Editor’s Note: This article by Dana Hamilton about Bellesa Films was first published in 2020.
I grew up on the porn of the early 2000s. Late at night, my eight-inch TV (with built-in VCR!) picked up bleach-blonde hair, surgically enhanced boobs and landing strips so thin they could be mistaken for John Waters’s mustache. I squinted to make out vaginas getting plundered by salami-sized dicks in “straight” porn and jammed by fingers decorated with uncomfortable-looking press-on nails in “lesbian” porn. If a clit was ever touched—which was rarely—it was with the same energy as a flamenco guitarist after a three-day coke binge or someone trying to erase a wrong answer on a Scantron with 30 seconds left on an important exam.
As I learned more about my body—particularly my clit—and started replicating things I learned in porn, I realized none of the stuff I was seeing could result in an actual orgasm for a person with my anatomy. At first, I thought I was broken—that there was something wrong with my body—but then I started talking to women and hearing similar frustrations: The methods to please us that our partners learned from porn simply didn’t work. Many of us shared the pain of a partner believing they can stick it in an ass in one fluid motion with spit as lube, the confusion of not being able to orgasm from penetration alone, the exhaustion of girl-on-top becoming a Barry’s Bootcamp–style squat workout with no climax and the guilt of thinking our bodies are at fault.
It would be fine if we could all recognize that we’ve been lied to and have a cultural understanding that porn isn’t real, that it’s a fantasy not to be tried at home. But we don’t.
Instead, we have a world in which people believe mainstream porn is a real, usable instruction manual for how to please someone with a vulva and assume the orgasms depicted on screen are real. As an adult, I couldn’t look at porn the same way again, and I stopped watching it altogether. Every time I’d try to get off, the knowledge that the women were faking it made me feel bad. And don’t get me started on the misinformation. When I became a sex writer and educator, all the myths I had been taught as fact via scrambled TV were things I was now correcting via DMs and weekly Q&A sessions on my Instagram.
The chasm between what real sex looks like and what sex looks like in porn continues to widen. I tell people that sex in porn is to real sex as the WWE is to wrestling in the Olympics. The mechanics are there, but one is purely entertainment and blown way out of proportion. For me, the choice is whether to exclude yourself from watching porn entirely or watch something that leaves a knot in your stomach.
Luckily, it seems the sex industry is waking up to the way people get turned on. Sex-positive bloggers and publications such as Salty exist on Instagram (when they’re not combatting shadow bans). Sex toy companies like Unbound, Satisfyer, Womanizer and Fun Factory have followings akin to influencers. Activists, writers and sex-positive brands are calling bullshit on tropes that have been perpetuated since Debbie did Dallas. Porn from PinkLabel.tv, the CrashPad Series and Erika Lust is seeking to offset the misinformation and lack of pleasure in porn, and the cultural ramifications of both.
When I was invited to observe a shoot for Bellesa Films, I immediately said yes. Scrolling through Bellesa’s Instagram posts and looking at their collaborations with Laurie Mintz, author of Becoming Cliterate and wearer of a clitoris necklace, I could see Bellesa putting in the work. The production company prides itself on having women call the shots every step of the way (Bellesa was founded by a woman and features scenes both written and directed by women), and I was interested to see firsthand what porn looks like when it’s created by people with my parts.
I knew things would be different the moment I arrived on set at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning in the San Fernando Valley and my five-foot-six, brunette, Macy’s catalogue, not-Victoria’s-Secret-lookin’ ass was mistaken as “talent” by the makeup artist (which my 15-year-old self would consider one of the biggest thrills in my life to date).
The male performer, Damon Dice, was stuck in rush hour traffic, so while we waited, I chatted with Bellesa founder and CEO Michelle Shnaidman, director Jacky St. James, PA Shawn Alff and the crew, as the female performer, Cassidy Klein, stretched and used a foam roller on the floor. We spoke about Cassidy’s plans for her birthday—hiking and camping by herself—which turned into a group conversation about mortality and growing older. The vibe was so comfortable that only when I accidentally spilled coffee on the floor and it was immediately cleaned up with a baby wipe was I reminded exactly where I was.When Damon arrived, production immediately got down to business. Bellesa takes creating a story so seriously that about half the filming time was spent nailing the exposition. Each Bellesa movie has an actual backstory before the sex happens. This wasn’t the pizza delivery guy of yesteryear or even the stepbrother fucking his stepsister and stepmom of today. In this scene, Cassidy was going to her sister’s ex-fiance’s house to pick up the rest of her sister’s stuff and return her engagement ring. This premise—like most Bellesa Films features—began as a fantasy suggestion from one of Bellesa’s community members.
Just like a commercial movie set, Jacky stopped Damon and Cassidy often to talk about inflection, tone and character development. The connection they were creating on film carried over between takes as they playfully touched and hugged each other. (I later learned that Bellesa makes sure real-life chemistry exists by asking the female performer what type of sex she wants to have and with which male performer she wants to have it before the script is written.)
Next, Cassidy showed Jacky the clothes she brought as wardrobe options. I was expecting discussions about lingerie, but they went with an army green spaghetti-strap tank top, jeans, brown strappy sandals and a flesh-colored bra. A flesh-colored bra! You know, what normal people wear when they’re not expecting to have sex. The scene hadn’t even started, and I was already sold.
After the exposition had been filmed to her liking and a few clothed promo shots were photographed, Jacky prepared the set for the next part by announcing, “Hey, anybody wanna fuck?” We laughed.
After the performers showed each other their latest STI test results, Jacky asked them to semi-privately talk to each other about dos and don’ts. I caught Cassidy mentioning to Damon that she really enjoys having her neck licked and kissed. Everything else was between the two of them, out of earshot. When the scene started and the camera was rolling, one of the first things Damon did was lick the entire length of her neck in one stroke. The look on Cassidy’s face made my heart flutter.
I realize the fantasy is having a partner who gives a shit about getting you off. Vulva-havers are looking for sex that looks the way it looks when there’s a great partner involved who doesn’t see our bodies as merely something to masturbate with. To see Cassidy not being treated as a conquest, I immediately thought of all the women now learning about their bodies and thinking, My pleasure counts too. I should have a say in how good this feels for me too. For the first time, we’re seeing women as participants in sex instead of bystanders, and Bellesa nails this beautifully.There’s laughter as they fumble to take their clothes off and a continuation of the storyline throughout the sex, with Damon ad-libbing, “I’m so glad you stayed,” after making out some more. He asks for consent before fingering her and again before going down on her, and he even eats pussy the right way, where the mechanics of it are so small they aren’t visible. Pussy-eating in most porn looks like a 13-year-old’s first kiss on a dance floor. When Damon spits on her, he does so stealthily instead of passionately hocking a loogie onto her cooch like it had just disrespected his father (one of my biggest porn pet peeves). He doesn’t eat her out to orgasm, but at least it looks similar to what would eventually cause an orgasm. They even mutually masturbate a few times and I see Cassidy smiling as she self-stimulates.
When she rides him, she tilts her pelvis forward a little more than is typical in porn, and I can believe her clitoris was grinding on his pelvis. Her legs shake in a way that doesn’t seem manufactured. Her moans crescendo, and she orgasms—but not the screaming, eye-rolling, tongue-out kind of porn “orgasm” that’s about as subtle as a punch in the face.
“Did you really come?” Jacky asks Cassidy. “I don’t believe you.”
“I swear, I really did!” Cassidy says. And I believe her.
They take a quick break between sex positions. As the crew changes camera positions, Cassidy and Damon compare and explain their tattoos like old friends. “Don’t feel the need to orgasm unless it’s actually real,” Jacky reminds Cassidy before cueing the camera again. “It’s not supposed to be perfect; it’s supposed to be real.” I wondered how many times that phrase was uttered on the set of the porn I watched at 2 A.M. when I was 15 years old.
And, just as she says, it isn’t perfect. There are some things Jacky says she has to get the talent to unlearn. I notice Damon grab Cassidy’s wrist to place her hand on his dick and then push her head while she gives him oral—which lasts longer than the time spent on Cassidy—but I notice him catch himself and stop. When Damon lets “I want you to taste your pussy on my dick” slip while Cassidy is blowing him post-vaginal sex, Jacky is quick to sternly tell him she’s going to cut that part out.
“You’re gonna get notes; I’m gonna be hard on you,” she tells him half-teasingly before leaning over to me to say, “It’s kind of liberating because they have to unlearn everything.”
I’m ready to unlearn everything from porn too.
I’m excited for people to become more personal with their porn. After all, you used to only hope to get a glimpse of a titty after asking to head to the back room of a Blockbuster. Now, your seatmate on Spirit Airlines is playing it on their phone, listening to moans through a pair of AirPods. To get to know a brand and develop a connection to their porn, as well as a concern that it’s socially responsible? That’s what should happen as porn studios become household brands. Beyond those Girls Gone Wild DVDs you ordered at 3 A.M. or the monthly subscription you had to Bang Bus in college, would you have been able to name any production companies five or 10 years ago? I couldn’t.
But times are a-changin’.
Bellesa Films recently asked its community about using sex toys during partnered sex—something I’ve desperately wanted to be normalized in porn, and they’re making it happen. Bellesa Films is building a brand by incorporating multiple facets of women’s sexuality, which has been treated as a second thought for so long. We know a person with a penis comes in porn because there’s physical evidence. Navigating the world and not knowing if your orgasm is guaranteed by nature makes you view porn a different way. Sex sells, and vulva-havers are buying too.
For more on women taking control in porn, check out what porn star Riley Reid is doing to set her own agenda.