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.
"60 Minutes" changed all that... for the worse
Did you not read the scriptures I posted in 343. It says pay them. It says they are due.
I think that's what it basically comes down to for a lot of the posters on this thread
Ain't much sense in his sense of justice, either.
It's hilarious to watch those who tie themselves in knots over something as simple as sex go crazy now and then.
A lot of people are 18 when they go into the military, too. That's a much more dangerous profession.
Care to tell adults that there are other jobs they're too young to take, mom? How about coal mining, or underwater contstruction, taxi driving etc.? I guess we should leave it up to you to decide when adults can take certain jobs.
News Corp was not only mentioned, it was ALWAYS the first company mentioned, and the fact that they owned FOX NEWS was also mentioned every time they brough up the companies.
Clearly some political motivations for at least part of this story.
Porn is generally a nasty business, always was and always will be. I know people don't want to hear it, but I don't see it getting any better for the girls who wind up in porn until laws force the issue.
Until then they will be by and large nothing but meat for the lions, and tossed aside without a care or a word.
I'm not, although it has been referenced to me in prior discussions of this nature. I'm concerned with
For all I know Bastiat was some French shirker who advocated government shirking it's responsibility so that Bestiat could in turn shirk his responsibility to pay taxes. And if so, whether he was a shirker out of cowardice, no sense of duty, envy of America, or because he was on the bankroll of some 17th century equivalent of oil vauchers doesn't really matter.
Actually, I just read a quick summary of Bestiat. Certainly I would agree that government itself is a threat to libery. And that the law must be kept within bounds. Balance is always called for.
But I maintain that insufficient consideration of the poor and needy is more likely to cost us control of this country than is overconsideration. Overconsideration costs us a measure of wealth. But underconsideration will incur the wrath of God and that is ultimately more costly.
I think the programs that we have need to be improved. They need to be adequately and appropiately measured and managed and those measurements need to be independent or at least independently audited, not by the people most interested in continuing and enlarging the government program. I think alternatives need to be continually weighed and tested as appropriate. And the cost relative to the benefit of the program should always be reviewed.
I think that as the rate of change in the economy occurs ever faster, resulting in more frequent and more severe economic dislocations, that government sponsored safetly nets, intervention and programs are absolutely critical. I believe that such intervention helps the enconomy more than it costs, encourages risk taking and minimizes economic downturns.
I agree that our laws are too complex and too many. And need to be simplified, and that complexity encourages law breaking.
Only insofar as it protects the life and rights of others from infringement.
Roman's 13 was written by Paul and no human is the higher power mentioned by Paul. The higher power God said move on. The powers that be were ordained by God by virtue of creation, they were not created to replace Him. If you wish to represent Him, do as He asked, move on if they don't listen, and give to the poor in His name for His glory, not for the glory of men that use it for purposes of gaining and maintaining their own power.
Joanh was afraid to go as asked, because he figured they'd kill him. Note he was never told to do anything more than speak. Nineva repented at his word, not by the power of coercion he wielded.
I did. I was born here too. But I also pledged allegiance to the country. And that means supporting it's laws and striving to work within her and for her to help make it the best country possible. That means paying taxes. It means being vocal about which programs make sense and which ones don't. It means voting for men of character who will do what is right in office and not just what is popular or politically expedient.
Legislators must work towards a Freer society so as to allow man to exist in the state of Freedom closest to the state God created us.
An interesting theory. Then should laws against rape and murder be repealed? Out of curiosity, is the above your creation, or is it part of a creed or philosophy that you adhere to and can identify?
Oral sex is no more open to children than anal sodomy, so how is the latter but not the former necessarily disordered and unnatural?
If the oral sex is part of the foreplay of normal marital sex it most certainly IS open to children. See http://www.marysremnant.org/News/Archives/MaritalSexuality.html for a more detailed discussion of the topic.
And in my first post on this thread, I laid out the case that there were a lot of innocents harmed by the Porn industry. There rights should be protected.
"no human is the higher power mentioned by Paul."
Who else do we pay tribute and customs and duties to? It is clear that Paul is talking about governemnt and earthly authorities.
"The powers that be were ordained by God by virtue of creation, they were not created to replace Him."
Calling for government to do the things that God himself has said that government should do, is not calling for government to replace Him.
If you wish to represent Him, do as He asked, move on if they don't listen, and give to the poor in His name for His glory, not for the glory of men that use it for purposes of gaining and maintaining their own power.
He did ask us to give individually to the poor in His name for His glory, but he also commanded kings and rulers to give to the poor. To the extent that we the people are the rulers of America we should do both, not for the glory or power of individual men, but because He said to.
Jonah was afraid to go as asked, because he figured they'd kill him."
The Bible never says Jonah was afraid for his life. It simply says he fled. But Chapter 4 is very clear that Jonah was angry because the people of Ninevah repented and God had mercy on them. And that's the context of the New Testament verses that say "do not judge".
There are people who would love for Christians to be silent who continually throw that "do not judge" verse in our face. But in the context of scripture as a whole, it cannot mean to forsake all judgement and discernment. For we are told to many times to warn others. It can only mean the kind of judging that Jonah did in Jonah chapter 4.
"... if your starting point is a limited government restricted to the protection of life,liberty, and property"
But is that the only purpose of government? JUST the "protection of life,liberty, and property"?
"All free governments are instituted for the protection, safety, and happiness of the people. All laws, therefore, should be made for the good of the whole."
See http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/gen_assembly/RiConstitution/C01.htm
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
See http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html
So which one abused her, the Air Force captain or the Mormon bishop?
Very true. Now imagine the conditions if porn were illegal.
Actually in rereading it, Jonah actually explains to God that his desire Ninevah not repent was the reason that Jonah fled. Jonah is so mad that Ninevah has avoided God's wrath that he asks God to take his own life. That's clearly not love. THAT is sitting in judgement on people.
Jonah 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
That's hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,
false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity,
truth, compassion, and faith.
This same fight is going on inside of you -
and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then
asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
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When someone can prove to me that porn teaches men and women to treat each other with greater respect and makes the world a better place, then I'll support it.
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