LOS ANGELES, October 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Jonathan, Kevin, and Danny loved porn. They loved it so much that when a British documentary project called “Date My Porn Star” offered them the opportunity of a lifetime to travel to Los Angeles to meet the women they’d been lusting after onscreen for years, they jumped at the chance.
But the three men got more than they bargained for when they met Vanessa Belmond, 25, who left the porn industry in March after a seven-year career as “Alexa Cruz.”
Entering porn as “Alexa” at just 18, Belmond had intended only to do a little nude modeling and maybe some “soft-core” porn consisting of kissing and foreplay with other women. “It didn't work out like that,” Vanessa told the trio, who range in age from 20 to 40.
Instead, she was pressured by her bosses to have sex with multiple men at once and engage in anal sex, experiences she said left her with mental and physical scars from which she may never recover.
Belmond told her stunned fans that she contracted chlamydia during her first scene.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so gross,’” Belmond said. “As far as STDs, I had chlamydia probably three, four times or more.”
“I had gonorrhea. I had bacterial infections a lot, and the testing, I thought, was keeping me safe, because they make it sound like everyone is tested,” she said. “The thing is, you only test once a month, and all through that month they still have a ‘clean’ test, but they might have gotten something” in the meantime.
That precise situation made headlines in August when several pornographic actors contracted HIV from filming within a matter of weeks, despite the monthly testing protocol. The outbreak resulted in a complete shutdown of the industry for most of September. Since then, the industry has increased the frequency of testing to every two weeks – but many porn stars still say the industry isn’t doing enough to keep its stars safe.
Belmond’s story only serves to highlight the risks involved. “My first anal scene, I had to take painkillers because it was still so painful,” she told Jonathan, Kevin and Danny.
Belmond now writes for the website antipornography.org, where she helps expose the dark side of the industry she left behind. She hopes to return to school to get her degree and then work full-time in anti-pornography advocacy.
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As for her personal life, she told Jonathan, Kevin and Danny that after seven years in porn, she doubts she’ll ever find true love or have a family.
“Nobody really wants to date a porn star, stripper, escort,” Belmond told them. “As to the whole family thing and having kids, I'm like ‘Who's going to have kids with an ex porn star?’ And even when I'm 60, I’m still going to have this porn on the internet. It's like having a virus or something that never goes away.”
So what did three British porn connoisseurs have to say about their encounter with the reality of the industry?
Kevin, age 20, said, “I feel really, really sorry for her. She can't go back and change it.”
Danny, 23, said, “It has touched me. It has made me feel a lot of empathy for the girl. It's just strange. I can't really describe it … [I’m] just thankful that she told us that and opened up.”
“I just feel like I want to cry,” said Jonathan, 40, the eldest of the group. “She really touched me deep.”
Jonathan said he wanted the interview to offer “protection to the porn industry because it’s part of my life and something I’ve grown up with,” but Belmond's story “really took the wind out of my sails.”