SexHerald: How many years have you been in the adult industry?

Candida Royalle: Frighteningly long. [Laughs] If you count the years that I was an actress, I guess about 30 years. Scary. [Laughs]

SH: You started out in the 70s, in what’s known as the “Golden Age of Porn.” What was “golden” about it?

Royalle: Hmm, that’s a good question. I certainly didn’t coin that phrase so I’m not quite sure what they mean by the “golden age.” I guess . . . people had ideas, there was a newness, people really thought they were doing something different and unique and creative. I think that there really were a number of filmmakers who were trying to do something innovative and unique. And there really were some very talented people. People like Henry Paris (otherwise known as Radley Metzger), Ron Sullivan, Chuck Vincent . . . there really were a handful of people who were actually pretty talented, and did some very interesting [work]. Gerard Damiano did some great stuff. So there was a real effort, and a kind of . . . they felt proud. They were renegades, but they were proud renegades.

SH: Of all the movies you performed in, which one was your favorite?

Royalle: I don’t really have a favorite, to be honest. I did a couple of very funny ones for Bob Chin and Dick Aldridge called Hot and Saucy Pizza Girls and Hard Soap, Hard Soap. They were so silly, and so good natured. Certainly my swan song, the one that I wrote, called Blue Magic, was a very beautiful movie. It was a turn-of-a-century piece that won a couple of awards. It was one of the first productions that my ex-husband, Per Persjoftedt, produced. I think also that Delicious was a lot of fun. That was the next to last one I made. Veronica Hart was the star; I was the second lead, probably. I look at that and it was funny. They often cast me in these funny roles because I was a decent comedic actress. They were fun.

SH: Between the time you stopped performing and starting Femme Productions, were you still involved in the adult industry?

Royalle: Absolutely. Up at Drake Publishing (now Blue Horizon Media), I was hired as an editorial assistant. I was in a kind of in-between phase. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was a decent writer so I was hired by Drake Publishing to be an editorial assistant, and then I quickly caught on, about three months in, that I was overqualified for what they had me doing. I’d make a lot more money quitting and becoming a freelance writer for them, which they did accommodate me, and allowed me to do that. That was a lot of fun. So I did a lot of writing of articles for a few years. In fact I did a really cool one for High Times, when Larry Sloman was the editor. That was a really great story about my experience as a porn star. I did a lot of that, and also I was in on the very beginning of when they started those pre-recorded phone sex messages. Not the live ones but the pre-recorded ones they started up there at Drake. I helped come up with the formula of how long it would, and I wrote a lot of the early ones and recorded them. I made a nice amount of money. You can make a lot of money doing that then, which I then invested into Femme Productions when I started that company.

SH: When you started Femme Productions, what where the goals you had in mind for this company?

Royalle: First and foremost, I really wanted to give Femme Productions a woman’s voice. I felt that the biggest thing lacking in the adult industry was a woman’s voice and movies women could relate to, and that couples could share together. So that was first and foremost. What followed was the way we did that. I felt that most adult movies had really stuck to a formula. And that formula really precluded much creativity, particularly in the way the sex was depicted. A lot of people were toying with the idea of movies women could enjoy. And their idea was to give it a big ol’ soap opera plot. But as soon as it came time for the sex, it would fall into the same formula. And I felt very strongly that that formula was what was all wrong. It was predictable, it was boring, it was not at all sensual. So I wanted to break that.

When my partner and I started, we just knew we were going to throw away the entire formula approach, and approach the sexual, erotic depiction from a whole new place. We created a sort of a documentary-style almost, or certainly a cinema verite style of shooting as soon as the sex scenes or love scenes would start. So we created a whole new way of directing with traditional porn. Generally, as soon as it’s time for the sex, they know what sex acts they want. So they’ll set up the lights and cameras, and they’ll say, “OK, now we want this long amount of time for fellatio, and then we want to change the lights and camera angles and we’re going to do cunilingous now, and then we’re gonna stop everything and set everything up for intercourse. And that’s pretty much the way it was shot and that’s why it does look mechanical. We really wanted to just let people make love and let it be dictated by who these characters were that they were playing, and what those characters would actually do in that situation.

We had a lot of goals. I really felt that adults needed explicit, sexual movies that actually depicted sex in a positive way, and that could show men how women would like to make love and be made loved to. Here was a great opportunity to use these movies as a teaching tool, to show people how to communicate, how to make love. [The movies that were out] were entertaining; they were titillating but they didn’t really give a lot of great information to people. As a culture, as a society, we desperately needed good, sexual information and help in our intimate relationships with each other.

In the beginning, I assume there were some men who didn’t share your vision. Were there women who also didn’t share your vision? Not really. The funny thing is, when I first started doing this and I’d be out at some event, women would ask me what I did. I would take a deep breath and I would be like, “Oh my god, here we go.” And I would say I make erotic movies from a woman’s point of view. And of course this was never even heard of at the time. And their response was usually, their face would light up and the first words out of their mouths were, “Where can I find one?” [Laughs] So women were overwhelmingly supportive.

The only women who weren’t supportive at the time were and still are the radical feminists who were extremely anti-porn. I’m a feminist and so I say radical because a lot of people make the assumption that all feminists were anti-porn, which is not true. But the anti-porn feminists were of course, nothing could be acceptable. So they were not supportive but I really didn’t have a lot of dissent, and I didn’t really have that much male dissent either. The worst I got was when I went out looking for distribution, the heads of these companies would sort of pat me on the head patronizingly and say, “Nice idea, Candida, but women just aren’t into this.” I knew they were wrong and of course, as soon as they saw how well my line was doing, they all started making movies and calling them couples movies. I certainly had my detractors. Some of the reviewers out of LA were pretty hard on me in the beginning. But I really didn’t have a lot of problems. I was fairly well respected within the industry and I think they thought I was wrong, but they didn’t try to sabotage me or get in my way.

SH: What is it that women want to see in adult movies that most other adult films don’t provide?

Royalle: Let me first say that I couldn’t possibly expect to know what all women want, and I can’t speak for all women. I think that young women are becoming more and more edgy in terms of how explicit they like their movies. But I would say that basically, women would like a context. They would like to know who these people are on screen, why they’re together. They like some story, they would like the sex to be more sensual and more realistic, rather than the “wam bam, thank you ma’am!” type of gonzo approach that most movies have these days. And I think women would like to see women on screen who are relatable to them—women who they can relate to and who aren’t intimidating. I don’t think it’s a great message to send women to have nothing but 18-year-old, perfect-bodied young girls, who already are having breast jobs and all kinds of surgical enhancements. I think what it says to women is that in order to be desirable you have to do anything you can. You have to have breast surgery or whatever. So I think women want intelligent, sexy stories with relatable characters.

SH: When you look at the market, is there enough “women-friendly” porn available?

Royalle: I don’t think there is enough, actually. I think that there’s really even been something of a backlash. I would say that the amount of really hardcore explicit, over-the-top gonzo is unbelievable. I think that people in the adult business still want to believe that the women’s market is not something they need to think about. Maybe because it’s more challenging for them to figure out what that really means. But I think it’s very, very strong and they’re going to have to deal with it. 

SH: When it comes to your movies, do you prefer they be called porn or erotica?

Royalle: I hate the word porn because it conjures up images of just the most tasteless, mechanical, gonzo porn. It covers such a broad range of product that we need a little bit of differentiation to reflect the many kinds of adult films there are available. So in order to reach my target market, it’s very difficult when people just call it porno. But I realize that porn is a big catch word for the media because everyone pays attention when they use the word porn. Erotica is sort of lofty and it also isn’t really very specific enough, so I don’t know. I guess adult erotica is what I generally call it.

SH: We’d be lying to ourselves if we said there aren’t women who like hardcore porn. Have you considered making some of your movies harder to cater to the audience that wants to see harder sex on screen?

Royalle: No because first of all, I think my stuff has gotten a little bit more explicit and edgy. I think Under the Covers, if you compare it to my really early work it’s a lot more edgy. I go by what I enjoy and what turns me on and what appeals to my sensibilities. And I don’t find it any less sexy. As a creative person you can only create from where you live, and to try and accommodate an audience that doesn’t actually reflect who you are or what you like, it just becomes mechanical then. Then it’s an exercise in mechanics. I’m just creating what I like and what just kind of comes out of me while I’m directing. Plus I think that there’s certainly enough of that for people to go out and find it. People look to me for a certain kind of material. So to suddenly create something else is to deny my audience what they come to me for. Also there’s so little of it. They have very few people to come to for what I do. And finally I will add that I think the adult industry is really mistaken when they think that women want to see the gonzo. There are indeed women who enjoy it. But I can tell you that there are so many women that still don’t. I think the adult industry is really either in denial or ignorant of how many regular mainstream women would so enjoy something sexy if it wasn’t so hardcore.

SH: Do you view companies like Vivid and Wicked as competitors?

Royalle: No I don’t because they don’t do what I do. I know that they’re considered some of the higher end also, but I personally don’t think anyone shoots in the way I do. So, I don’t really see them as competitors.

SH: In your movies, you tend to feature a lot of newcomers. What do you feel they bring to your movies?

Royalle: A newness and a freshness. There’s so many adult movies made every year using the same people over and over and over. People get sick of seeing the same people. It’s just great being able to feature new talent, and that’s not to say that I don’t really respect and enjoy working with the established talent. I think there’s something to be said for someone who really knows their stuff, and it’s a shame that we don’t appreciate them more. I’ve certainly have had my favorites that I’ve worked with over and over again. But it’s also nice when you can discover someone new. Especially the guys because I’m targeting my female audience, and some of these guys for obvious reasons, they really have longevity in the business if they can perform well. But women would like to see different men once in a while.

SH: What do you feel are the positive and negative aspects of women freely admitting they watch and enjoy porn, and maybe even expressing a desire to enter the business?

Royalle: I think it’s really good for women to explore their sexuality. For so long, we have been denied the right to really explore our feelings and our desires, to admit that we like to explore them, and it makes relationships very difficult when you have a man and a woman enter into a relationship with two completely different levels of sexual self-knowledge and acceptance. So I think anything that helps a woman become sexually empowered is a really good thing. For too long also, women have felt like they couldn’t admit to liking or look at sexual stuff. That’s just bullshit. Go ahead, explore. Don’t do it because someone is forcing you. If you don’t want to do it a woman should never feel forced to do it. But it’s really good to explore, even if she decides she doesn’t like it, it’s just good to give herself that opportunity.

Watching movies can be very positive in the sense that they get you in touch with your own inner fantasies and what turns you on. In terms of having an interest of getting into the porn industry, I always caution women that they better really do it because they really want to do it because it will follow you around forever. It never goes away and we still live in a culture that’s hypocritical and unforgiving. We’re a culture that rents and buys and watches these movies by the hundreds of thousands and yet still condemns the women who are in them for the most part; so women better know that. And they better be OK with their families knowing and seeing them, their kids if they have or are going to have children one day, which can be very hard on children, and they better be OK with their co-workers knowing and seeing. Combine with the fact that a lot of men are going to have a real hard time that you broke one of the biggest taboos in our culture, which is to perform sexually for others to view. I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s a performance, it’s an art form, but most people in this world would not agree with me still.

SH: What do you feel are the negatives and positives about porn?

Royalle: I think the negatives and positives about porn are really what people make them. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the creation of sexually explicit material. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people viewing other people making love and having sex. I think it can be a great teaching tool. I think it can be just fun. There’s nothing wrong with watching something to get stimulated so that you can enjoy your own sexuality, your own feelings and desires. It’s great if it helps the couple become stimulated and keeps their sex lives alive. We all know that to be together monogamously for a long time isn’t always easy, and anything that can help in that endeavor, that desire is a great thing. Of course we’re talking about people of consenting age on both sides. The negative I would say, it only becomes a negative if someone decides to create material that distorts sexuality, if it shows brutality in any way, non-consensual acts. It’s negative when someone forces someone to view it when they don’t want to. It becomes when someone with an addictive personality becomes involved with it. I don’t think porn itself is addictive. I think it’s the person with the addictive personality or compulsive disorder that might use it. But again, it’s not really porn’s fault, it’s an addictive personality. So there’s not a lot negative about porn other than what humans make of it or how they make it.

SH: What are your feelings towards producers and directors who make very extreme, hardcore porn that crosses the edge sometimes?

Royalle: I haven’t watched a lot of it, and that’s the beauty of living in a democratic society is that you don’t have to watch it. I don’t particularly like them. I don’t like people who get women and young women to do things they might regret one day, but there are women who do like to do what they’re doing in those movies. I know their movies upset some people but again, I’m a believer in free speech and the First Amendment, and if you want to live in a free society you have to accept the fact that some people are going to do things you may not agree with but that’s their right, and you don’t have to look. As long as it’s consensual, and someone isn’t actually being forced or physically hurt, then it’s perfectly legal to do it, and that’s the bottom line.

SH: How do you feel about the MILF phenomenon that’s going on in porn?

Royalle: It’s funny because I had a long discussion with Nina Hartley about this because she read that I have a distaste for it. The reason I have a distaste for the whole concept—I really haven’t seen any of it—but what I don’t like about it is that it basically fetishizes women of a certain age. I think that if anything, the adult industry really perpetuates the whole idea that the younger the woman, the more desirable she is. We’re such an ageist culture already. I find that the reality is that while yes, I can see where men really get off on the idea of being with a perfectly nubile malleable, easily influenced young woman, the truth of the matter is that the older the person—and I say person because I think this is true of women and men—the older we get, really the far more interesting and sexually interesting we become and therefore far sexier if we take care of ourselves of course.

I’ve always had a variety of ages in my movies. I find very young people uninteresting, and I don’t feature them in my movies if I don’t have to. I try not to feature people much younger than 24 or 25. They’re babies, they’re uninteresting. I just think that women of substance . . . I mean these MILF movies, that’s any woman over 30 for god’s sake. It’s ridiculous. We women don’t even discover our true sexuality, the richness of our sexuality until our mid-30s and onward. I know myself. The movies I was in I was nothing compared to the woman I became. Nothing. People are seeing a shadow, a diamond in the rough. So it just bothers me that what they’re doing basically is that they are fetishizing older, supposedly so-called older women, when really women of all ages should be a part of any adult movie, and should be shown and featured for their  beautiful, intelligent, experienced, sophisticated woman she is. And not just as some frustrated housewife who has sex with young men. I don’t find young men that interesting either. The whole thing, it’s yet another example of the adult industry’s refusal to grow up and become a mature intelligent, sophisticated art form.

SH: Are you happy today?

Royalle: Most of the time! [Laughs] I’m very proud to have taken something that could have been a dead end, which is to act in porno films, and turn it into something that I feel really proud of. I feel like I have left my mark. If I do nothing else, I’ve certainly left behind a legacy that I feel proud of, and that makes me happy.