Smut with a soul (and other musings)

Anais Nin wrote her smut for a rich benefactor who always complained that she had too much story and not enough porn.  (I'm paraphrasing.)  But I'm with Anais. 

I watch porn sometimes.  Mostly it does little for me.  Too much of it is beautiful young women giving blow jobs to shlubby middle aged men.  There is no conversation between them.
I want to know about them.  Why is the actress there?  Is she really there of her own free will or has she been coerced, financially or some other way?  And what about her character?  What is she getting out of it?  Does giving a blow job to a man twice her age turn her on?  If so, why? 

When I write I try to answer questions like that.  My first novel, Mindgames,* explored the inner life of a sex slave, Mariah, in a dystopian future.  I wanted to know about her.  Her life is full of brutality.  Her agency is almost non-existent.  And yet, she has never given up hope.  Why not?  Where does her strength come from?  Where will it take her? 

I'm having trouble with my next novel.  It's also about a sex slave, but in a different world.  It's set in the 1990's United States.  After running up a debt to the mob, Belinda's father has sold her to the mob's brothel.  Unlike in Mindgames, the hero is no outsider.  He runs the brothel.  He feels bad about it.   But I don't know how to get past the fact that Vincenzo is a big part of the system that literally rapes Belinda. I try to write her so that she actually has a choice.  The whorehouse is better than her father's house.  She has friends.  Her sexual satisfaction matters to Vincenzo and to most of the johns. And yet . . .

How can Belinda fall in love with Vincenzo?  Even if he turns his back on everything and runs away with her?  How can she forgive him for what he has done not only to her but to her friends?  How can I construct an inner life of a strong woman with such terrible judgment?

* Outside the US, use this link to Mindgames.