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.
The majority can be quite tyrannical. That's why we put a specific protection for guns in the US constitution. We didn't put a protection for porn in the US constitution. Freedom of speech doesn't protect porn. The courts have shifted the line, but the line still exists and should exist as evidenced by Child Pornography laws.
"Yep, reasonable regulations are just fine. Everyone can agree on that. But prohibitions?"
My reasonable regulation is your prohibition. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two. Again I'll mention Child Pornography to illustrate that prohibition is necessary. All we are arguing about is where to draw the line.
I would not claim that a lie in that case is evil. " But you still claim such an effort to prevent an evil act is a 'lie'? - Is there an intent to defraud involved? Are you obligated to cooperate with an evil government act?
By definition it's a lie. "1 A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood. 2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression."
God commanded us "Not to bear false witness", but He also commanded us to "Love our neighbors". It's extremely rare that the two commandments will conflict, but in this senario, they clearly do. And love for others dictates the actions.
You are not obligated to cooperate with an evil government act. But you better be sure that the act is evil and not just against your preferences. Again, I'll refer to the Declaration of Independance. The colonists patiently put up with and sought redress for numerous evil acts from King George, before declaring an obligation to overthrow the King as an unfit ruler. They didn't undertake the revolution lightly.
Of course the danger in saying that "love for others" trumps "Not to bear false witness" in this unusual case, is that people can rationalize almost anything.
That's why it's important to understand what love really is and what it is not. It's also important to pray so that God can reveal to you false motives and alternative courses of action. It's why God tells us "Proverbs 3:5 - Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." Often, we can't see the big picture. He often asks us to do things that don't seem to make sense until hindsight.
But it does make them as old as human history. And why do you include the world's second oldest profession in that list?
However, the nature and prevalence of porn has certainly changed over the years, particularly since 1960.
Nature? No. Prevalence.? Yes.
Prior to that most porn was either written word or hand drawn illustrations.
You're off by over a hundred years and you left out a wide variety of "art". For the record, cameras were in widespread use in the 1850's, zoopraxiscopes go back to the 1860's, modern films date back to the 1890's.
The following link describes the search by a doctoral student for porn in colonial America. It is instructive on what was available.
So, everything you might want was available, assuming you could afford to buy it, commission it, or steal it. Just like today.
Using that same structure to evaluate prohibitions on porn.
There may be cases where a couple is helped by instructional materials that the more prudish of us might call porn.
But if you go back to Post 449 and read my description of why most porn should be considered evil, I think you will find that building a case where "love for others" would allow any of the porn addressed by post 449 is a pretty difficult case to build.
No, today, spammers routinely send out emails advertising girls with barnyard animals. There is no comparison. My guess is that you would have really had to go looking for it in colonial America. That the average person who didn't go looking for it, would never run into it. But today, you can't avoid it. You can't turn on the TV, open your email, or drive down the street without being bombarded with pornographic images. OK, maybe you can drive down the street in many areas. But it's still has reached a prevalence that I think is harmful to society.
Of course, I realize that you think homosexuals dying of aids, simply deserve a darwin award and move on. Or that the overly promiscuous living their lives with other STD's simply is nature at work. But I think that true love demands that we try to shape society to some extent so that people use their gifts of sexuality the way God intended instead of in harmful ways.
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. - H.L. Mencken
LOL
Wouldn't it be respectful to the Buddist's religion to relieve him of all of his earthly possessions?
Majority rules? Whatever the majority defines as 'evil' we can prohibit? Does that principle also apply to guns, Dan?"
The majority can be quite tyrannical. That's why we put a specific protection for guns in the US constitution.
For shame. Unenumerated rights are specified in the 9th.
We didn't put a protection for porn in the US constitution. Freedom of speech doesn't protect porn.
Of course it does. You know better, but you're begging the question anyway.
The courts have shifted the line, but the line still exists and should exist as evidenced by Child Pornography laws.
There are identifiable victims in child porn, as you well know. It's a criminal act.
Yep, reasonable regulations are just fine. Everyone can agree on that. But prohibitions?
My reasonable regulation is your prohibition. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two.
Specious. You prevaricate as though you've had much practice. Congrats.
Again I'll mention Child Pornography to illustrate that prohibition is necessary. All we are arguing about is where to draw the line.
The line has been constitutionally drawn for over two hundred years. Time for you to stop attempting to straddle it, imo, as you do next:
I would not claim that a lie in that case is evil.
But you still claim such an effort to prevent an evil act is a 'lie'? - Is there an intent to defraud involved? Are you obligated to cooperate with an evil government act?
By definition it's a lie. "1 A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood. 2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression."
How sad that you see a statement made to frustrate an evil act [sequestering jews] as an immoral 'lie'. You really have no shame.
God commanded us "Not to bear false witness", but He also commanded us to "Love our neighbors". It's extremely rare that the two commandments will conflict, but in this senario, they clearly do. And love for others dictates the actions.
You really do believe jew hunting nazi's deserve 'true witness'? Good grief.
You are not obligated to cooperate with an evil government act.
But you better be sure that the act is evil and not just against your preferences.
I'm sure, - hunting jews is an evil act. You aren't?
Again, I'll refer to the Declaration of Independance. The colonists patiently put up with and sought redress for numerous evil acts from King George, before declaring an obligation to overthrow the King as an unfit ruler. They didn't undertake the revolution lightly.
You belabor the point. No sane man undertakes revolution lightly.
It's a lie by definition, but it's hardly immoral when told to save the life of an innocent Jew. The problem here is that YOU have a very legalistic view and think that a lie in all cases is immoral.
"You really do believe jew hunting nazi's deserve 'true witness'? Good grief."
I thought my comments were very clear that I wouldn't find a lie in that situation to be evil. God's law to not bear false witness deserves respect and obedience except in the very rare instance when the greater law of "love your neighbor" supercedes it. This is that rare situation.
"I'm sure, - hunting jews is an evil act. You aren't?"
Of course I am sure hunting Jews is an evil act. My qualification was to prevent people from taking my comments as meaning that any of God's laws can be easily disobeyed. The rare case of evil Nazi's hunting Jews is one such case where it should be clear to everyone that LOVE demands you protect the innocent Jew and deception in that case is acceptable and not immoral.
You sought to trap me with your question. Your trap failed, because I am aware of God's greater law of Love Your Neighbor.
I apologize for being so late to the discussion;
I see a couple of things missing from this girls life. The primary factor is poor parenting, secondary is probably the mother or fathers decision not to educate the child to the truth of the world beyond their front door, which is more poor parenting. Thirdly is God .
Atheists and agnostistics seem to get along fine in this world. How they do afterwards we don't know. Believers are exactly the same, fine in this world and we don't know what's beyond. Hopefully it is as the Bible says.
Now if the mother or father had taken the time to sit down with this girl who evidently is attractive and explained the FACTS OF LIFE about money, money and sex, sex and your well being, I doubt that she would have ended up in the mess she is in.
One or both parents should have explained to her that if you walk around with your breasts hanging out or finely detailed with tight clothing that the males are going to be attracted to you. The same goes for your buttocks and vaginal area.
This isn't something that has just occured in the past few decades, this has been since the creation of man. If we weren't sexually attracted to the opposite sex, man wouldn't still be on this earth.
So, while this child was growing up she noticed that males were attracted to her. That was certainly a key factor in her decision to go to LA and to look for work as a nude photograph model. If men were looking at her in Utah maybe she could get paid to show some more skin.
Where were the parents just prior to this decision? Didn't they see the lifestyle she was heading for as a teenager? I will bet both of my legs that the teenager was wearing the 'wrong' clothing'.
Young girls who are well endowed wear two types of clothing, tight which says to the male, look at these first or loose which says look at my face first. The same goes for pants and skirts. A pleated skirt doesn't give any indication as to whether she has a flabby butt or a shapely one.
Whose fault is it that she chose the porn industry? Her parents must take the primary weight for that decision. Not ensuring the child had more self respect than to become a whore actress and not ensuring the ignorant child didn't understand the dangers in the porn industry is the parents fault.
Too many parents are terrified of sitting down with their kids and using common terms to describe sexual acts and body parts. They are ignorant of the fact that young girls call their own buttocks, "my ass". It is much easier to think my child doesn't swear or use dirty words. I have heard more young girls say "fu*k" than you could imagine.
I am the father of two daughters and their friends use the word more often than they say "please." Sure I've heard my girls say it once in a while but a long time ago when they were about 11 and 12 I sat them down and gave them the story about the FACTS OF LIFE.
Being raised on a ranch they has seen a bulls with an erection, cattle breeding, dogs and rabbits with erections, calf, dog and rabbit births, etc.
One Friday after dinner I told them they could say any word they knew to ask me a question if they didn't know the 'nice' word for it and I wouldn't get embarrassed, angry or punish them.
We discussed menustration, diseases, anal sex, oral sex, beastly sex, rape, fondling, teasing, and every position you can think of for vaginal sex.
Then that weekend I took them into town to show them the hookers working the streets and what can happen if you become a drug addict. That scared the crap out of them to actually see a woman would get into a strangers car for money.
I told them that God gave them a brain and they could use it to make the right decision or the wrong one. Want to become a drug addicted hooker or would you prefer to be a lady like your mother and Aunts were? It's your choice Darling.
I'll do everything I can to help you make the right decision and if you make the wrong decision you had better expect the Devil in me to rip you a new one.
About three or four years later my older daughter came into my small tack shop where I was repairing a saddle and told me she had been invited to a party that weekend at one of her school friends homes. I asked if she was going to go? She said no, because she found out it was going to be a sex party. The parents were leaving town for the weekend and their twin daughters had invited eight or nine friends to swap partners all weekend. To say the least I was shocked to hear that 15 year old girls were doing such things and I was damn proud of my daughter #1 for not going and #2 for being able to tell me the truth about the party.
Whenever my girls went out to a party I always called them about 30 minutes after they got there. I'd say, How's things going?" Once in a while they would start complaining, "Aw Dad, I just got here, do I really have to come home? We're just starting to have some fun! Okay, I'll meet you out in front at the driveway." That was their way of saying, "Dad get over here and get me out of this mess!"
I never asked what was going on at the party, I didn't figure it was any of my business what other peoples teenagers did. My daughter had given me our code for "I need your help right now" and I came to help her not, investigate the other kids.
So, my suggestion is to do something such as we did and then you won't have ignorant sons and daughters as to what really happens on the other side of town.
If people are attracted to porn, fine that's their business. I don't support it but I am not going to say they can't be greedy and have no respect for themselves. That decision is theirs and theirs alone.
If I was to have a discusion about sex with a neighbors child and they told mom or pop, I would either get shot or arrested. How other people raise their kids is their decision, not mine or yours.
First, I'd like to thank you for being a responsible parent. Secondly, it has to be repeated that education about sexuality is the best way to prevent dangerous sexual activity by young people. Ignorance helps no one - my guess is that most of the patrons of the sex party were neved talked to by their parents about sex and are so experimenting in such a unfortunate manner.
I don't know about that. Too many kids I saw as my daughters were growing up seemed to believe that "it's fun and I want to do it, so I'm going to do it".
Their parents didn't explain to them that there's chores around the property and in the house that need to be done and you are expected to help. I heard parents saying that it was more trouble to get one of the kids to cut the lawn than to do it themselves.
I guess I was a mean parent because if you didn't do what mom and pop expected then your life wasn't going to have much pleasure in it at all. Be rude to your mom and I'd knock you across the room cussing to my self that the door wasn't open. I could always find work for them when it was raining and the wind was blowing----just to remind them about being polite and offering to help instead of waiting to be asked. (told)
I know for a fact that my method of discipline worked because the girls are constantly wanting to take their retired old Mommy out for lunch or shopping at a new store just to be together. They are each others best friends, all three of them.
I suffer when they gang up on me. "We want to go to the movies with Mom and you're whining about having to fix your own dinner. Come on Dad, give her a break, stop crying out loud. Hey old man, just go down to the restaurant if you're too lazy to barbecue yourself a steak. You can flirt with that new girl. See you later, Pop" and out the door they go, giggling like six year olds." I should probably report them to the DA for picking on Seniors.
I get the gentle reminder (LOL- actually it's more of a detailed threat) a month ahead of time exactly what I am supposed to do for our anniversary or Christmas.
So if another person's child runs into traffic, it's the parent's fault. It's not your place to issue a warning to them. Very compassionate.
It disturbs me that when you decided to reply, this was the first image to cross your mind
It should probably disturb you as well.
as far as your logic, you are way off. When Clinton decided to have a sexual relationship with Monica, it didn't just affect him. It ended up affecting the whole nation.
Why are you still so far OFF the subject? If a President picks his nose and it is captured on film then it is NEWS. If a married PRESIDENT cheats on his wife with a 21 or 91 year old woman it is NEWS.
Get back to the subject at hand! If you are unable to do that, you are probably engaged in self satisfaction or drunk. Since it was early in the morning when you replied, I didn't assume you were drunk.
If you are not mentally able to understand the thread subject why do you reply?
I hate to disagree with you but my two adult daughters are fine young women who are self supporting, law abiding, self respecting fine members of this community.
The whore that this thread is about I am thankful not only that I don't know her but that she doesn't live anywhere close to me because I would be tempted to call her a whore to her face.
Her mother is a piece of trash also for allowing her daughter to even think that the porn industry is a fine way for a young woman to earn a living.
If you are not mentally able to understand the thread subject, please do not reply?
Did you mean to post that as a question, porn boy? If so, it is not and you are too stupid to correct people for their mental ability. If not, you are too stupid to use a keyboard.
In any event, you are too stupid to be here. Call the short bus to take you elsewhere. Wear your helmet like a good boy, Willie.
Still can't find the thread subject? Sad, you are.
Hey, brother. I'm just speaking truth.
Well, you need to make up your mind. Calling me "porn boy" and "brother" would mean that you and I like that crap.
Sorry, but I have an attractive wife and video porn doesn't interest me, so you stay with it and view enough for both of us. Okay?
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