How Pornography Challenged My Personal Beauty Standards

I grew up thinking beauty was blonde hair, big boobs, and a size 0/00 waist.

The beauty standard was quite hard in the 90s/00s, and many of us are still breaking what we thought was the norm. And many of us still believe even today that the pornstar look is big lips, big boobs, blonde hair, and a full-on bimbo aesthetic.

That’s a fetish. We call it bimbofication! I’ll cover that in a future story… 😏

As I’m sure many Millennial women witnessed–nearly every female celebrity bathed themselves in bleach and starved themselves in the name of “beauty”.

I didn’t wanna starve myself, and didn’t want to bleach my hair. Thus, I did not consider myself beautiful. However, in my experiences, I discovered that porn didn’t solely sexualize one type. There were many types of beauty displayed, which shifted my perception of beauty in ways I did not expect.

How Did I Get Here

I didn’t even realize I was supposed to “strive” for the beauty standard. I was a young Hispanic woman, with brown hair, and brown eyes. Also, I wasn’t skinny.

I didn’t have representation until I got older and stars like Jennifer Lopez (who also eventually went blonde) among others, were brought to the forefront in mainstream media. Still, my perception of beauty standards had been ingrained by then. No amount of representation was quite enough to shift the impressions I held as a young girl. 

I was also a young single mom, and money was scarce. Fortunately for me, a friend who could reasonably have been my father took me under his wing. He taught me the building blocks of adult industry marketing, having been contracted with numerous studios himself. He needed someone to help him out in his business, and said he’d, “show me the ropes”.  Needing some additional financial support, I took the opportunity and never looked back. Little did I realize this would lead to developing my career, long term.

When I was looking for ways to support myself at a young age, I didn’t want to go the pornstar route. I didn’t even consider it. Being the star wasn’t suited for someone like me. However, writing, editing, promoting was easy for me to learn, and perfectly suited to someone who was quiet and kept to herself.

This gave me immediate exposure to an industry where you’d think I might struggle with the beauty standards. It wasn’t long until I learned that the big boob, blown up lip, blow-up doll aesthetic wasn’t even the standard in the industry 15+ years ago. And it most certainly isn’t the standard now.

Diversity is Marketable 

As we know, most porn is crafted to the male gaze, as they are the biggest buyers. If you aren’t already on the pulse of the industry, you probably have an idea in your head of what men want to see in their adult content.

However, we must consider that the male gaze is far more expansive than what we like to think. Let’s unpack that:

Meeting The Demands

Pornography often reflects the desires of the population–whether it be taboo, or more conventional. Big boobs and blonde hair may be the stereotype, but the truth is quite different from the perception

Throughout my time in the industry, I have remained at the sidelines. There, I saw many performers who challenged every definition of “sexy”. They challenged beauty standards, and looked good doing it. Some of the most popular, famous performers don’t even have big boobs or blonde hair. Some are fat. Some have stretch marks. Many are brown and Black. Some are thin with very small boobs. Pornography reflects what the consumer wants to see, and all of these types are heavily represented.

Performers that don’t “fit the mold” challenged the status quo in a way. The industry tends to reflect the inner desires of the population that consumes it. Consumers actively seek it out, and their dollars spent begin to reflect the type of content being made. 

The way consumers seek this media is measurable, by search volumes and site traffic. With this data at their fingertips, the industry must rise to meet the demand. 

In short; if people are searching for particular content, production companies are going to create it.

Beauty Standards are Fake

All I knew at the time I began working in this industry, was that it was great money to support myself and keep my life humming along nicely.

The impact of being a ghost, yet at the forefront of desire, was undeniable. All of these women from different looks and backgrounds had a large following of folks obsessing over their looks and unique sex appeal. 

That’s when I started realizing that the “standard” is bullshit. Most stars don’t meet the stereotype. Most successful OnlyFans models simply look like every girl you’ve ever known. 

Seeing women desired in this way helped me undo my standards of beauty. It gave me the gift of finding it in myself. If a woman that looks like me can make a mint with her body, is mine really all that bad?

No Longer Limited by Standards

Eurocentric beauty standards have ruled mainstream culture for decades, telling us that only certain faces, bodies, and hair textures are worthy of desire. But in the adult world, the rules bend—and often break—entirely. Sexualization, for all its complications, has a way of putting a spotlight on bodies that society tells us to overlook. In porn, there’s room for everyone’s fantasy, and that means there’s space for stretch marks, cellulite, curves, small chests, and dark skin.

Visibility in this context doesn’t just expand the definition of beauty. This proves that that there was ever one “correct” version to begin with.

Desire is everywhere.

Expand Your Perception, Include Yourself

Porn didn’t destroy my perception of beauty, nor did it make me feel badly about myself. It expanded my ideals, with the understanding that pretty much anyone can be desired. Somehow, it contributed to my radical self-love practices, simply by shifting my perception.

What I once thought was the only way to be beautiful turned out to be just one narrow, over-marketed idea. Desire doesn’t follow rules, or standards. Desire doesn’t write MAXIM or Vogue.  

Listen to desire first. Let it guide you. Because the idea that there is only one way to be beautiful is simply not rooted in reality.

The more I saw unconventional beauty being celebrated, the more I realized how much of our self-image is shaped by lies we’ve been sold. Perhaps we shouldn’t question whether or not we meet the standard. We should expand our world to allow the undercurrent of desire to define beauty, and measure our own beauty by a different device. That device?Our choice to be comfortable in our own skin.