Our 4 favorites 
Her name comes up whenever people talk about porn made with women in mind, without anyone always quite knowing why. Candida Royalle, born Candice Vadala in Brooklyn on 15 October 1950 and died on 7 September 2015, was an adult film actress, then a director and producer. But summing her up by her filmography would miss the best part. In the 1980s, she made a rare move: stepping to the other side of the camera to film desire through women’s eyes. Activist, author, sex toy designer… Here’s who she really was.
Who was Candida Royalle, really?
Three hats, one woman. Candida Royalle started in front of the camera, in 1970s New York porn, then moved into directing and producing. A truly unusual path in an industry where women almost always stayed in front of the lens, rarely behind it. That turn is what makes her a reference among feminist porn actresses.
If you look for her in old catalogues, be patient. Over her career she used a whole host of pseudonyms, including Candice Chambers and Candice Ball, and the spellings vary from one database to another (Candida Royale, Candice Royalle…). It’s almost always the same woman. For dates and facts, her Wikipedia page sets the record straight.
From New York dance to film sets
Before the film sets, there was New York. Raised by her father and stepmother after her mother left when she was just a year and a half old, Candice grew up surrounded by music, dance and art. She attended the High School of Art and Design, then Parsons and the City College of New York. Dancer, model, artist: you don’t become a director by chance when you’ve grown up with creation and movement.
It was in that buzzing New York that she entered porn, in the mid-1970s, and made dozens of films. The stage, though, wasn’t enough for long. On set, she watched, understood how it all worked, and one question kept nagging at her. Why was everything filmed for a single gaze, men’s?
In 1983, she co-founded Club 90 with Gloria Leonard, Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Vera: a support group of adult actresses who met to talk about their work, their bodies, their lives. Moving behind the camera was nothing like a career change. It was a seizing of power, the same one you find today in a director like Olympe de G.
Femme Productions: how she invented feminist porn
The real turning point came in 1984. With Lauren Niemi, Candida Royalle founded Femme Productions (also known as Femme Films) and released her first film, Femme. Her bet? To film sexuality from women’s point of view, with an aesthetic care close to auteur erotica, with emotions, time, and real room for female pleasure. Her films also spoke to couples, an audience the industry superbly ignored.
Distributors didn’t believe in it for a second. So she distributed her films herself, and threw them this challenge, reported by Terrafemina: “Try it, you’ll see my films will keep selling, unlike yours, which are disposable products.” The future rather proved her right. In 1985, on Phil Donahue’s show, she stood up to Catharine MacKinnon, a figure of anti-porn feminism, who claimed the industry had been trying to win women over “from day one”. Her reply was instant: “No, that’s not true.”
Time to clear up a nuance that often gets confused. Porn for women aims first to speak to women’s gaze and pleasure. Feminist porn adds a political stance: shooting conditions, consent, the representation of bodies and desire. Candida Royalle stands right at that hinge, shaped by sex-positive feminism, the movement that champions a free sexuality rather than a guilty one. The path she opened has since been taken by others: we introduce the feminist and ethical porn directors who carry it on. And to measure the mark she left, read Terrafemina’s tribute (in French).
Activist, author, sex toy designer: her legacy
Candida Royalle never limited her commitment to film. In 1989, she signed the Post Porn Modernist Manifesto, written by Veronica Vera, which called for an artistic, emancipated pornography. She sat on the founding board of Feminists for Free Expression, joined AASECT, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, and gave talks as far as Europe.
Then, in 1999, she turned her attention to our bedside tables. With the Dutch designer Jandirk Groet, she launched Natural Contours, a line of vibrators unlike any other. No penis shape: curved pebbles that rest on the pubic mound to caress the clitoris and vulva from the outside. The Superbe model, in lemon yellow, has the curve of a computer mouse. She herself described them as closer to “high-tech mobile phones than erotic objects”. Neither shameful nor vulgar: simply beautiful. In 2004, she also published How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do, a guide to daring to tell your partner what you like.
She died of ovarian cancer on 7 September 2015, aged 64. Her influence, however, lives on: directors like Erika Lust are following the path she laid out. Her archives, including the diaries she had kept since the age of 11, are held at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library. They fed the biography historian Jane Kamensky devoted to her, published in 2024: Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution. An adult film actress studied as a figure of women’s history. We can imagine her smile.
FAQ: your questions about Candida Royalle
What is Femme Productions?
It’s the company Candida Royalle founded in 1984 with Lauren Niemi to produce erotic films made from women’s point of view. The idea: to show female desire and pleasure with real aesthetic care, far from the exclusively male gaze of standard porn. This project laid the foundations of feminist porn as we know it today.
What are her most notable films and works?
As a director, Femme (1984), Three Daughters (1986) and Christine’s Secret (1986) are among her flagship titles at Femme Productions. Beyond film, she published How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do (2004) and created the Natural Contours sex toy line (1999).
What did Candida Royalle die of?
She died of ovarian cancer on 7 September 2015, at the age of 64.
What’s the difference between feminist porn and porn for women?
Porn for women is above all about women’s pleasure and gaze. Feminist porn adds a political stance: consent, respectful shooting conditions, a fair representation of bodies and desire. Candida Royalle stands right at that junction, and is one of the pioneers of the movement.
