There are 40 teenagers waiting for Rebekka Armstrong to begin her talk in a youth centre in Stoke-on-Trent. Sitting on plastic chairs, arms crossed and chins tucked into their chests, quite what the 34-year-old former Playboy Playmate has to offer is clearly puzzling them. Armstrong is, in fact, here to talk about sex, and, more specifically, sexual boundaries in relation to her own Aids diagnosis. I am with her as part of a film crew led by the director Antonia Bird, best known for her exploration of contemporary issues in movies such as Care, Priest and Safe. We are documenting Armstrong's speaking tour of the UK, and the journey that took her from the drug-hazed glamour of California to a group of suspicious adolescents in this downbeat venue in the Midlands.
In contrast to her audience, the speaker's skin glows with a healthy tan, her blonde curls bounce and her slight but toned body is straight backed and poised. Armstrong begins by talking about her childhood: she grew up three hours' drive from Los Angeles in the Mojave desert, riding dirt bikes and playing pool. There was an abusive alcoholic stepfather, who constantly told her she was no good.
Her story then takes an all-American twist: at 18, Armstrong escaped to LA where she became, what she euphemistically calls, a swimwear and lingerie model. She was soon incredibly successful, becoming Playboy's Miss September in 1986. Armstrong revelled in the lifestyle, jumping on and off planes, dating celebrities and hanging out at Hugh Hefner's mansion. But by the age of 22, Armstrong had become chronically fatigued. She would cry at the thought of doing another photo shoot and her skin was bruising from the slightest touch. She took an HIV test as part of an overall physical.
Armstrong now believes that she contracted the HIV virus at 16, either from a lover or a blood transfusion. Either way, logic dictates that unprotected sex was to blame. The leap from Playboy Playmate to Aids activist and safer-sex educator did not happen overnight. For five years Armstrong kept her diagnosis a secret, attempting to maintain her modelling career while her body was being ravaged by the high doses of AZT she was prescribed. When the side effects became unbearable, she opted to go out with a bang with self-prescribed amphetamines and alcohol abuse.
The turning point came when a friend took her to a seminar for HIV positive women. There she met a woman who was so sick she was trying to find homes for her children for when she died. At that point, Armstrong says: "I realised my shit wasn't so bad." She came out about her HIV status in American lesbian and gay magazine The Advocate, and has since talked to thousands of young people in schools and colleges across the States.
Armstrong's message goes beyond preaching safer sex. "What I want people to go away with is the ability to set boundaries and make a mental note of their own limitations, so that they don't put themselves at risk," she says. She's a gifted speaker, with an enviable ability to identify her audience's concerns. Armstrong stands before them, a seductive image of what they want to be, or have, and shows them her weaknesses. She talks of wanting to be loved, and of how, as a teenager, attention from the opposite sex provided a way of combating her low self-esteem.
Armstrong has always been determined to do and be her best. "Whatever I did I had to do it very well, if I couldn't see a way of doing it the best, I didn't even bother." HIV took away this control. "With my virus, I can take some pills and hope that it is being controlled, but I don't really have control over that. I do have control over what I put in my body, how I prepare my meals and how I work out. I have to maintain control over something."
Antonia Bird has known Armstrong since 1996, when she contacted her after reading the Advocate article, and has been trying to raise funds to make a film of Armstrong's life ever since. "Rebekka is an extraordinary woman, whose life has been full of drama," she says. "Her story will touch every woman who watches it. Over and above any specific issues it's about being female and surviving in a male-dominated world."
For the past two years, Armstrong's drug regime has kept the virus down to undetectable levels. But just before she flew to the UK, her viral load began to "break through". Over the past few weeks she has noticed that she tires and becomes breathless more easily. The headaches are back. She faces tough decisions on a new combination therapy when she returns to the US next week. Most of all, what this means is that Armstrong must learn, once again, what her limitations - her own boundaries - are.
But for the moment she is adamant that she will fulfil her commitments in the UK. "Every time I tell my story, I get back twice as much as I give," she says. "So I win."
· Rebekka Armstrong will be speaking in London on Thursday. Tickets are free from Crusaid on 020-7833 3939. |
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