I’ve been shooting straight porn for more than a year after having been an exclusively girl/girl director for several years, and I have stories to tell. Observations to share. I have insights. Anecdotes. And you, my curious porn viewers, apparently have a few questions for me.
First, a little back story: I created Sweet Sinner Films because I had a hunch that straight porn fans might appreciate the same things that had set apart Sweetheart Video from typical girl/girl films: Real passion, real sex, real orgasms. Storylines. A bit of emotion to enhance, not detract, from scorching hot, realistic sex scenes. I’ve always found that jerking off to dumb, fake-looking porn is an empty experience, so I sought to create girl/girl films I’d want to jerk off to myself. Why wouldn’t fans of straight porn want the same things I did? I took a bet that they would.
The only problem was I didn’t know what I was doing, exactly. Although I’m bisexual in my real life, my porn of choice has always been strictly girl/girl. So when I showed up that fine morning to direct my first penis, all I really had to go on was how I make love to men in real life. Read the rest of this entry »
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There are certain porn “milestones” that cause one to take a moment to reflect upon. My first scene with Stephanie Swift was one. My scene with Nina Hartley was another. And now, my intense scene with the one and only Ginger Lynn has gained status as one of the most memorable and auspicious of all.
I met Ginger for the first time at Playboy Radio more than a year ago, when I was a guest on “Nightcalls.” She let me suck on her nipples and give her a spanking On Air — tasks I considered myself unworthy of performing, but which I hoped to carry out with some degree of competence. I found Ginger to be wild and adorable in equal doses, and I wanted to find some way to work with her again. In fact, when an interviewer at that year’s AVN show asked what my biggest wish was, I responded, “to cast Ginger Lynn.”
So when my good friend Powder called me a few months back and asked if I would be a guest on Ginger’s RudeTV show “Dirty Divas” I immediately accepted. I dolled myself up in a taffeta mini dress and stripper heels, piled on the sparkly eye shadow, and headed for Porn Valley.
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It’s hard to fathom all that’s happened in the past year. It went so quickly, yet 2007 now seems a lifetime ago. Needless to say, I had a lot to be thankful for this past Turkey day; 2008 was simply one of the greatest years of my life.
Most notably, it was the year Sweetheart Video was born. Our first release was in April 2008, and we quickly rose to the top of the food chain (our only real competition being, ironically, my former studio.) We’re up for several AVN awards this year, including Best New Line (i.e., Best New Studio), Best All Girl Release and Best All Girl Scene. We hit the ground running, and almost immediately began to forge new territory and introduce new concepts. My amazing partner/boss Jon Blitt has supported me in each and every one of my ideas (even when his first reaction is “Wha…? Are you kidding me?”). There has been not one moment where I’ve felt less than intense gratitude for Jon and what we’ve built together in this short period of time. His belief in my talent has changed my career and my life in ways I can’t even begin to explain.
On a personal note, I grew tremendously due to all of the changes I had to sort through when this year began. I got to know myself through my own eyes, after having been in a bad relationship for a long time; one where I could only see myself through the critical, unkind gaze of another. This year, my relationships were the antidote to all that. I experienced dizzying, intoxicating love affairs with some of the most beautiful, electrifying people in the industry – if not the entire world. Life opened up to me, and I learned what love, friendship, and compassion are truly about. Anais Nin famously said there are only two types of freedoms in this world: the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of monks and artists to whom possessions do not matter. I’ve been lucky enough, this past year, to experience a life of freedom in all the ways that count.
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Before I became an adult actress and director, I often wondered why it seemed that industry folk dated only each other. Wasn’t it a bit much, I wondered, for two sexually over the top types to pair up? Didn’t they spontaneously combust? Wasn’t someone required to be the “anchor,” in the relationship, the one with a foot firmly grounded in the “real world?”
In other words, I had no idea what I was talking about, or how to even begin thinking about it.
Since becoming an adult actress, I’ve had several relationships of varying length with “civilians.” Unfortunately, almost all the civilian men I’ve dated became so immediately and intensely besotted with me (or was it with my career?) that I couldn’t begin to seriously consider them. Likewise, the civilian women I’ve been involved with have been – you guessed it – disproportionately threatened by the female porn stars I have sex with “at work.”
This problem crystallized for me one day, when my fellow porn star Jewels commented on my then boyfriend. He sat at my feet as if I held the very secrets of the universe, and she was a little concerned for his mental well being.
“Nica, what the fuck did you do to this guy?” she asked. “Did you give him the ‘porn star tour’?”
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People assume there are a lot of pitfalls in the adult industry, particularly in porn, and I’m here to tell you that indeed there are. Well come on now, of course there are. Any environment that offers a disproportionately large helping of excitement, sex (and other miscellaneous forms of indulgence) carries a risk of leading one down a dark path. One that leads to a place where too much sex is never enough, and where the surfeit, rather than making us full, creates a feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness.
But there are other cautions, too. An obsession with youth, beauty, and bodily perfection, perhaps understandably, permeates the adult industry. Even with the MILF craze there is a distinct understanding (often spoken and easily observed) that it’s the 18-25 sect who are considered “in their prime” as sexual performers; as “hot girls.” Male performers may have a bit longer shelf life, but surprisingly, not much longer. Once a guy gets into his 30s he’s no longer considered the hot young stud, especially if he’s been working for a while. He’ll enjoy “tweener” status for just a brief time before the sudden acceleration into “Daddy, Stop Fucking My Friends!” territory.
Due to this paradigm, many adult performers demean themselves by trying to hold onto their “youth” long after they should — or can. Adult industry conventions are teeming with “women of a certain age” dressed in belly shirts, mini skirts, and stripper heels. Women who look 17 years old from behind and some indeterminate age when they turn around. They don’t look young, they don’t look old. They sometimes don’t quite look human. Over-injected lips glossed to a high sheen, flaxen blonde hair extensions falling to their waists in Disney mermaid-like waves, skin that has so much filler and botox holding it still that you can’t tell if they’re smiling or sneering, happy or terrified. (Maybe they’re not sure, either.) And once the men get upwards of 40, I’ve seen some of the same embarrassing behavior. I’m sorry, but too much jewelry, dyed, thinning hair and True Religion jeans on a guy crowding 50 doesn’t tend to look fantastic. The message this behavior sends, to the world and to each other is: you don’t have long here, and there’s no way out. So just try to keep blending in — forever.
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For an industry sorely lacking in market research, there are certainly a lot of unspoken rules in porn: “Don’t have too much storyline,” “don’t get too artsy,” “stick with cliches; they sell!” The drab, insipid list goes on and on.
I’ve come to suspect that these rules are not the result of what audiences have truly asked for — rather, they’re what satiates the lowest common denominator. Or to be fair, perhaps it’s just that the average consumer has resigned his or herself to the fact that when it comes to porn they shouldn’t expect much by way of quality: not technically, not performance-wise, and certainly not from the dialogue.
The funny thing is, it takes just a little imagination and effort to make audiences and critics alike sit up and take notice. Read the rest of this entry »
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Recently I was interviewed by a well-known men’s magazine about what it’s like to have a relationship with a “civilian” while simultaneously working as an adult actress. I had been in such a situation fairly recently with someone who had loved to tell others about my involvement in the sex biz (and thus his exciting experiences as my sidekick), but who wasn’t above making the occasional judgment-tinged remark when it suited his purpose. This would mostly be to gain the upper hand in an argument or to use as evidence that I was, let’s face it, “crazy.” He had a lofty-sounding title at a well-known Los Angeles firm, and seemed to regard himself as “respectable” and “sane” by virtue of the fact that he’d completed a degree and was now working for a powerful company. Those of us who worked in the sex business, or who hadn’t had the (mommy-and-daddy-paid-for) academic choices he’d enjoyed were easy to discredit if the situation called for it. And often, it did.
When I ended the relationship he made a couple of snide remarks about my having a “wild life” and told me he’d prefer that I not mention to others the involvement he’d so enthusiastically (and secretly) sought for himself in my career. Everything from his constant desire to “invest” in my studio, to his passion for writing scripts and suggesting casting choices for my films, to his attendance at almost every industry event to which I was invited. I didn’t understand at the time what the mixed messages were about – did he think everyone in porn (including me) was crazy and marginal, or did he want to be one of us? Was he just trying to take one last hit at my achillies heel before we parted ways — a defiant swipe in the spirit of “You can’t fire me, because I quit!”? Read the rest of this entry »
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There is, to paraphrase a lovely old verse, something new beneath the visiting moon.
And I’ve been writing about it quite a bit lately, because I’m still somewhat in shock.
Let me begin by saying that I’ve never completely understood the whole “BDSM” thing. Or I thought I didn’t. I have met and befriended and even “played” with a few well-known masters and S/M couples, and I found the play interesting but not intoxicating. I wondered, then, why I kept “trying it again.” Maybe I’m just a sexual adventuress, I hypothesized. Maybe I’m drawn to extreme experiences and sensations as a sort of intellectual tradition.
The curious thing was that often people well-versed in BDSM would approach me, responding to some “vibe” they felt from me which caused them to believe I was “one of them.” (This even happened with one of the most well-regarded Masters in Los Angeles.) And after my scene with the amazing Kylie Ireland, she told me “It’s weird, but you have an affect on me that no other woman does. I’m submissive with most lovers, but with you, I don’t know if I want to kiss you passionately or beat the crap out of you.” She meant it in a loving way (Kylie and I are friends) but there it was again – I was giving off something that others were picking up on. What was it that I was emanating, and why?
And then I met a new lover, and things started to make sense.
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I guess the old adage “never say never” is true after all.
I always said I would “never” do a boy/girl scene, and I meant it. And now here I am about to do one. Granted it’s going to be edited as soft-core so it won’t be an “explicit” scene. And it’s for a lesbian feature film, so I haven’t defected to the other side or anything. But it will still be a brand new experience for me.
Originally I didn’t expect the scene to have much importance. It was meant to show the relationship between a “straight girl” character and her cavalier, thoughtless boyfriend. I’d planned to cast a functional male performer in the boyfriend role, as soon as I could figure out who the best candidate was. But I certainly didn’t think I’d be into the scene on a sexual level — I just wanted to get it over with.
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As Ricky Ricardo might say, “I have a lot of ‘splaining to do.”
When I last updated my HotmoviesForHer blog, I was with Girlfriends Films and my stage name was Sydni Ellis. Fast forward six months later and my new company is called Sweetheart Video and my name is now “Nica Noelle.”
What the hell happened? Well, it’s a bit of a story. Or rather, it’s a terribly long, dramatic, convoluted story about which some want to hear all the sordid details while others couldn’t care less. I’m going to assume, dear reader, that you fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.
First of all, I want to say that my time at Girlfriends Films was invaluable to me. Girlfriends Films showed me that you can be successful in porn by following your own heart and mind rather than sheepishly going along with the crowd. The founder of Girlfriends Films is a true innovator and he was generous enough to teach me things that otherwise would have taken me years to learn. I will always be grateful to him for giving me my start and the confidence to make films I believe in – even if they go against the conventional wisdom of what will sell.
But it was time for me to move on and find my own way. Jon Blitt of Mile High Media gave me that opportunity. I call him my “professional soulmate” because we’re always on the same page and it’s been that way since our very first meeting. Together we conceptualized and created Sweetheart Video, a girl/girl erotic studio that we hope will surpass all others in terms of quality, diversity and innovation.
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