I used to be firm and shiny and round until a new moat for me was found that squished me and poured me into a pail and decided to call me a tomato cocktail.

Now people slurped me through a straw, instead of nibbling on me like before.

Mix me with vodka and call me Bloody Mary.

Mix me with hot sauce, and I get pretty scary, but I still use my maiden name, because

when it comes right down to it, I'm still the same.

So if you want me for some salivating flavor,

Just test the waiter for the little tomato. I clicked onto Kandida Royale's website from a public computer the other day

and got a message saying that her site was blocked due to pornographic content.

For some reason I was surprised, though I don't know why I should be. Candida has been in the adult film industry since the mid-1970s, when she started working as an actress on the West

coast before moving to New York. Maybe I was surprised because in some respects you wouldn't meet

a more unexpected, even accidental person in adult film.

For a start, she's lived many lives. From a difficult upbringing in Brooklyn, political activism in college,

a flower child in San Francisco, an artist, a singer in theaters and clubs, and then the adult film career.

She's a determined deep thinker who has strong complex feelings

about the industry she's been part of for so long.

But she's bold and fearless too.

Whenever faced with a fork in the road,

Candida has a knack for choosing the direction that will challenge and grow her most.

In 1984, she launched her groundbreaking production company Fem Productions,

with the goal of making

erotic films that reflected women's emotional and social lives. Detractors accused her of removing

the danger from sex. But is there anything more subversive than getting housewives and working

...