Not a porn story

>> The Girl Next Door profiles adult-film queen Stacy Valentine

by MATTHEW HAYS

"I find it very, very trippy that anyone would want to see my life," says porn star Stacy Valentine, from the L.A. set of a porn movie. "It's very flattering, really it is."

Valentine, an award-winning porn actress with a string of adult-entertainment hits on her C.V., is busy promoting her link to the decidedly more mainstream strain of filmmaking, the feature-length film about her life and career. Since premiering at Sundance last year, The Girl Next Door has drawn a fierce body of reviews (overwhelmingly positive) and droves of additional fans.

Directed by Christine Fugate, the film is an unblinking look at the porn trade through Valentine's eyes, from her rough beginnings (her first, rather unpleasant husband pushed her into modelling nude) to her trials and tribulations on the set (at one point, she's forced to do some sweeping on the outdoor set she's on, after getting bitten by ants).

Promoting porn and promoting a documentary are two very, very different things, confirms Valentine. "The porn exposure is based entirely on looks and nudity. People really view the documentary as more valid and acceptable. It's about real life."

Naturally, the film includes some hardcore footage of blond, buxom Valentine performing for the cameras. But Fugate fleshes out her profile with interviews with Valentine's adoptive mother and stepfather, who unconditionally love Valentine, while acknowledging they've never actually watched one of her porn tapes. ("That would be like incest," says mom at one juncture).

Lesbian leanings

The Girl Next Door also evokes the age-old arguments about the exploitative nature of porn. Valentine is up front about her beginnings as a nude model, something prompted by her overbearing husband.

"The whole thing started because he wanted a threesome with me and another woman. But there aren't a lot of lesbians I could find in Oklahoma, where we were. So he sent off a photo of me to a magazine, and I won the Girl Next Door Contest and I was flown off to do this shoot. He said, 'Bring back a lesbian.' But it's not like that--it's a business. So he said, 'What about movies?' At first, I was disgusted by the idea, but I grew more used to it."

The irony of her husband's employment suggestion is that Valentine's success in the business ultimately empowered her with enough economic independence that she was able to leave him. "I left a bad marriage for porn. If someone had offered me a million dollars to do pottery, I would have done that, but no one offered. I'm just glad I ended up on top, no pun intended."

The truth about plastic

And then there are the moments of horror, including no-holds-barred shots of Valentine's extensive plastic surgery. Breast implants are removed and replaced and there's a crash course in liposuction (including shots of the fat that comes out, pink and bloody, as it's slurped into a long glass cylinder). "I had no hesitation about exposing the surgery," reports Valentine. "If one person who's thinking about plastic surgery sees that scene, they'll know what it's about. It's actually very violent. I'll never have it again, unless it's to reduce my breasts again."

There's certainly a good deal of humour in The Girl Next Door, from the rock-bottom dialogue in clips from her porn movies, to the wildly sleazy people who hang out on the sets of the films. But porn types are pretty easy targets; when the film really reaches excellence is when it manages to evolve into a sensitive love story.

The romance comes in the form of Julian, a white-hot babe who also works in the porn biz, who lives with Valentine and insists he wants to make things work. I found myself rooting for the two of them, who try to make it despite the odds of working in such a strange business.

"Sadly, I don't think romance can flourish during involvement in the porn business," says Valentine. "You lose that intimacy. At the end of the day it's like, 'Hi, I just got home from having sex with what's-his-name.' You lose that intimacy that's very important between two people." :

The Girl Next Door opens Friday, May 19 at the Cinéma du Parc