The Average Playmate

You’d love to read my email, I’m a lucky guy. Most days I aside from the business correspondence and notes from friends, I have personal messages from performers and models, a couple of invitations to parties on continents I’m not in, and a varied selection of nude photos of women I’ve never met. To those who may write in future, yes - I would like to see a couple of shots, just send them along.

Frequently the pictures are the kind I hate to see. A woman who’s been conned into paying for ‘glamour’ photography which she’s been convinced is the difference between a centerfold and an promotion to working the register. It’s not.

Anyone can spot a beautiful woman. I was driving down Melrose Avenue a couple of years ago and saw a tanned, pregnant woman outside a cafe. She was unfeasibly hot and the accident of her poise and bone structure was slowing traffic. Sitting down, her face almost obscured by insectoid sunglasses, you shouldn’t have been able to sex her and yet effortlessly, she’d caught the carnal attention of every hetrosexual male within a hundred feet. As she left my line of sight I realized it was Vanessa Williams, sans-make-up and probably at that point, well into her forties. If you’re gorgeous people can smell it, the problem is hiding it when you want people to stop falling for you and listen for a second. Heidi Klum, who’s also currently pregnant but I swear it’s not a fetish, would be in the first hotness percentile regardless of hair, make-up or womb-raiding baby Seal.

Unfortunately most of the photos I get aren’t from women who look anything like Vanessa Williams, Heidi Klum or anyone else who puts the ‘I’ in MILF. What I see is delusion. Emphatic emails from women with more confidence than honesty who, despite offering their services to Elite, Ford, Hefner, Flint and Don Juan “Magic” Johnson - haven’t been offered any work and want to know why, and what I’m going to do about it.

Which is why the following information about the ‘average’ playmate is so useful.

• Measurements: 35-23-35
• Weight: 115 pounds
• Height: 5′6″
• Age: 22
• Hair Color: 40% Blonde, 60% Something else
• And if you’re from Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, South Dakota or Vermont you’re either too ugly to apply or in with a great chance as there’s never been a playmate from those states.

Now the above information doesn’t mean that not fitting those statistics closes the door on a life in porn. The shortest Playmate was 4′11″ and the one I dated, was taller than me in any shoes at all, and I’m the best part of 6′4″. One of the most beautiful models working today, Aria Giovanni, is also one of the heaviest and no one cares. She’s stunning. Meanwhile Elle Williams has a child, no curves at all and no one stops to think that from navel to neck she’s pretty much an eight year old boy. The averages aren’t rules but being the exception means being exceptional and most people aren’t.

Glamour models need to be beautiful from the neck up and things shouldn’t fall apart when they take their clothes off. A really heavy model is a slim but curvy woman. If that seems vague I’ll help you out. If your stomach protrudes beyond your jeans when you’re standing up, every glamour model is slimmer than you are.

Porn performers can be less pretty but, the less pretty you are, the better body you need to have, and the better performances you need to give. Unlike models, performers are filmed from unflattering angles, by people who don’t know how to use their equipment, at the end of long days. When you see yourself on camera you’ll look worse than you do at home after a drink and a pep-talk, it’s brutal. No one ever thought to bleach their asshole until they saw it on a plasma screen and decided brown wasn’t their color.

There’s no kind way to tell someone they’re ten pounds off their fighting weight and if your face is more ‘interesting’ than stunning you’d better have a body that makes your face less of a draw. When Julia Roberts had to show some skin in ‘Pretty Woman’ almost two decades ago she was generally considered to be pretty hot, but the director called someone prepared to put in four hours of gym-time a day for all the shots of her body and the only part of Julia on the poster is her face. Not being able to make the grad is normal and hotness is hard work for most models so there’s always space for people prepared to put some work in.

Belladonna and Joanna Angel (who at 4′11″ is minature too) are both darlings of the alt crowd and neither’s conventionally beautiful but wit, talent and an honest take on your limitations can make imperfections irrelevant. If strangers don’t come up to you and say, ‘You should be in Playboy’ save yourself, and some minimum wage schmuck at Playboy the time and don’t submit your photo. Contact a licensed and bonded agent, lose the weight and show people what you can do.

Please don’t stop sending them to me though.