Coming to Terms with Below Average Attractiveness

A few years back (and every now and then) I tried to make a bit of a go as an amateur video performer. I set up my clip store, shot a few solo videos (and a few with a co-star) and tried to sell them.

I admit to being bad at the promotional aspect of things, so that obviously limited my earning potential. Not being able to show my face for personal and vanilla job reasons also limits me somewhat. I get that. I understand that.

But I admit to a larger concern, and it is one of the things that has vexed me and kept me from trying to set up more possible trade shoots.

The larger concern is that I feel that I am simply not good looking enough to work with others.

It’s been hard reckoning with this fact because let’s face it, most of us have varying degrees of vanity. There are definitely times where we estimate properly how good looking we are, and there are times where some of us overestimate how good looking we are. And maybe I’ve tacked too hard the other way. Maybe I’ve watched too many scenes with black guys, but I am at the point where I have tacked all the way over into realizing that I am not good looking to the average woman.

With regards to porn, obviously, bodies matter. As a fat—not chubby, but fat verging on supersized black male below six feet tall, I obviously am going to fall into the 25^th percentile on general attractiveness anyway. Given that I am that size and I’m not hung like a horse, well, now I’m verging on 10^th percentile.

And that’s before we factor in my age (over 40) and my actual appearance, which does not rate high for most women in general I would guess. And while I believe that if I did have a chance to shoot trade with some women, most would act professionally and work with me. But I know inside, my own doubts would creep in and my insecurity would flare up plus 1,000. Because I have to shoot POV, that would be crippling.

A mask could mitigate my lack of facial physical attractiveness, but it does nothing for the rest of my corpulent form. And while I do have a pleasant personality and sense of humor, I don’t think it necessarily overcomes the limitations.

I don’t say this for sympathy’s sake; it’s a cold, hard business. And seeing as how I was/am an interloper of sorts (on the sidelines, basically trafficking in this when I had time), I don’t expect sympathy. I’m fighting the demons of self-doubt and self-confidence and losing to them. Badly.