|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| Published by Key West Citizen |
|
| HIV-Positive Playmate Speaks,
and Students Listen |
| By Mandy Bolen |
|
The energetic blonde in faded, low-rise jeans and a fitted black T-shirt could have been talking about the importance of a balanced diet. She could have been detailing healthy fitness regimes for high school students, or advocating environmentalism.
But she wasn't.
Rebekka Armstrong was talking about AIDS -- and kids were listening.
"I'm not supposed to be alive right now," the former Playboy playmate told an audience of about 100 students from throughout the Florida Keys.
"At the age of 16, I became infected with HIV."
Armstrong, now an HIV, AIDS and safer sex educator, is in the Keys this week to tell her story and personify the statistics that show AIDS does not discriminate based on race, gender or sexual orientation. Her presentation Wednesday was directed toward high school students from the PACE Center for Girls, students in the alternative education program and those enrolled in the Life Management Skills course.
"She did a good job," said Casey Brown, 16. "You could relate to her as a girl, and it is better to hear a real story."
Brown and the other students had shuffled into the Marathon High School cafeteria with hunched shoulders and wary looks. They had rolled their eyes at the thought of another assembly, and glanced appraisingly at students from schools other than their own.
But as the fitness-addicted Armstrong grabbed the microphone and thanked Terry Payne, of the Monroe County Health Department, for bringing her to town, the eyes stopped rolling and focused on the speaker and the subject.
Born in California and subjected to severe verbal abuse from her stepfather, Armstrong spoke candidly about her resulting self-esteem problems and concerns about her family.
She and her younger brother continually watched their alcoholic stepfather beat their mother so severely she once required surgery to reattach her ear, Armstrong said.
"I went to a party one time in high school, and I was introduced to alcohol," she said. "All of a sudden, all that stuff going on at home didn't matter."
She also went on to describe the ensuing introduction to pot, which garnered a small round of rebellious applause.
But Armstrong's earliest introductions to sex elicited only silence.
One-night stand
Armstrong became pregnant at 16 by her first boyfriend, who threatened to break up with her if she did not terminate the pregnancy. She had a complicated abortion and the boyfriend dumped her anyway, she said.
A vindictive one-night stand on the beach later the same year altered Armstrong's life forever. She had met a male model at a party, and decided to sleep with him.
"I was on the pill," she said. "That's what I thought I needed to do to protect myself -- HIV was a gay man's, or IV-drug user's disease."
Upon launching a modeling career by age 18, Armstrong traveled often and appeared in Playboy in September 1986. But chronic fatigue and easy bruising forced her to get a complete physical that included an HIV test as an afterthought.
"I knew for a fact it would be negative," she said. "I wasn't worried -- besides that, this was the late 80s in the L.A. club scene and people carried their negative AIDS test results around in their back pocket."
But the positive test was more of a death sentence than a ticket to sex, Armstrong thought, and, at 22, she went on a mission to find the person who gave her the virus.
"But it takes two people to make a decision to have unprotected sex," she said, telling the crowd she had had seven sexual partners by the time she was 22. She tracked down six of them, and all tested negative. She never found the male model from that one night on the beach.
Helped by Hefner
One night changed her life and medications invaded her body, making her sick and driving her to trade the medicine for the party lifestyle of drugs and alcohol that allowed her to forget the virus in her blood.
But the binges of partying made her sicker and Armstrong, with the help of Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, changed her life, attended college to become a certified phlebotomist and began a speaking tour of the United States advocating safe sex and answering every question candidly.
"For a few minutes of pleasure, a few seconds for some of you," she said. "It's not worth it."
"Hey, you guys," she said. "AIDS is out there -- it's real. You guys know how it's transmitted, and you damn sure know how to prevent it."
mbolen@keysnews.com
ANOTHER TALK
Rebekka Armstrong will speak tonight at the San Carlos at 6:30 p.m. Learn more about her story and outreach work at www.rebekkaonline.com |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
| |
Born in California and subjected to severe verbal abuse from her stepfather, Armstrong spoke candidly about her resulting self-esteem problems and concerns about her family. |
|
"I went to a party one time in high school, and I was introduced to alcohol," she said. "All of a sudden, all that stuff going on at home didn't matter." |
|
"I was on the pill," she said. "That's what I thought I needed to do to protect myself -- HIV was a gay man's, or IV-drug user's disease." |
|
"For a few minutes of pleasure, a few seconds for some of you," she said. "It's not worth it."
|
| |
|
HIV/AIDS Information