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.
Human beings by nature have the power to choose good or evil. That power is called free will.
The proper object of the will is the good.
And is that choice not a 'right'?
We have a right to choose good. We have no right to choose evil. God does not will that we will evil.
The state may tolerate evils, but no one has a natural right to do evil.
-- Then why do you lobby for laws to deprive free men of a free will choice?
I don't lobby to take men's free will away, which is impossible. I lobby to punish those who choose evil in particular circumstances.
Isn't having a choice "the first principle of ethics"?
The human will is an aspect of human nature. It's not a principle. It's a given.
The first principle of ethics is to do good and avoid evil.
I've said this before several times, but I'll say it again as succinctly as possible.
The proper object of the human reproductive system is the procreation of children within marriage. It also serves to unite the married couple.
If you disagree, you'll have to propose a more reasonable proper object of the human reproductive system.
So I'm supposed to oppose the viewing of football because I oppose the viewing of pornography? Football is a form of recreation and is not intrinsically evil. Therefore watching it as recreation is not intrinsically evil. Pornography is intrinsically evil. See below.
My objection to the viewing of pornography is that it is a perversion of sexual desire. Sexual desire is properly ordered when it serves to unite a married couple and when it results in sexual union that is open to procreation.
This is merely a synonym for "moral relativism".
Aristotle defined prudence as "right reason applied to practice." "Its function is to point out which course of action is to be taken in any round of concrete circumstances."
PrudenceOne of the four cardinal virtues. Definitions of it are plentiful from Aristotle down. His "recta ratio agibilium" has the merits of brevity and inclusiveness. Father Rickaby aptly renders it as "right reason applied to practice". A fuller description and one more serviceable is this: an intellectual habit enabling us to see in any given juncture of human affairs what is virtuous and what is not, and how to come at the one and avoid the other. It is to be observed that prudence, whilst possessing in some sort an empire over all the moral virtues, itself aims to perfect not the will but the intellect in its practical decisions. Its function is to point out which course of action is to be taken in any round of concrete circumstances. It indicates which, here and now, is the golden mean wherein the essence of all virtue lies. It has nothing to do with directly willing the good it discerns. That is done by the particular moral virtue within whose province it falls. Prudence, therefore, has a directive capacity with regard to the other virtues. It lights the way and measures the arena for their exercise. The insight it confers makes one distinguish successfully between their mere semblance and their reality. It must preside over the eliciting of all acts proper to any one of them at least if they be taken in their formal sense. Thus, without prudence bravery becomes foolhardiness; mercy sinks into weakness, and temperance into fanaticism. But it must not be forgotten that prudence is a virtue adequately distinct from the others, and not simply a condition attendant upon their operation. Its office is to determine for each in practice those circumstances of time, place, manner, etc. which should be observed, and which the Scholastics comprise under the term medium rationis. So it is that whilst it qualifies immediately the intellect and not the will, it is nevertheless rightly styled a moral virtue.
Would blocking access to pornography cripple their society?
Why?
Define freedom.
Yes. It's usually not an intellectual problem, but a spiritual problem. It's called rationalization. The intellect isn't being used properly to serve the truth, but to justify a personal vice.
Is it evil to lie?
Wouldn't be prudent.
Fight or go underground.
And why are pictures of people having sex intrinsically evil?
See #770
True, but that refers to faith in God, not Jesus, His divine/human nature or the Trinity. That's why blasphemy could be punishable under a regime based on the natural law but not heresy.
Did nature intend for the man and woman who engage in intercourse to raise the children produced? If not, who?
Some have found that it also provides a bit of pleasure in the process.
Why did nature include pleasure in the design of the human reproductive system?
Thus, they choose to enjoy that pleasure from time to time, without wishing to procreate every time.
Is this a proper use of the will? It can be if the couple isn't using artificial means of birth control, which is analogous to gorging and vomiting.
They're called liars.
"Pornography is evil first because the actors who engage in it are engaging in prostitution"
What if the people in the tapes are married and handle all sells themselves?
Also, who is to say that prostitution is evil?
1) The purpose of the State is to promote the common good (see the Preamble to the US Constitution). Therefore, the State can prohibit evils.
2) Pornography is evil, for the reasons mentioned in #770.
3) The State is within its rights in punishing the use and distribution of pornography.
To contradict this argument, you will have to explain why pornography is not evil. I explained why it is evil in #770. You have not offered another definition of the proper object of the human reproduction system. I suspect this is because you don't have one.
We observe in nature that design is the result of the application of intellect or mind. We observe design in nature, therefore we conclude that nature has a Designer.
God gave us free choice. To do good and avoid evil. The first principle of ethics.
Aquinasfan, you mischaracaturize your opponents as libertines.
How would you characterize people who claim a right to engage in vices such as fornication and pornography?
You believe God gave us free choice to do good and to avoid sin. -- I'd say these people might have made a poor choice, in your eye.
Do you disagree that they have that choice? And is that choice not a 'right'?
-- Then why do you lobby for laws to deprive free men of a free will choice?
Isn't having a choice "the first principle of ethics"?
Human beings by nature have the power to choose good or evil. That power is called free will. The proper object of the will is the good. We have a right to choose good.
We have no right to choose evil.
Specious. If we have no right to choose 'sin', there is no choice.
God does not will that we will evil.
Non-sense words. You've ran out of rational retorts.
The state may tolerate evils, but no one has a natural right to do evil.
-- And 'evil' is defined by our criminal & constitutional rule of law. Why then do you lobby for laws to deprive free men of a free will choice to sin?
I don't lobby to take men's free will away, which is impossible. I lobby to punish those who choose evil in particular circumstances.
Yep, as I said, you lobby to punish/deprive men of the ability to choose. -- And you are quite specious in your attempts to do so.
Isn't having a choice "the first principle of ethics"?
The human will is an aspect of human nature. It's not a principle. It's a given. The first principle of ethics is to do good and avoid evil.
So you say, but do not honor yourself when you admit you want to "punish those who choose evil in particular circumstances", -- when those circumstances do not involve violations of our criminal/constitutional law.
I don't know if it's evil in principle. It might be OK if the couple destroyed the tape immediately. The problem is that the tape could easily be lost or stolen, or fall into a child's hands. It seems to me that this would fall under the category of wrecklessness, and would be a violation of the sixth commandment.
Also, who is to say that prostitution is evil?
Nature and nature's God. Intercourse is designed by nature to occur within matrimony for procreation and the unity of the couple. If you discern another purpose, what is it?
So, if I have sex with my husband and do not get pregnant that act was sinful?
Why would you think that?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.