tricked, and therefore innocent.
But you and I agree she is NOT INNOCENT. The rest is just comparing our levels of pity for her, which is of little value for her. Of course I feel sorry for her, but that is not what she needs. She needs love.
What she needs is what you and I need: to repent and find God's grace. Which no-one ever does till they realize, though they may have been tricked at one point, they long since embraced their corruption and actively fought God in order to nourish it.
At this point in her life, pity will take Michelle straight to hell.
It is already unsafe.
That doesn't answer the question. Professional boxing is unsafe, yet you'd ban it only if it was shown that it *can't* be done safely. Now, would you care to answer the question?
I agree.
"Well so is oral sex, but you'd have to condemn most of America."
Not always. In the context of marital relations open to children, oral sex is NOT necessarily "disordered and unnatural".
God ordained no govm't whatsoever, people did. They did it by force of arms.
If you love the Freedom the founders and God gave you to enjoy, then you owe it to everyone else to allow them theirs. If you fail to do that you will lose that Freedom to the ones that wish to dominate your will, because those idiots you wanted to control will side with them. See the link in the last post.
" your duty"
My duty is to protect Freedom. It is the only7 condition worth fighting for and is the only condition fighting is justified to achieve. All other fights are for dominace of will and outright theft.
"as a careful study of scripture indicates."
Matt 10:24 "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. " There's the command. There is no other that stands above it and says conquer them and place over them a govm't for their own good. That sort of thing is the center of Islam, not Christianity.
Here is your question asked the right way:
And you support keeping it [porn] illegal until it is shown that it can be done safely?
Answer; Yes
Your other question implied it was safe and we needed to prove it unsafe. We already know it is unsafe.
I had a point. You accused me of misunderstanding Jesus and did so to judge me. Judging is much more clearly against Jesus' teaching than boycotting convenience stores.
Now, tell me what is dumb about not shopping at a store which supports a commerce with which I object. Mind you, I didn't say anything about organizing a boycott. I only said I don't shop there.
Shalom.
There is nothing wrong with having secular law, of course, but those who think it actually changes people in the sense that is important to God have yet to comprehend the Gospels.
I agree. And yet, should not legislators work towards a better society in the context of Natural Law?
How's that saying go . . "Allah akbar"? Yeah, that's it. I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading on FR.
Having sex with 12 men for $20, for $4000, for $1000000 --- makes no difference the total amount --- sex for money is prostitution. Would she have gone along with this life if the money wasn't waved in front of her face? Maybe --- there are women who do this for free.
Fortunately these people don't lose their ability to choose --- God gives us all free will --- and sent Jesus to show us salvation. He would tell her "go and sin no more".
Yet you'd keep unsafe professional boxing legal until it is shown that it *can't* be done safely. Thanks for finally owning up to your hypocrisy.
There is 'everything wrong' with having secular law that violates individual constitutional rights. The enforcement of prohibitional law harms 'society' far more that the sin it claims to prevent.
But how? An adult has certain choices to make, certain lifestyles they might wish to follow --- do we lock her up? Do police raid your home looking for porn you may or may not have? Does the government watch everything you buy to make sure you aren't contributing to this?
I don't think you can just make laws to save everyone who chooses to follow evil. Religion is supposed to show people the way --- but if they won't go --- if they wish to follow money and pleasure --- they've been warned --- just like all of us. And they still have time to find God if they would allow Him. Jesus didn't save everyone even when he walked on earth --- many chose to disregard him then and some chose to kill him.
You neglected to mention the chimeric War on Terrorism.
Also, all convicted murderers, rapists, pedophiles and draft dodgers would be executed.
I could go on, but lunch is waiting. Simple fare today, grilled cheese sandwich and soup.
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