Jenna, Bella, Felicia

Tim Case writes:

A month or so ago, painfully thin adult film superstar Jenna Jameson announced in US Magazine that she’d had her breast implants removed and was retiring from performing in adult films. She indicated that though she would still be involved with her company ClubJenna, which was recently acquired by Playboy, she would no longer be appearing as a performer.

A few weeks after that, adult film superstar Belladonna announced that she was retiring from performing in adult videos. As she wrote on her blog, she was going to complete one final film, which would be her last, because she had inadvertently exposed a new lover to the herpes virus she carries through miscommunication. She still plans to direct and produce films for Evil Angel, the company that has released her films for the past several years.

I like Jenna and Bella. Always have. I’ve been around both of them on several occasions, at the expos, the awards shows, the Tampa show, and both of them have been nothing but nice to me every single time we’ve spoken. Even though I’m sure that each of them will still be working around the industry in some capacity in the future, I think their onscreen performances will be missed by most fans of adult entertainment.
 
In a much quieter manner, my lovely lady Felicia Fox mentioned to me a few days ago that she doesn’t really see herself doing any more films in the future because, as she said, "there’s no upside to it for me". God, what a great lady. I adore her. I’ll miss her performances, too.

Felicia was never as well known as either Bella or Jenna, obviously, but she did manage to carve a small niche for herself in the adult industry and was always well-liked…she was also able to work as much or as little as she wanted to, and found herself turning down work more often than she actually had to seek it out. She had the "Friendly & Pretty Midwestern-Born Curvy Brunette With The All-Natural Big Boobs" thing in porn pretty much sewed up for at least a few years, and we both had a lot of fun in the industry and made friends with pretty much everyone we came in contact with.  [I can’t say absolutely everyone because no one is universally well-liked, and there are people in porn — just as, nowadays, there are people in the strip club business — who dislike her or me or both of us for various reasons and we’re both okay with that. I’ve always said it’s a boring person who goes through life without making at least a few enemies. Fuck ’em.] 

People have asked us, at various times, why Felicia never became a bigger star in porn, and I always answer the same way — had she been willing to sacrifice some of her ideals, she probably could have, but thank god she wasn’t. She could’ve gone the "I’ve got fake tits and blonde hair with extensions, I’ve starved myself into a beanpole with boobs, I perform all my scenes without condoms route", but she didn’t want it. I didn’t want it either, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for her for handling her career in adult the way that she did.

We entered the XXX business with a series of very firm goals in mind. Number One, we would save as much money as possible — a certain percentage of everything we made went into savings. Number Two, we agreed to not sacrifice our relationship to porn; in other words, we discussed everything in detail, communicated constantly, and if one or the other of us felt that a certain scene or movie or action was a bad idea we’d agree to not do it. That doesn’t mean we never experience jealousy or had fights — of course we did. But we were able to enter porn as a couple, survive it with our relationship intact and come out on the other side happy and comfortable with each other as a partner. We agreed to move to Los Angeles for a year and a half, as that would provide the boost her career needed at the time, and it worked — we returned to Dayton in April of 2004 with a handful of awards, her name bigger, and her booking rates on the feature dance touring circuit at an all-time high. Number Three, we agreed to treat porn like a job, and not like a lifestyle.

We worked hard, made money, then moved back to Dayton, bought a house and had a beautiful baby. She never did a single anal scene, because she never wanted to. She never used drugs, unless you count caffeine and the occasional sleeping pill to help her get some much-needed rest. She did the vast majority of her scenes with condoms, and she never caught an STD, though I think that’s hard for people in porn to believe when you keep hearing that "99.9% of the industry has herpes" — a virus that neither of us is currently carrying. She was able to save money, because she didn’t book her scenes through an agent — we booked them ourselves by networking. We handled our own PR, with the help of people in the industry like Mike South, Gene Ross, L-ke Ford, Wankus, and the people at AVN. She won some awards, travelled all over the country, made some great friends and had as much fun as I think it’s possible for anyone to have. 

I don’t know. You hear alot about the porn industry and how horrible it is on the performers, and I know that it can be a horrible decision for many people to get into porn. But I like to count Felicia as a person who is positive in all aspects of her life, and who was able to enjoy her time in the business and leave it on good terms and with her soul and her heart pleasantly intact.

Good luck, Jenna and Bella. I wish you both well. 

And Felicia Fox, I love you with all my heart.