Q: What’s the difference between a woman and a Twinkie?

Eva Green.

A: Women have a shorter shelf-life.

Not very funny but trade the word ‘woman’ for ‘pornstar’ and it’s true.

Call me callow, but given the choice between a healthy, happy normal looking woman with a wicked laugh, and an Eva-Green-alike with the same character I’m probably going to take the hotty. I want a Ferrari more than a Ford. I’m happier with Tag Heur than Swatch, and I don’t think comparing my feelings about women with my fondness for high-end consumer goods makes me a sexist (what’s wrong with being sexy anyway?)

I’m safe in the knowledge I speak for the majority – if you’re the kind of person who think looks aren’t important you’re either gorgeous and stupid, or ugly and bitter. Models will never look like ‘average’ people because average isn’t what we aspire to be, you may as well argue for average artists, athletes or actors. Exceptional people are humanity’s muse and looking at our stupid fat asses it’s clear we need the inspiration.

The people who do best in the jizz-bizz are as far to the right of the bell-curve in terms of looks, charisma and sexual-athleticism as the industry can dredge-up. Unfortunately, given the choice between coke or meth, catwalks or a cock-up-the-ass, rock-stars or suitcase pimps, 99% of beautiful-teens choose the former, mainstream, options limiting porn’s talent pool to those without the talent to act, the looks to model or a voice to sing. A crew of the insane, imperfect and anyone from Eastern Europe who gets naked before they realize there are other more lucrative options.

Tom Hanks used to diet and train but can now hide his 38 inch waist (I know his costumier) behind well cut cloth, corsetry and clever camera angles. Heidi Klum had to work harder before fame guaranteed the best make-up artists, re-touchers and photographers would work to keep her looking 22. For pornsters life gets harder, not easier, over time.

They start working at their peak, unseen and novel. As time passes the pressure to go harder, look better and reinvent increases while the best shooters insist they either work under contract, or abandon them for fresher talent. Each year brings a step down the glamor ladder, another wrinkle and fewer jobs. Looking good isn’t easy under raw tungsten lights, contorted and spread, being screwed by a guy who probably didn’t read the manual which came with his camcorder.

Add a public who doesn’t understand the work put into emulating the mainstream performers most pornsters wished they were, and the real risk that of involuntarily voiding, or tasting, your bowels and you have a pressure on food and body image which makes the modeling world’s fight with anorexia and bulimia look laughably manageable.

It’s then either blackly comic, or worrying, when the public – quickly followed by sleeping pundits everywhere – start talking about how unhealthy Jesse Jane’s looking.

Or how despite endless surgical tweaks Jenna looks as if she could spear fish with her arms.

Or why Naomi’s carrying less fat than a salmon fillet after just a year at the coalface.

It’s no coincidence all these women work primarily in video. Web-based performers tend to be more secure financially and emotionally, avoiding the fear of being dumped, broke and homeless. Having a one-to-one relationship makes it easier for fans to fall in love and thus less likely to move on when they discover their fantasy is mortal. On video the fantasy, heavily pushed by the producers, is all there is.

Porn consumers have been traditionally enthusiastic about a range of body-types but a growing trend towards unhealthy thinness is slowly opening porn to one of the few criticisms it’s previously managed to skirt; the pressure on performers to starve themselves in order to appear ‘normal’ for the genre; a situation the worlds of fashion and film have accepted for decades.

Is this the depressing downside of libertine life? A sign that meth’s the new drug of choice? Proof the rise of gag-intensive blowjobs and dirty ass-to-mouth is making performers scared to eat? Or just an over-reaction to a few thin women?

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