Like anyone (models, actors, tv personalities) who makes their living in front of cameras, my body is my product. Like anyone (athletes, dancers, construction workers) who does physical work, my body is my tool. When it comes to my-body-as-a-tool, I can do a decent job of evaluating myself. If I feel muscle strain in one part of my body way before other parts, that area needs to be strengthened. If something hurts in a bad-pain kind of way, I’m using it wrong and need to figure out how to use it right. If I intend to shoot an anal scene and decide it isn’t a good idea that day, I probably need more fiber or something. If I get winded ten minutes into a conditioning session, aerial hoop class or sex scene, I should lay off the cigarettes. See? Easy. Evaluating what my body *looks* like, on the other hand, can be a bit difficult. 

Cameras are not entirely accurate. They do strange things to faces. Some people look absolutely amazing in real life and it just doesn’t read well in photographs. The reverse is also true - some people look average to the naked eye and the camera reveals inhuman beauty. The lighting, the angle a picture is taken from, and what post-processing is done all affect what the subject of an image looks like as well. Try it with your cell phone. I guarantee in five minutes you can take pictures of yourself that make you say “Euuugh,” “Meh,” and “Ooooh.” Sometimes the picture that makes me go “Meh” is the one that looks best once they’ve all been put through the instagr.am filters. On Digital Playground’s sets, we shoot everything on the RED in very high definition. High definition video is somehow more accurate than the naked eye. Things that neither the makeup artist or I notice will stand out on the monitor, requiring a touch-up. A stray pubic hair, unseen that morning in the hotel bathroom with all the lights on, stands out on video. Fun Fact: The camera operators use the wrinkles on the outside corners of my eyes to pull focus. He says they’re the most detailed part of a face.

Mirrors are tricky. They provide a reflection, more than sufficient to make sure I don’t have last night’s mascara on my forehead or crazy-person hair. This reflection is also backwards. I don’t know the science of it, but I am pretty sure that something about the flipped image means it is also not entirely accurate. It’s impossible for me to look at my own face without a mirror, and the proportions of the rest of my body are skewed by the angle they’re being viewed from. Perception gets involved here as well. For instance, I’ve been known to see navy blue where someone else sees plum. Sometimes staring at the same thing for a long time (a common word, a hand, a leaf) removes it from context and warps the ability to see it in perspective. All of this means that I can never really see what I look like. No big deal, except for the fact that humans - especially in media and celebrity culture driven America - put so much stock in what people look like. Oh, and the fact that my job relies heavily on my appearance.

So how, if photographs (especially press materials) and mirrors aren’t entirely to be trusted, do I keep tabs on the aesthetic value of my body-as-a-product? I trust Digital to let me know if I’m outside the parameters of a healthy, marketable weight. I trust Steve Prue to let me know if I’m getting top heavy from all the aerial work and need to do some leg lifts or squats to balance out my lower body, because he does most of my adult magazine layouts lately and wants to be able to sell them. I trust everyone that I consider a friend to let me know if I have spinach in my teeth. 

When it comes to my body-as-something-that-carries-my-brain-around-and-walks-me-to-the-fabric-stores, I have this pair of jeans. I’m not a fan of pants, so I rarely wear them but I do throw them on occasionally to make sure the waistband isn’t tight and my ass still fills out the back. To riff off of Julene’s recent micro-post: Can I run around the block without collapsing? Am I healthy? Do my pants fit? Then I’m probably ok.