Candida Royalle: Feminist Porn Pioneer
This episode is about Candida Royalle, a porn star in the golden age of porn and went on to found Femme Productions, making ethical porn for women in the 1980s and 90s during massive cultural and technological change. Critically she kept a diary her entire life documenting the personal, political, and social changes that she lived through and in some cases, created.
Born Candice Vadala in 1950, Candida grew up in a chaotic home. But even as a child, Candida began documenting her life in journals—a habit that would later become part of her archival legacy. By the late 1960s, she was attending Parsons School of Design, studying art and exploring sexuality amid the women’s liberation movement.
Like many artists in her generation she felt called to San Francisco’s queer counterculture, where she acted with the Cockettes, posed nude for artists, and lived in a commune. She experimented with psychedelics, joined the avant-garde, and fell into the emerging porn scene organically—first through loops, low budget single shots of sex acts and then went on to feature in films. She wasn’t starry-eyed about it. As she later recounted, porn offered independence, income, and a stage—but not respect.
Her film career flourished in the 1970s, landing roles in Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls and The Analyst. But Candida also fell into heroin addiction, which she eventually kicked. As she was rebuilding herself, she began to dream of a different kind of porn—one that prioritized women’s pleasure, and aesthetic quality.
In 1984, alongside videographer Lauren Neimi and her then-husband Per Sjölin, she founded Femme Productions. Their films featured foreplay, safe sex, and consent. She was one of the first to require condoms on set, which was both revolutionary and critical during the AIDS crisis. Femme’s debut film, Femme, included vignettes about lesbian desire, soap opera fantasies, and cosmetics counter seductions, all filmed with warmth and care.
While mainstream porn mocked feminist critique, Candida leaned into it. She appeared on talk shows like Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Dr. Ruth, debating figures like Catharine MacKinnon. She became the public face of the idea that porn could be ethical, empowering, and sexy.
Behind the scenes, she was part of Club 90, a group for adult film workers that doubled as a political engine. People like Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Hart, Gloria Leonard, and Veronica Vera advocated for sex worker rights, mutual support, and the right to pleasure on their own terms.
Candida persisted in a changing industry. VCRs had made porn widespread, but also saturated. By the 1990s, amateur porn and increasingly explicit Hollywood films squeezed the middle ground where Candida operated. Femme couldn’t keep compete with cheaper, rougher content marketed to male audiences. But she continued to produce erotic and educational content in the 1990s.
She also became a prominent speaker, addressing audiences at the Smithsonian, college campuses, and sex therapy conferences. She published How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do, expanding her influence.
In 2009, Candida was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her sister Cynthia and her Club 90 sisters cared for her until her death. She passed in 2015, leaving behind an unmatched legacy.
Historian Jane Kamensky, who appears in the episode, helped preserve that legacy. Kamensky acquired Candida’s journals, letters, and business records for Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, ensuring her story would be studied alongside feminist giants like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon.
Kamensky puts it plainly, “Candida was one of the few figures in the sex industry to tell her story from the inside out. Her archive isn’t an outsider’s voyeuristic account—it’s a firsthand narrative of a woman who shaped the medium and the conversation around it.”
Candida Royalle didn’t just react to the anti-porn wave—she offered an alternative. Her films, her writing, her public presence all asked: What if porn made sex better for everyone? What if women didn’t have to choose between sexual agency and social respectability?
Today, the world is still catching up to those questions.
The Oldest Profession Podcast reminds listeners that sex workers have always been part of the story. Each episode focuses on an “old pro” from history, contextualizing that figure in their own time and connecting their story to the ongoing struggle for sex worker rights. Kaytlin Bailey created The Oldest Profession Podcast to be an accessible and entertaining resource for anyone who wants to learn more about sex workers and our place in history.
Read
Royalle, Candida. Candida Royalle Papers, 1920-2017. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1920.
This collection includes correspondence, diaries, business records, photographs, audiovisual materials, memorabilia and more, documenting the life and career of Candida Royalle.
Bronstein, Carolyn, and Whitney Strub, eds. Porno chic and the sex wars: American sexual representation in the 1970s. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 2017.
This book expands upon the content of the NOTCHES article as Gillian Frank and fellow contributors provide a thorough history and analysis of 1970s American culture as it relates to sexuality and pornography.
Kamensky, Jane. Candida Royalle & The Sexual Revolution: A History from below. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2024.
This book by historian Jane Kamensky chronicles the life of Candida Royalle and situates her life and work in the context of the sexual revolution.
Royalle, Candida. How to tell a naked man what to do: Sex advice from a woman who knows. New York, NY: Touchstone, 2006.
In this book Royalle shares her expertise in the area of sex and relationships, with a particular emphasis on confidence and creativity.
“Archive for Candida Royalle.” Archive for Candida Royalle, n.d.
Candida Royalle’s memorial website includes her biography, the Femme Film catalogue, and interviews and publications.
Frank, Gillian. “Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: A Roundtable on the Politics of Sexual Representations in the 1970s – Part 1.” Web log. NOTCHES (blog). NOTCHES, March 2, 2017.
This article, written by gender and sexuality historian Gillian Frank and posted to the history of sexuality blog NOTCHES, discusses the sexual revolution and explosion of pornography in the 1970s. It sheds light on the social and political responses to mainstream sexual content, analyzes how pornography interacted with existing social institutions, and reaffirms the importance of studying this chapter of history.
Roberts, Sam. “Candida Royalle, 64, Dies; Filmed Erotica for Women.” The New York Times, September 11, 2015.
Following her passing, the New York Times published an obituary for Candida Royalle, highlighting her work in feminist filmmaking.
Sposato, Jesse. “My Glimpse into The Wonderful World of Candida Royalle.” Dame Magazine, December 9, 2017.
Sposato recalls her experience interviewing Royalle; they discussed her work and opinions on contemporary feminist adult filmmaking.
“The Pill and the Sexual Revolution.” PBS, n.d.
This article touches upon the ways in which the advent of an oral contraceptive for women intersected with the sexual liberation movement and exposed long standing cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality.
Wissot, Lauren. “Annie Sprinkle on Reuniting with Golden Era Porn Legends for CineKink’s ‘A Tribute to Club 90.’” Filmmaker Magazine, February 24, 2015.
In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, founding member of Club 90 Annie Sprinkle discusses how Club 90 came to be, and how it revolutionized the adult industry and the lives of the women who worked in it. Sprinkle calls attention to how Candida Royalle was instrumental in the distribution of their work.