Candida Royalle

Porn belongs to alone males masturbating. Go to any sex shop and you’ll rarely see a woman for women rarely masturbate to pictures. Though there are thousands of sex magazines for men, there's only one (in America) for women - Playgirl - and mainly gay men buy it. "When a man's pants fall down in a movie," notes Dennis Prager, "everybody laughs. When a woman's skirt drops to the floor, nobody laughs."

The editor of Hustler Erotic Video Guide, Michael Louis Albo, writes: "Primarily promoted by former B-grade bimbo Candida Royalle's Femme Productions as an alternative to heavy-duty raunch, "couples" films appeal to squeamish suburbanites seeking a walk on the wild side without getting their shoes dirtied. Lots of lingering, longing glances heavy with "meaning," sappy muzak, and no cum shots. Femme films like Christine's Secret, Three Daughters and Sensual Escape are the porn equivalents of Harlequin Romance novels."

A woman in Pomona, California wrote to Hustler Erotic Video Guide: "Why do you pornographers make such crappy movies, and is there any company that makes stuff that women might like to watch?"

Albo replies: "Would that include movies in which the female protagonist castrates her mate with a butcher knife? If so, don't overlook John Wayne Bobbitt's debut effort in Uncut. Barring that, any number of releases from Vivid might fit the bill and keep both you - and your husband - happy with their combinations of knock-out babes and stories that are perfect for couples, without descending into the dreaded "couples" genre of X-rated video. In other words, guys can still jerk off to Vivid movies. However, if you don't want your man doing that (and leaving those God- awful stains on the shag carpet), you can always check out the stuff from Candida Royalle's Femme Productions. As the name implies, this stuff is for girls only, and that means girls who don't like pornography."

If all you read about porn came from mainstream publications, you'd think that Candida Royalle (Candice Vitala?) was the genre's leading director. Though articulate and thoughtful, the ex-performer's "non- exploitive non-sexist erotica" is lite porn - porn for people who don't like porn.

Though unable to create in her films either a complete story or sexual heat, Candida is the only 'pornographer' who regularly receives positive coverage from the mainstream media. In the inept 1996 book Working Sex, Mariane Macy spends most of her section on the X-rated industry profiling Royalle. That’s like spending most of a book on football discussing the rare girl who plays for her high school.

After an unhappy childhood, Candice Vitala, while living in San Francisco, "got in [porn] for the money. I was leading a free lifestyle... The gals who got into it then were... open-minded, free-thinking women who thought it a fine way to make a living.

"I did my time in office work when very young. That set me up to not wanting to do anything conventional because it was such a miserable experience working in an office.

"I was lucky enough to attend the High School of Art and Design in New York City. Those were special years for me, but the days were long because we had to mix our regular academics with our artistic studies. Because I've been drawing since I was old enough to hold a pencil, I decided to major in illustration and fashion illustration. I was disappointed though, because I had originally tried out for the High School of Performing Arts as a dancer...the school popularized by the movie Fame. They turned me down, probably because they could see that I would grow up to be voluptuous and wouldn't have the classic dancer's body."

While studying art at college, Royalle, born in 1950, received her introduction to nude modeling. She posed for figure classes, then for mens magazines before entering sex films in 1976.

"She was so hot, she used to f--- the pizza delivery boys. She was young and slender and sweet-looking with this heart-stopping long raven hair, and she was drugged all the time," remember one of her directors.

"I lived a wild life in San Francisco," says Candice who selected her porn name from the Voltaire novel Candide. "I performed in underground theater and did serious singing in jazz clubs. I never cared about making money. Eventually however I realized I had to make some. I decided to look for work as a nude model. An agent suggested porn. I was shocked. But my closest girl friend and my musician boyfriend of the time decided to do porn. He worked for Anthony Spinelli… one of the nicest guys in the business. He does quality stuff."

Candice debuted in Spinelli's Cry For Cindy. "Porn wasn't the sleazy thing I thought it would be. Many filmmakers at the time moonlighted at porn. Everything was professional. You had a script and a huge crew. There were budgets. Much to my boyfriend's chagrin, I decided that if he could do it, I could do it.

"I liked not having to work in some creepy job. I've always had a wild imagination... I liked the hours and the glamour and dressing up... I liked the sex least of all... People always ask me what's the best thing I got out of it. I say the friends that I made. Every time I showed up to do a shoot it was like home week. I saw all my old buddies.

"I hated the sex scenes. The crudeness of them... They'd stick the cameras up your legs... And some of the people were creepy... Eventually I realized I had ambivalence about doing these movies because every time I did a few, I gained weight. I realized that this was my body's way of saying, 'I'm not comfortable with this'."

After doing about 30 films, Candida tired of sucking cock on camera. "The movies were crude...embarrassing.

"I grew up Catholic, in a conservative atmosphere.

"Actresses [in porn] have to understand that we are seen in a negative light - we have broken the worst taboo. There's got to be pain... If you don't feel it, you're in denial. That leads you to do things that keep you from feeling, like taking drugs."

Candida joined an informal group called Club 90, whose other members included Gloria Leonard, Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Veronica Vera, Sue Nero and other performers. The club began in 1983 and dissolved in 1989. It made a play called Deep Inside Porn Stars which took porn stereotypes and turned them inside out.

Royalle wrote and starred in her own film Blue Magic which planted the seed for the growth of Femme. "I couldn't figure out what format to use. I didn't want to just do a Hollywood movie. Everyone's trying to do these high production value, highly scripted movies and they're still in the same old formula.

"The media is such a powerful tool - the ability to put ideas across to other people. I take that responsibility. I don't think it's fair to make a movie that portrays sexuality as the same old high school formula sex. The guy's gonna look at these women going mad because they have the privilege of having him come on their face. That's not reality."

Unable to pay her own way, Candida's efforts with FEMME were financed by money from her now ex-husband's (Per Sjosted) parents, rich film producers overseas.

Author and adult critic Robert Rimmer loves Candida Royalle and her work. "I told Candida that she could make a movie of my novel The Rebellion of Yale anytime, provided she played Cynthia and Jerry Butler played Yale."

Candida never took Robert up on the offer.

"After watching Femme [1984] I'm doubly convinced that Candida has proved that a woman can make a more erotic and loving film than any man," writes Rimmer in the X-Rated Videotape Guide. "In six unrelated sequences (except for sensitivity and proof that female porno stars are real women), Candida and her husband, Peter Sjostrom, have created a film that Women Against Pornography will have a difficult time labeling pornographic. Although it is totally explicit, there are no cum shots."

Candida and Peter released their third film in 1984 - Christine's Secret. They try to tell a story using men more beautiful than the women, but fail again.

Urban Heat appeared in 1985. "Ms. or one of the women's magazines should review adult films, or at the least, interview Candida Royalle. There's a big market for her Femme series, but she probably won't be able to reach it easily through conventional channels. Like the previous Femme tape, this one continues a series of slice-of-life vignettes...like watching sexual chamber music. (Rimmer, Guide, p. 441)

Femme released Three Daughters in 1986. "A sexual character study of a family undergoing a case of spring fever is evocative, lush.... Women's erotica that many first-timers and couples will swear by." (AFW 96 D. p.272)

After a long hiatus, Candida directed 1993's Revelations, the height of Politically Correct and boring erotica supposedly made for a budget of $115,000.

"Royalle makes movies for people who've wondered why no one in porno ever engages in foreplay," writes Adam Film World, "why the only real acting comes when the lady pretends to have an orgasm as a guy spurts on her back; and above all else, why a porno film must be mindless.

"Besides having a thought-out story, Revelations is also a technical knockout. The sets and music perfectly capture the sterile, grey future-world. The pacing is smooth and the actors are appealing. The real triumph of the film though is the camerawork. Royalle's directing is assured and stylish, and by using two cinematographers, she manages to keep the cool side cool and the hot side hot." (AFW 96 D. p. 265)

Adult critics Bob Rimmer and Pat Riley clashed over Revelations. Bob loves Candida "... a most beautiful full breasted gal, nicely plump, with a loving face, when she was in her prime as a porno actress.... She was - and still is - the kind of gal I'd like to go to bed with and talk and laugh with, too - before and after. Someday I hope to convince her to star in a video based on my novel Thursday, My Love. She's the right age, and, unlike this tape, her first in several years, it deals with real life women in a happily ending adulterous situation.

"Although Revelations is disappointing compared with her other titles, Candida is still proving that sexmaking can be warm, joyous, loving and caring.

"The video was obviously made on a small budget. Candida doesn't sell her tapes to typical male porno audiences and I'm sure Pat will turn thumbs down on this one."

Pat Riley writes: "Not just thumbs, Bob; both hands and both feet. Unless you call an insipid girl-girl between two marginal looking females, explicit sex, there is none in this movie. So this is strictly a softcore presentation, in which case I expect good make-up, camera-work, story, erotic build-up to sex, full frontal views, at least as good as the pornos in the looks of the women, and some well-simulated sex. I'm still waiting. The whole production has the washed out appearance of the 70s movies and all the people look like the dirty hippies that populated those movies. The segments on America's Funniest Home Videos have better production values. Don't expect too much relief from the Nicole Martin sequences either - here's more of the motivationless touching and feeling that seems to be Candida's stock in trade. It's enough to make one move over and join the real men at Hustler Erotic Video Guide." (X-Rated Videotape Guide 4, p. 476-477)

When she divorced, Candida cast around for a new sugar daddy and found one in Phil Harvey's Adam & Eve corporation, the biggest sexvideo-by-mail operation, which bought the rights to her Femme productions.

"No one has discriminated against my work because I'm a woman," says Candida. "If my tapes are good, they'll buy them. Simple as that. It all comes down to money. Porn is more open to women filmmakers for that reason; not because manufacturers and distributors are a bunch of sweet guys, but because there isn't that much money at stake. I'm doing fine."

During 1995, Royalle teamed up with New York-based sex therapist Patti O. Britton to review sex videos before a group of therapists.

"They especially liked John Leslie's The Dog Walker," said Royalle. "The sex was hot and nasty, and also included foreplay and tenderness. Rick Savage's amateur film The Streets of New York is also good that way." (AVN)

Royalle says porn has important uses. "On the simplest level, hardcore is a super-charger. It can be a quick turn- on. It's also great for sexual role-modeling, which is important if a couple has problems understanding the individual dynamics in sex. Porn opens the door to better communication about what turns a person on. Men must understand that the women they're with have grown up in a society that has subtly taught that only bad girls have sex. When girls tell guys what we want, it's admitting that we're bad." (AVN)

Royalle says porn offers greater benefits than educational sex tapes because smut is entertainment rather than formal treatment. "Some couples don't want to perceive themselves as being dysfunctional or needing help. It's better to turn to something entertaining, that has good sexual role- modeling, than to something that says, 'We know you have a problem; so we're going to help you.'"

Candida battles with feminist organizations like NOW which generally oppose pornography.

"The feminist fight against dirty pictures has generated countless books, magazine articles, essays, college seminars, slide shows, rallies, and marches," notes Rene Denfield. "It has spawned numerous organizations - From Women Against Pornography to Feminists Fighting Pornography - and has become a major focus in women's studies classes.

Not only the United States but Britain, Canada, and Germany also boast strong anti-pornography crusades... The feminist battle against porn has created a new set of leaders, activists who have dedicated themselves solely to this campaign and work on little - or nothing - else. Virtually every segment of today's women's movement has become embroiled in this issue." (The New Victorians 1995 NY Warner Books, p. 91)

Candida belongs to Feminists for Free Expression. She denies the frequent feminist assertion that women in porn are rape victims.

"I was never forced or coerced to do anything," says Royalle. "They [feminists] couldn't have cared less about whether we were victims or not. They never spoke to us. They would never know if were victims. They had no idea what was going on. When we tried to tell them, they didn't want to hear it. They don't want to hear that I made the choice to do this."

Rene Denfield: "Many of the feminist activists working against porn are middle-income and well educated women. The subjects of their attacks (porn actresses and nude models) are predominantly lower-income and less-educated people - and usually not boasting choice jobs at magazines or universities."

Candida published a letter in AVN's 10/96 edition, responding to an earlier letter from Kolya in Texas who feared that "this industry is built upon the use and abuse of women who are miserable with their lives."

Royalle: "...Porn is not for the weak of heart. Women should definitely have their wits about them as this industry will chew you up and spit you out record time. But one's experience is based on what one brings to it. If you're a clever girl, you can pick your projects carefully, make a name for yourself, invest your earnings wisely and get out when you want. The trouble is that many of the women who choose this line of work are young, inexperienced and prefer to spend their fast bucks.

"The assumption that "porn is exploitative of women who have few other options in life" is not only insulting to the women in this industry but also reflective of a society that cannot accept that women would choose to sexually perform for a living. As a 24- year old artist/performer living an alternative lifestyle in San Francisco in the '70s, I wanted to earn some extra money doing something that paid a lot in a short time. I felt there was nothing wrong in people performing sex for others to enjoy.

"A few years later, I sensed my own ambivalence about my chosen vocation and went into therapy to understand my conflict. I grew to understand that I was allowing society's judgements to interfere with my own attitudes and that it was important for me to stay clear on what I believed.

"The most difficult aspect of this work for women is having to work in a culture that condemns us for what we do and assumes that we could only be victims or losers with no place to go.

"May Alex Jordan [who committed suicide] find peace. And may the actresses in "porn land" maintain the sense their strength so that they do not fall prey to either exploitation or the misguided concerns of those who would condemn us."

Candida, who's ended her ten-year marriage with Per Sjosted, touches on the widely-believed notion that most women in porn were sexually abused as children. Virtually everything I've read on the subject, and most persons I've discussed this issue with including many in porn - believe that performers come from violated childhoods. The only similar obsession that approaches this desire to account for why women do porn, is the fascination with the backgrounds of murderers.

Why men do porn interests fewer people because men are presumed to want sex whenever, wherever and however they can get it.

Secular liberals who dominate academia, media and entertainment posit that rape, murder, theft, and performing in porn are behaviors so strange that they must've been caused by something outside the individual. But it doesn't take a Ph.D. to understand that performing sex for money is natural. There's no need to seek for traumae to account for those who practice the world's oldest profession.

Though pornography centers on women, female pornographers have made little contribution to the genre. "It's a nice idea to have women erotica stars as directors," write the authors of The Couples Guide To The Best Erotic Videos, "but we can't say that their day jobs have made them any better, or given them more insight into the making of an erotic tape."

"Pornography is not, should not, and cannot be for broads! Ever!!!" shrieks Selwyn Harris in HEVG. "Halfway through the Reagan era, a semi-hysterical, utterly fruitless brouhaha was created by former professional genital swallower Candida Royalle's Femme Productions. Over a decade later, with fewer than half-a-dozen endeavors to its credit, Femme Productions allegedly still exists, though only as fodder for the aforementioned hype machine.

"Femme's raison de'tre - according to Royalle - was not to show off her ritzy, salt and pepper spike do on the heavy- breathing editions of Phil Donahue or to see her wrinkles splattered across the pages of clueless fanzines, but to create "erotica by women for women."

"This woman-produced porn has proved an oxymoron. Not one feature made under the Femme banner has been ever remotely arousing..."

Director Ron Sullivan is not impressed by Candida's work. "I don't think her product is attractive to the consumer market. Candida is just trying to make something that she can live with. She'll cut edges to make it more palatable for herself - to give justification to her past behavior as a performer."

Candida wrote to me at the end of 1997: "…I find your material incredibly mean-spirited… You seem to revel in the put downs and completely refuse to believe that I am doing this with sincerely positive intentions. Nor do you want to believe that women really are interested and enjoying my work as are the countless men who write and thank me for creating work they can share with their partners. You must have something invested in continuing to promote a negative image of the industry. You certainly seem obsessed with it and hoping to make money off of it in our own way.

"From what I've read, I doubt you'll ever find a publisher, at least not one of any significance. But even if you do, I will take comfort in what Time magazine essayist Roger Rosenblatt recently said to me: He told me that eventually all writers and journalists who are negative and take pleasure in trashing and hurting others in print are run out of the business because when it comes down to it, no one really likes or puts up with that for long. Besides, it's usually the writers that are lacking in real talent who must resort to that sort of thing.

"I had actually heard about you already. Word has already spread that you seek to expose and hurt. It's people like YOU who make ME lose faith in human-kind. Please don't correspond with me again as I find it much too upsetting."

Candida writes on her web site <www.royalle.com>:

At first, the big guys in the adult industry kind of patronized me, telling me that the idea of "couples" films was neat while assuring me that women are simply not interested in visual erotic entertainment. This just made me more determined than ever. Even though society has told us women are not visual, my hunch was always that if someone created visuals that appealed to us, we'd be very turned on by what we see!

Now these same men are very supportive and impressed by what I've managed to create. The softer, more sensual approach I take with my work isn't for everyone, but most recognize that I've opened up and broadened the market to include an ever growing segment of society, that of women eager to explore their own fantasies and to find new and fun ways of sharing a sexy evening with the one they love.

I started Femme Productions back in 1984 with my original partner Lauren Niemi, and with the professional support of Per Sjostedt, who was my husband at the time and a terrific producer, and whose family showed wonderful faith with their financial backing.

From the 11-97 AVN, A review of Candida's THE BRIDAL SHOWER by Rollin Hand:

The Bridal Shower could be - and probably is - a terrific arousal feature for women, but as a stroke vid, it's frustrating… The sex is tame… Tame to a point that we suspect Bridal Shower would appeal more to the woman who sits at home reading Barbara Cartland novels and masturbating to Fabio's pecs than the horny gal on a last- call pickup in the local singles bar.

Unlike My Surrender, this feature doesn't probe any psychological depths. Essentially it's a round table discussion of sex over fresh fruit plates and shower gifts. This kind of scenario may elicit hot pants from the yenta club, but it's death to an erection.

…The real star of the vid is not the talent, but rather the copious amounts of food that they ingest while having sex, such as a banana triple-split threesome…