“Be patient,” Stephanie assured us, “when I am ready then we can do that.”

We never felt comfortable in the hard sell approach to these matters. Nobody wants to be responsible for encouraging someone to do something that later he or she might regret. At least, nobody that operates from a considerate consciousness and a humane respect for his or her fellow beings wants to pressure anyone into a porn career. Making amateur porn and becoming a porn star are things that need to come from the heart and soul of the truly sexual, unashamed, and uninhibitedly exhibitionistic of us. Stephanie so far had been so spare in words, soft in her tone, and shy in her demeanor that we wished to tread especially lightly in any conversations about doing more videos. However, just because she was quiet and not terribly extroverted, we should not have underestimated the sexual demon that lurked inside of tender, innocent, dainty Stephanie Swift.

The first clue was that she asked to work with Max Hardcore, the notorious producer distributed exclusively with us at the time. Only the truly freaky hardcore porn girls would request such a thing where so many others said “absolutely no fucking way” otherwise. We had told her about Max, the annihilator of assholes, the pugilist of puckered orifices, and the destroyer of derrieres.  And we showed her the footage of his scenes which some reviewers had described as being hard to look away from in the same way that is true of an accident on the freeway. But instead of scaring her straight back to amateur porn where one can do whatever, however, with whomever, she  wishes, Stephanie wanted us to make the introduction immediately.

For even a city the size of San Diego, most young adults that make the choice to go to Los Angeles feel that it is a big jump – LA represents another planet. For a young amateur porn model on her way to becoming a big time mainstream porn starlet, Los Angeles presents another universe entirely. There are agents, and producers, and people that alienate you because you challenge their space as competition to that piece of the stardom that shines hot with flashy cash. There are hardcore physically demanding sex scenes that you might not want to do but if you don’t then that person aligned directly behind you is going to land the part and collect the cocaine dusted do-re-mi.

We warned her. Max only shoots anal scenes. “I don’t want to do anal.” She said. “My boyfriend only wants me to be with girls.” She said.

We reminded her. Max doesn’t work with condoms in his anal sex scenes. “He can only have sex with me if he wears a condom” .

What about only working with girls?

At this point, we new Stephanie Swift was the kind of girl true fans of porn, amateur, pro, doesn’t matter, true fans love seeing REAL SEX.  Fans definitely know the difference between the one that  is really getting off… in the sense of getting off just on being in front of the camera and those performers who  are just going through the motions to get the job done. Unfortunately, since those truly hyper sexual sort of freaks that get off on that sort of kink don’t really form the majority of performers. We all would like to think otherwise, but that is just a fantasy. So, finding someone like Stephanie, with her erotic Eurasian good looks and potent sex drive, meant discovering that rare sort of person that really should make xxx movies and would obviously be a superstar.

And superstars sell videos.

Unfortunately, Stephanie was adamant about not wanting to go that route. She just wanted to be in videos and to be able to get her freak on; however, not at the risk of those well heeled La Jolla level wealthy parents of her handsome and well educated boyfriend finding out. Well, well, well, ok. We could respect that. She was welcome to be in as many of our videos as she wanted and if she ever changed her mind then we would talk about putting her in one of our “Here Comes” videos.

The “Here Comes” series from Homegrown Video was created to take people that wanted to become superstars in porn and give them the best possible vehicle and spotlight for navigating that path. This meant shooting an entire video of scenes featuring the model and getting a big shot photographer with a make-up artiste and an assistant or two to shoot a picture that we would put on the box cover. Then before the title released, we would contact the adult press and try to light a fire of publicity that would be burning furnace hot as soon as the video came out. At this point, the mainstream Los Angeles based porn companies that signed stars to lucrative contracts would come a ‘calling and then that model would be well on her way to fast money, rock star boyfriends, and snorting coke at swank parties in the Hollywood Hills. Stephanie Swift naturally was a candidate for shooting this sort  of title, where the ante was upped by such a greater investment of time and energy.  

At Homegrown, we had seen this condition before. Total orgasm junkie using porn to get her fix; possessed by a demon whore raised from some oozing, teeming jungle swamp of pure fucking muck. We could not contain her. She caused an emergency for more videotape when we realized that we had not brought enough to tame the sex beast inside her. All day Stephanie had been so quiet. Now her low, groaning, moans were starting up from some deep and profoundly sensual. Her body would convulse with spasms that every now and then would freeze her still, except for her toes, which would twitch like shrimp swimming away. At times we wondered if she was alive or dead, and the only way we could tell was the variety of colors that seemed to iridescently shimmer across her chest, shimmering from pert pretty breast to breast – colorful proof that she was in fact an alien sent to collect orgasmic energy with which to control the universe.

At Homegrown, we have a dedicated responsibility not to let that happen. No matter the consequences. Our mission is to make a world where sex is safe; says so right in the handbook.

When the situation was finally brought under control,  the cameras were smoking, all the other guys and girls in the room  were sweating, except Stephanie who apparently does not sweat, the room was literally melting in the dank sweet swampy smell of over four hours of people fucking. At the end, we all bowed out to just watch Stephanie get off. She created a sense of awe because she was just so intensely focused and concentrated on getting off. We knew what we were witnessing.

A star is porn.

Stephanie “Chinacat” Swift was introduced to us by a San Diego local who goes by the alias “Mark Giffy”. He had met her the day before on a set where Stephanie was set to perform her first scene. Unfortunately, according to Stephanie, the guy had trouble performing (remember, this was before the days of drugs like Cialis and Viagra). When we met, I could scarcely believe that she wanted to be in adult videos.  She was so quiet; shy to the point of being like an oblique liquid transparency of anything resembling a personality that I thought if I looked at her long enough then she would blow away and pop like a glistening bubble blown by a kid on a hot summer’s day. Upon asking her the standard array of questions though, would you like to be in a Homegrown Video, why would you like to be in amateur porn, what would you like to do in a xxx video, how far do you want to go in the adult industry, and questions like that then I realized what a completely complex person Stephanie actually is.

Stephanie was inspired by a big star at the time named Raquel Darrian. She simply lusted for the opportunity to have sex with her. In fact, Stephanie admitted that getting into porn would be an excellent way to indulge her bisexual tendencies since, as she explained, finding a girl to bring into her relationship with her boyfriend had been tough. (Some people have problems the rest of us wish we had!) The one hitch to the plan was the fact that Stephanie didn’t want her boyfriend’s parents to find out that she was making amateur sex videos or indulging in any other kind of naughty and inappropriately erotic pastimes. The parents were apparently dusty and crusty old money San Diegans that would sincerely not approve of such things.

However, no matter what her boyfriend’s parents thought, Stephanie was determined to make some amateur porn with us. If she felt that way about it, then there was just one way to determine if she was being sincere about it or not – put her in the middle of an orgy and see how well she accounts herself.  Our strategy for the stuff that we used to shoot ourselves was entirely based on the type of amateur porn submittal content that we like best; keep the cameras rolling as long as people are having fun and make sure you have enough tape to capture it all. There were two cameras that day and it was still hard to capture all the action, especially when Stephanie was practically melting them down in her pursuit of absolutely intense orgasms.

One question frequently debated in the hallowed halls of porn message boards and bedroom sets the world over centers upon the difference between amateur and pro porn. One side says how anything can be amateur when the people are going to be paid? The other side replies that amateur porn features people that aren’t porn stars because they don’t want to be porn stars, would never be able to pass themselves off as being porn stars, or don’t have enough porn movie credits to qualify as a porn star. The debate clouds into a haze of minute details though the moment one finds there are people who want to be porn stars and enjoy getting paid to fuck on video but tell themselves that staying in amateur porn is a great way to keep one’s friends and family from finding out that he or she is doing xxx.  Such was the case with Stephanie Swift, who we originally knew by the alias “Chinacat”, back in the days when she first entered the wild and wacking off world of  adult entertainment. (to be continued)