So what would I change if I could?

I did change a couple of things. My skin is sensitive and very pale, which means I used to get wicked razorburn. I tried every kind of shaving cream on the market. Straight razors, disposable bics, and high tech five blade gizmos meant for men’s faces. Hot water, cold water, and room temperature water. I also tried diaper rash ointment, aftershave, exfoliating with pastes ranging from expensive scrubs to olive oil and coffee grounds. Basically, I threw everything in Duane Reade at it and nothing helped much. Finally, I had lazer hair removal done. I (hopefully) permanently killed the majority of hair follicles on my legs and over half of my bikini area/vulva. I’m really happy with it, although if I get a yearning for 70s style mega bush I’m going to be stuck looking for merkins.

My eyebrows have been subjected to overzealous tweezing, partially my own fault as a teenager and partially by makeup artists. I’d love to have that 1/8th inch at the inner corners back, and you wouldn’t believe the amount of weird potions from Sephora I’ve purchased in an attempt to regrow them. The weird potions in question are kind of like rogaine for your eyebrows, and none of it works. I did consider putting actual rogaine on my face, but then someone informed me that this is what eyebrow pencils are for. 

The inside though - if I had the ability to want changes made to the inside of my body and have it happen, I’d have a to-do list a mile long. I’d want nerves that will never get pinched again, I’d want to fix whatever it is that makes migraines happen. I would want joints that don’t snap-crackle-pop every morning and sometimes in the middle of the day because I’ve put forty or fifty years worth of strain in them in my twenty-six years of life. Then I would start asking for superpowers like flight and telepathy… teleportation… and a pony… with sparkly hooves. We’ve gotten way off topic here.

I would not change my breasts. Digital Playground offered me breast augmentation surgery when I first started working with them, and I declined. They offered again a couple of months later, I declined a second time, and I haven’t heard a word from them about it since. I wouldn’t change anything about the appearance of my vulva, either. At the last appearance I did, someone brought me a photo to sign. It was a production still from Nurses, and something didn’t look right. Here’s a closeup:

Yep. My inner labia are missing. My clitoral hood has disappeared as well. I think they might have actually just put someone else’s vulva on me. I was pretty grumpy about it, am still kind of grumpy about it, and if I had one ridiculous wish that was going to be fulfilled it wouldn’t have anything to do with physical appearance or function, it would be to Darth Vader style choke the person who electronically cut off some really important parts of my pussy and stuck the finished product on the internet. My first guess would be Australia and their habit of labeling protruding labia offensive.

I see little tweaks in advertising materials or magazine spreads as the a modern equivalent to makeup or foundation garments. When it comes to drastic changes or  surgery though, I prefer to keep my body parts the way they are.

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. 

My flight landed an hour early. The gorgeous, wonderful man picking me up was running on time, which meant that I had a good 45 minutes to kill at the airport. When this happens I sometimes tweet that it’s q&a time. Some of the questions are really just compliments, some are queries as to when I’ll have a new movie out or what month my Penthouse spread was in, some are unintelligible or vaguely insulting, and some are really, really good but require more than 140 characters to answer. One of the last sort involved how I feel about my body, and what I would choose to change about it if I could change things. I’ve seen this pretty frequently since I started working in the naked lady business, along with questions about what I eat, what my workout regimen is, if I feel pressure to get plastic surgery or not, declarations of thanks for having what is perceived as a non-standard body type in the porn industry (the “standard” adult performer body is a whole tangent for another day.) These questions come almost exclusively from women.

This shouldn’t be surprising, because I do put my body out there for public viewing and body image issues permeate our culture. There are constant discussions calling for laws against runway models being under a certain weight, entire television shows devoted to the morbidly obese, fad diets endorsed by physicians, and jokes about women asking if a dress makes them look fat. The ubiquitousness of Facebook and other social networking sites drives some people to photoshop their profile pictures in the interests of putting their best foot forward. Tumblr recently felt moved to ban blogs dedicated to glorifying things like cutting and eating disorders. About a week after my first nude photoset went live on godsgirls.com, I got a message on myspace from an emaciated looking girl telling me that I was her thinspiration. 

So let’s talk about my body: I’ve always been active. I took a lot of dance lessons as a child and planned on trying to dance professionally. I lucked out genetically and have the right frame for it. Shortly after I blew out some important parts of my lower body (metatarsal bones… knees…) I gave up on being a ballerina and moved to an east coast city where people walk everywhere, where stairs are the only option half the time. I still constantly fidgeted, climbed stuff, took recreational classes in low-impact things like belly dancing, and picked up extra cash as a gogo dancer in nightclubs. Once I found a place to train, I started taking aerial acrobatics. I see my body as a pile of meat and bones that carries my brain around and lets me do some really cool stuff. All of the really cool stuff listed in this paragraph happens to burn a lot of calories.

Doing things that burn a lot of calories means you need to eat a lot of calories. Brains need fat in order to function properly. Fat is what breasts and squeezable butts are made out of. I eat vegetables out of habit and because they do some vague healthy things for the digestive tract. I also eat cheeseburgers, milkshakes, pizza, fried food, and have a bizarre life-long obsession with Cheez-It crackers dipped in suburban-grocery-store-spreadable-fancy-cheese. Goldfish will do in a pinch but just aren’t the same. Fun Fact: I am absolutely horrified by mayonnaise. Food is really important. Sometimes I get busy during a weekend of appearances and forget to eat all day. I get really irritable and bitchy. The fuse on my temper gets shorter. My brain gets fuzzy, it takes a few seconds to find the right word for something or I can’t locate my wallet when it’s sitting right in front of me. Then I have to make up for the missed meals by downing two containers of ice cream in a single sitting (insert “My life is so tragic” sarcasm here). I have to make up for it so I can think properly, and because bony is not sexy. It is my job to be sexy. Also, if my breasts get any smaller my fancy lingerie is going to stop fitting properly and replacing the bra collection would be a monumental task.

On to the subject of my body being necessary for my job: Digital Playground, the company that I perform in adult films for, gets upset with me if I show up for a movie looking too thin. They like to make money, so their concern that I keep a certain amount of body fat implies that skinny is not mass-marketable in a sex symbol kind of way. When Digital puts my images through the photoshop glamour machine, they bump me up a half-cup size or more and add thickness to my hips. They take out the occasional ingrown hair or pimple, which is really awesome. Male fans of porn say nice things about my ass, or my personality. I don’t look at what they say on message boards anymore. To my face they say they appreciate the way I smile when I’m being pounded, but as far as I know no one has ever said that they fap to my ribcage.

“No one has ever said that they fap to my ribcage.” seems like a fantastic line to end on for now.

(or: Stoya vs. Lady Porn Day Part 2: The Twat Talk Just Keeps On Comin’)

“Stoya’s experience is that the porn industry cares about what her body – including her vagina – looks like because of production value. That I understand: if the vagina was the bedroom of a house, each wall should be painted, the floor should be finished, the glass installed in the windows and a door frame put in place. Each vagina – and cock, and anus, and mouth – should look finished and clean.
However, mainstream porn – and the cosmetic industry, and mainstream media – has gone further than that. They’ve homogenized vaginas into a single “preferred” look that screams pre-pubescence: tight, light-colored and completely hairless labia, with a bare pubic mound (okay, sometimes there’s a liiiiittle tuft) and a bleached anus. Not only must the bedroom be “finished and clean,” but every window should be square, every door made from the same wood, every wall painted beige.”

-Reply by Jennifer Nicole via the Demoiselles

Uh… hey ladies… I kind of really hate to break this to you… but I work in mainstream porn. Digital Playground, the company that I’ve been with for the entirety of my hardcore career, they’re about as mainstream as you can get.

They’re everywhere. I can’t walk down the street in a major metropolitan area without seeing my face (or butt cheeks) in the window of an adult store. That Pirates movie was cut into a softcore flick and Blockbuster carries it. When Vivid still had a booth at the Adult Entertainment Expo, Digital Playground’s was sandwiched between them and Hustler.

Google ‘em real quick. Digital Playground is the company that launched Jesse Jane and Tera Patrick. That very same mainstream porn company sends someone running outside with an umbrella if they see me wander into the harsh LA sunlight on set. They don’t want me beige. DP’s main director, Robby D., is the one that got me to grow my pubic hair out in the first place.

Aside from my desire to defend the company that I’ve directly worked for and can speak from personal experience on, there really is plenty of pubic hair in porn, a variety of labia sizes/shapes, and a reasonable amount of different vulva colorings. I’m starting to wonder how you arrived at the opinion that this pre-pubescent pudenda look is so prolific in the adult industry.

Oh, and thanks for posting that sweet photo of my sweet outfit from AVN this year, but I only made the skirt. The top is a vintage Vivienne Westwood ebay find. I should really re-check that post and see if my wording is misleading or unclear.

I am a porn star.

I am a lady that makes porn.

I hear a lot from women about how they are uncomfortable with their vaginas. They wonder if it looks right, smells right, is the right color, shape, size, proportionate, if their labia stick out too much (or even not enough).

I hear that they appreciate my comfort with my own protruding labia and take it as validation that they don’t need a hairless “coin slot” vulva where everything is all tucked in in order to be attractive.

It’s nice to hear that ladies like my body and like that I run around with no clothing on sometimes, but seriously, you need to understand something.

Dudes do not give a fuck.

I’m focusing on female/male sexual interaction here because men that only have sex with men have reasons for not wanting to touch your pretty lap flower that have nothing to do with its scent or aesthetic value, and I really hope that women who have sex with women are already openly down with the fact that pussies come in a wide and beautiful array of looks, feels and smells.

But seriously, dudes that are into chicks don’t give a fuck.

Porn dudes don’t give a fuck.

Dudes that I have sexual things to do with in my off time do not give a fuck.

I don’t give a fuck either. Personally, if I am touching the vagina of someone I find attractive, I am much more focused on joy that I am touching it and figuring out what the best way to make it orgasm is.

I’m pretty sure I missed #ladypornday on rabbitwrite.com. That’s fine because the only days for me that aren’t lady-porn-days are usually rhinestone-something-within-an-inch-of-its-life-and-practice-removing-it-gracefully days or lay-around-with-little-clothing-on-and-discuss-sex days, which are really only semantically different. I think anything that encourages more of an open discussion and dialogue about sexuality is wonderful. I did, however, feel the need to respond to something written by The Demoiselles for #ladyporn day. In the piece, the writer says

“Because looks are everything when someone’s about to give you an orgasm.
…well, okay, maybe in porn they are.”

and I just can’t let that go without replying to it. On the porn sets that I have been on, the director, production company, camera guy, etc. care what the vaginas look like. They care for the same reason that a contractor might leave a light switch plate off in his own home but really ought to make sure every detail of a home they are building for someone else is perfect. We are producing a product and every detail should have the highest production value possible.

But the male talent? They don’t care. They get paid to have fun with the most meticulously groomed ladies available to the adult industry, and (in my experience) even if you’re having sex with them off set just for fun they don’t give a flying rats ass what kind of half grown out razorburned disaster area you’ve got going on in your crotch as long as it doesn’t look diseased and you’ve taken a shower recently. Even then, the shower might be negotiable.

Men outside of the porn industry that I’ve had sex with don’t care. There was one who couldn’t stand to look at the bloody mess that period sex created because he associated all that blood with somehow hurting me, but if a towel was down and the lights were off, it didn’t matter at all. Men in my personal life don’t expect me to be perfectly groomed, over glossed and decked out in fake eyelashes, nor do they expect the C cup breasts that I appear to have on my box covers.

Please… get to know your vagina. Find out what it looks like in various states of arousal. Find out what it smells like over the course of your monthly cycle. Get in there with a mirror and a speculum and really get to know it. Whatever it does is right for it, and the only time you should be concerned is when your Gynecologist is or if it’s doing something out of character. Don’t let a sexual partner tell you something that’s normal for your body is gross or wrong. If they do, don’t let them back until they’re ready to deal with the reality of sex.

But seriously. Dudes… they aren’t really known for noticing details. They usually don’t give a fuck.