Bellesa

Bellesa states that the actress is cast first and can then choose a partner. It is not clear which films on the site this applies to and which of the more than 50 channels also
follow this procedure.

Performers are encouraged to communicate during filming, sex should be based on personal preferences according to the site’s self-description. A production assistant is responsible for the needs of the performers on set, providing them with hygiene articles, food and water.

Bellesa features many films from external production companies. According to Bellesa, these must also meet the site’s guidelines. We did not find any specifics on Bellesa about the code of conduct and how it is enforced.

We did not find any information about the payment of the performers.

(STI prevention / testing; access to safer sex supplies)

Performers are engaged in pre-production including consent, STI testing procedures, COVID testing, and day-of-shoot activities.

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… regarding practices, upload, shooting partners:

Sex at Bellesa is supposed to beconsensual and according to one’s own ideas/preferences; the actress decides what kind of sex she wants and sets her limits. A script is then written based on her preferences, at least that’s how Bellesa describes the process. We take a very critical view of Bellesa’s “no fake orgasms” policy, because the promise of “authentic” orgasms puts performers under unnecessary pressure and fails to recognise that making porn is a job and a performance.

Again, it is not clear how external films are handled and whether these rules are mandatory for all producers who work with Bellesa.

The performers correspond to the mainstream ideal of beauty, they are mostly young, cis, slim, non-disabled and mostly white. The male actors are often significantly older than their film partners.

Although Bellesa claims to appeal primarily to women, we actually see the male target audience addressed in the images and films. Bellesa uses a very binary and heteronormative representation of gender. This creates a limited view of what female pleasure is.

Lesbian content is also adapted to what a heterosexual, mainstream audience might expect (heteronormative representation).

Unfortunately, “porn for women” at Bellesa does not mean that racist, sexist and stereotypical categories are dispensed with. For example, the “soft” and “girl on girl” categories often include white, “feminine” young women who giggle a lot – it’s a shame that such clichés are used. Actors in the ‘rough’ category are often black men and thus racist stereotypes are being reproduced as well..

Many of the films on offer are produced by different companies, some of which specialize in this one problematic category.

If the performers are reduced to certain physical characteristics or role stereotypes in this way, we believe that this contradicts the
self-disclosure by Bellesa on the subject of consent.

The performers are not represented on the page, they are only listed by names and can be found via the search field or by tags. We think a site as big as Bellesa should take the time and effort to introduce the people who make all this content possible and give them a
platform.

The wording, like the films themselves, uses common clichés. The site relies more on expressive, very normative, glossy images than on words.

Bellesa advertises its own paying premium content. There are some pop-up windows and short clips for bellesa+ before the start of a video. There are also links to external porn sites.

Language: English

The site is easy to use, films can be filtered by actors or categories.

It is not entirely clear who is producing the films. Director Jackie St James is in charge of Bellesa’s in-house productions.

Content from over 50 porn channels is shown on Bellesa.