- By Vanessa Belmond - Ex-Porn Performer, Stripper, Camgirl & "Escort"

- Anti-Porn and Anti-Prostitution Writer, Speaker and Activist

- AntiPornography.org Volunteer

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"Beautiful." "Artistic." "Different." "Sensual." These sound like descriptions of a painting in a fine art gallery, or maybe of a gourmet dish, right? Unfortunately not. These are samples of adjectives that I've heard used over the years to describe "lesbian porn," from viewers of the genre. These "fans" love to claim that female-only porn is better than the "boy-girl" variety, because they believe that it's easier on the women involved, and that it's less disrespectful. And hey, it's just two women enjoying each other, what could be more innocent and harmless? 

Clearly these "fans" have never been behind the scenes of your average girl-girl porn set. "Catty," "fake," "pimp," and "ouch!" These are the words that spring to MY mind when I think of "lesbian" porn. Why, you might ask? A fair question. Allow me to explain, word by word.

1) CATTY: The unfortunate truth is that many women in the porn industry are very catty and rude towards any other woman that they have to work with. This is also true in regards to strip clubs, but it's much worse when you have to have sex with someone that can't even be civil towards you. 

I have often been on set when two other woman are "working" together, and have witnessed them fighting or ignoring each other completely until the camera is turned on. It's amazing how the word "action" and the red blinking light of a camera can turn two women that hate each other into "sexy girlfriends having fun." 

Personally I grew to hate doing porn scenes with women even more than doing scenes with men, because it often meant that I would be having sex with someone that didn't have any interest in me whatsoever, and didn't even bother to pretend to. In turn I became pretty catty myself. After all, if these girls were going to be rude to me the second I walked on set, well I was going to be rude right back. Was that an acceptable excuse to behave like that? Of course not. But I certainly had plenty of company. 

Many women start out in porn having sweet bubbly personalities, but after a few months of getting put through the brutal "adult industry" meat grinder, they become cold and -- that's right -- CATTY. The sex industry has a tendency to change the attitude, demeanor and behavior of the people working in it, and not in a positive way. 

Keep in mind that most women performing in these scenes are simply not into having sex with other women, so this makes the sex unpleasant to say the least. Which brings us to the next word that so accurately describes "lesbian" porn...

2) FAKE: It's all so unbelievably fake and is such a lie! The vast majority of "lesbian" scenes involve two women that would rather be doing anything else other than having sex with another woman. (Shopping, perhaps, or more likely snorting lines of coke.) Excuse my language here, but I can't count the number of times I've heard a woman complain about how "gross" licking another woman's vagina was. Not to mention the complaints about dealing with women that had the dreaded "bad smell." 

Giving oral sex to someone that smells "down there" is a really disgusting (and surprisingly common) experience in porn. Many female performers struggle with this challenge because vaginal infections are so prevalent in the industry -- therefore causing the vagina to give off a very unappealing odor. 

One woman I knew very well, let's call her Cherry, told me about a scene where the other woman had such a bad vaginal odor that Cherry pulled the director aside and told him about it. His response was of course to tell the other girl to douche and then to continue on with the scene. What did he care? He wasn't the one that had to put his mouth on the woman's vagina that smelled (and tasted) bad, and pretend to enjoy it.

Cherry couldn't refuse to perform in this scene, unless of course she felt like upsetting her agent, the director, the producer, and losing money on top of that. This is because reputation is everything to a porn performer. A woman with a rep for walking off of sets (even when she had every right to), will find herself labeled as a "diva" -- resulting in little to no porn work, and no agent willing to represent her.

To continue the story, the douche did nothing to cover the odor and Cherry just had to deal with it. Of course if you were to watch that scene now, you'd probably think that Cherry and the other woman were really into each other. Porn performers are really better actors than they get credit for, and some of these woman should be nominated for an Oscar for the impressive "I love having sex with women" act that they put on! 

3) PIMP: Now, why pimp? Most pimps are men, right? Definitely. But pimps have a funny way of showing up on "lesbian" porn sets, only they don't usually refer to themselves as pimps -- they prefer to be called "boyfriends." Boyfriend, pimp... it's often the same thing in porn and the sex industry. 

Most of the time the "boyfriend" is just some loser without a job that lives off of his girlfriend. But many of these guys are the jealous type, and they can't deal with seeing "their woman" have sex with another man. They solve this little dilemma by having her only do "lesbian" scenes. A good amount of these scenes that I did with these types of women were very uncomfortable -- not only because the other woman didn't want to be there, but because her creepy "boyfriend" was watching us the whole time. 

One incident that stands out was on the set of an all-girl softcore movie. One of the female performers brought her boyfriend/pimp with her, and he kept interrupting the scene. We couldn't go for two minutes without that jerk complaining about something. It got to the point where the director threw him off the set. He later returned to pick up his property. Oops! I mean his girlfriend. He then proceeded to throw a tantrum about being kicked off earlier. 

I wish that this was an isolated incident in porn, but occurrences like this are pretty common, especially on the set of "lesbian" porn movies. So, the next time you hear a "girl-girl only" performer talking about how much she just "loves" having sex with women, please remember that she likely has a jealous quasi-pimp "boyfriend" behind the scenes.

4) OUCH!: Yes, ouch! This descriptive adjective can best be explained by the story of one of the first "lesbian" scenes that I ever did. I was still new to the business and was working with a sweet girl named Carmen. I was relieved to be working with a nice woman and figured that the scene would be a piece of cake. Of course it wasn't. Quite the opposite, in fact.

We were booked to do a "strap-on" anal scene. I had almost no experience with anal, but had agreed to do girl-girl anal after my agent pressured me to do it. Carmen, apparently, was in the same situation. When she used the fake strap-on penis to penetrate me it was painful (to say the least), but I have a high tolerance for pain, and I faked my way through it. When it came time for me to use it on her, though, I could tell right away that she didn't share my high pain tolerance. We had barely begun and already poor Carmen had tears in her eyes. I went super slow, thinking that maybe if I was really gentle we could somehow get through the scene. 

The director had other ideas. He stopped the scene, yelled at me to go faster, and told Carmen to "suck it up." I continued but then hesitated, because of how much I was clearly hurting Carmen. The director stopped us again, this time threatening to kick us both off the set with no pay if we didn't obey his orders. 

It made me feel so horrible to see Carmen's face throughout this scene -- she was so clearly in terrible pain. I knew that if I refused to do it, though, the director wouldn't pay either of us and I'd have an angry agent to answer to. Carmen must have known this too, because she tried to convince me that she was okay and to just  keep going.

Ultimately I still couldn't bring myself to go as "fast and hard" as the director wanted, and Carmen couldn't hide her agony, so the director wasn't pleased, and he let us know it. To add insult to injury, the company never paid me. My agency tried to get them to pay, but they never got them to give me the money that I was owed. I have no idea if Carmen ever got paid, but I'm guessing that she didn't. 

So, that unfortunate scene that I wish I'd never done is still out there for all the world to see, for viewers to take pleasure from our pain, all the while believing that we were really enjoying ourselves. (Because we were misguided enough and in need of money enough to act as if we liked it.) And I never got a penny from it -- just a lot of suffering, guilt and regret.

Other "lesbian" scenes that I've done have been just as painful. I have suffered anal tears due to other women being too rough with a sex toy, or from them simply not being familiar with how to use a sex toy on another woman. Most of the women who do "lesbian" porn scenes don't actually have authentic lesbian sex in their personal lives, so they have no idea how to use a sex toy properly on another person. 

People tend to assume that a woman just naturally knows how to use a sex toy or her fingers on another woman, but this is definitely not the case. Add to this the disturbing fact that many of the "toys" used in porn (which are sometimes more like torture devices) are uncomfortably large, and you've got serious potential for injury, just like there is in "boy-girl" porn. 

I decided to write this article because I want some reality and truth about porn to be known, in order to counter all of the fantasy, lies, and propaganda perpetuated by the porn industry and their supporters. My hope is that if you ever watch a "girl-girl" porn movie again, (and I hope that you won't), that maybe you'll look beyond the charade of "sensuality" and "two women enjoying each other's bodies," and see the real misguided human beings on the screen, who are just going through the motions, acting and pretending (often while cringing in pain), and wishing that they weren't really there.

Really. Face the truth. "Sensuality" and "two women enjoying each other's bodies" is almost never what is truly going on. "Lesbian" porn is just as manufactured and detrimental to the performers, viewers and society as heterosexual porn is -- it just APPEARS to be different and better. Like every other type of porn, the orgasms and the "pleasure" in "lesbian" porn are just an illusion, created to get users to believe the lies spread by the porn industry, and to get the "fans" to spend their money, so that the pornographers can get rich. 

I strongly encourage any viewers of "lesbian porn" to save your time and your money (if you're paying for it), and spare yourself the delusions. Instead of supporting a fake fantasy world full of lies and pain, why not spend your time, money and energy embracing a truly authentic life, and gaining meaningful fulfillment with an actual real-life partner? (And if you think it's too difficult to find a real-life partner for an actual relationship, one thing is for sure -- it's not going to happen or be helped by spending your time watching fake "lesbian" porn on the Internet or elsewhere!)

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Please feel free to read more of my writing about my life and my time in the sex industry, as well as the overall harms of pornography, prostitution, stripping, sexual abuse and related issues. Click HERE.

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MORE INFO ON LESBIAN PORN HARMS:

For more information about the harms of lesbian pornography, (as well as more visual examples), please see our page on the harms of lesbian pornography. It addresses both the fake type of "lesbian" porn described above, (which is mostly created by and for men, and usually uses straight women performers who pretend to be lesbians), and the type of lesbian porn that is usually made by and with gay women, for an audience of other women who are usually actual lesbians. Click HERE.