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.
Perhaps you should go back and read #424 and better yet, the post I was responding to which started this whole conversation.
It appears you have some issues.
Believe it or not, I was really hoping that was the case.
>A cult with half the planet's population -- incidentally -- makes one ahellova an army.
"Actually, it's about 20 to 30 million."
Oh, well, now I feel relieved.
A mere 20-30 million, huh.
Very managable.
Thanks. ;^)
"- 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."
Well it's not as if there're no comparisons with Christianity, right?
How many babies does this nation murder & of that number how many of the participants would admit they regularily attend a church whose teachings condemn abortion, outright?
Craziness is a human condition so tread lightly, is all I'm saying.
>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.'"
All truly great stuff if adhered to by the letter of the Bible, I wouldn't argue the point.
But is that what actually happens, is that reality, my friend?
Did you read what the Holy Father of the Roman Catholic Church had to say about America?
HERE, read him for yourself.
I happen to think this pope John Paul's an extremely wise old man FBD, believe he's spot-on; &, when the subject's pornography?
It makes what he has to say a virtual slam-dunk, in my book.
"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."
And I'm -- more than -- concerned you'd think I said, otherwise.
The teachings of Jesus are more & more often not the behaviors of those who claim to follow his teachings.
My god man, one can see evidence of this everywhere one looks.
Does that mean Jesus is "worse" the the teachings of Mohammed, no.
I'm not even remotely trying to compare the two, either.
>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."
That's not only baloney, it's naive.
"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'."
Not yet, anyway.
But wait, there's still plenty of time; and, in the end the Christian world might find they have no choice but to go to war against the Islamic world.
It might just come down to a matter of survival, & if I'm right?
I simply can't wait to hear what'll be used to justify the required behavior(s), that'll be lifeted right out of the Bible, verbatim.
Just you watch & see.
"Are there exceptions? Sure. The abortion clinic bombers come to mind. Koresh's Branch Davidian cult..."
Y'know, that's a sensitive one for me.
I never was convinced Koresh was anything *but* a zealot -- & one whose lifestyle & that of his followers was *guarenteed* by our constitution, BTW -- who found himself in the most unenviable position of having to go against the most wicked, evil forces ever imaginable, consequently, he became made an "example."
No more, no less.
>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."
Well that'd certainly wrap it all up in a neat, tight, tidy little package, wouldn't it.
"We believe all men and women are created equal, and that we are endowed inalieble rights by our *creator*."
Except ( fill in the blank ) which is a bit like playing a hand of Fisbin, isn't it.
"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.)"
*Excellent*, you've really done your homework & I thank you for the time you've taken explaining everything in explicit detail.
Tell me, know anything about the ancient Spartans?
"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."
We are *different* than them. >doink!<
Remember the lyric, "How is it one thought live, provide the others die."?
That's precisely -- & simply -- what we're talking about, here.
"This truly is a battle of 'Us vs Them.'"
That it is.
"Down & out.
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about."
~sigh~
...have a wonderful, relaxing & safe holiday my friend.
The accusatory tone she took while denouncing Rupert Murdoch was priceless!
( Sawyer: in ominous undertones)
And even , right-wing Aussies have bought into the massive flesh industry...
Murdoch is a capitalist, first and foremost. I hate to clue Dianna in on this, but those tabloids with lots of topless models plastered across their pages, (ahem. Page 3), are owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch.
And I loved the way she pounced on the tenuous connection between the production and distribution ends of this market; as if Brit Hume were shooting Taboo Part 14 on the FoxNews parking lot.
Give Dianne Sawyer a break!
That's all I have to say!
In the real world, a government with the power to criminalize porn as "intrinsicly evil" also has to power to punish "criticism of homosexuality" or "racially offiensive speech" or "general politically-incorrect attitudes" as being "intrinsicly evil".
Be careful what powers you choose to give government, particularly at a time when those who oppose your value system are the ones with the political power
shutup.
you are making sense.
Ain't much jelly in his PBJ.
KP you're cute.
Maybe....
First recognize that God designed sex. He designed man to find women attractive, He designed women to be drop dead georgeous. He designed both the man and the woman to be sexually aroused and He designed them to find great pleasure in that. In God's plan, that attractiveness leads to marriage and the formation of families and sex becomes a wonderful intimate act between the married couple. That act, in my opinion, builds and strenthens the marriage relationship. And the relationship makes the act that much more wonderful. So see that there is nothing inherently evil in sexual desire or finding pleasure in being aroused.
Where it becomes wrong, is when it deviates from God's plan. The Bible clearly condemns adultery, fornication, homosexuality and beastiality. And I can provide references for those if you need them. So to the extent that porn increases the desire for any of those, then it's bad. And just the desire in your heart for any of those is clearly a sin as Jesus pointed out in the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5:28 - But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
I don't think the above forbids lusting being attracted to or desiring a woman with a mind towards being married to her. But clearly Porn for a married man would be a problem.
There are also verses that deal with coveteousness. One of the commandments is not to covet your neighbor's wife. With porn, it might be hard to know who's married and who's not, but my guess is this hits a lot of porn directly.
Romans 1:26-31 hits not only a variety of sexual perversions but also condemns those who take pleasure in those who do them.
Romans 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
In addition to this, if you are paying for porn, then you are supporting financially not only the outcomes that this article reported but the harms I listed in post 262.
So is lusting after porn a sin? In most cases, Porn is of the nature, that I'd have to say definitely. I'm not sure if there are any cases where it's not.
Does that make you a bad person? Well, relative to other people, maybe not. But it doesn't matter relative to other people. It only matters relative to God who is perfect and who knows no sin.
Relative to God, yes, you are a bad person. So am I. So is every human who ever walked the face of the earth, except Jesus. Which is why we all need Jesus to be our Savior.
Should you give it up. Yes. Ultimately, it's a poor substitute for what God had in mind. And you would be a happier and better person if you gave it up.
That's my opinion. If I missed anything, I'm sure someone will let me know.
Some of these clowns are even claiming they've seen their ~opponents~ riding with them on the short bus.
Libertarian hymn
On porn the solid rock I stand
All other speech is sinking sand
Why, oh why, are there so many people who want to outlaw fun?
And what part of "Not everyone is a member of YOUR religion, and not everybody lives like YOU" do they not understand?
Also, why do they not understand that the concept of personal Liberty carries with it the fact that SOME will not live according to another's beliefs?
Religious fanatics of every stripe seem to have serious issues with both sex AND women.
Both the extreme Right and extreme Left have little tolerance for individual Liberty which does not turn out to their preference. Both would happily use the hammer of government to beat everyone into their own preferred shape.
This is especially the case here since this is basically a repeat of an "expose" they played last year.
Now your home page is pretty good.
thanks...adding new stuff every now and again. This time I tried to be more open to those in the *ahem* alternative lifestyle :)
Well understand that I'm defending taxes in the context of those who call all taxes theft.
sAppy's communitarian mantra
Rock solid we stand
Porn is banned by command
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