The Associated Press - Saturday, November 30, 1996 12:34:00 PM.
Dan Seufert, Associated Press Writer
GROTON, Mass. (AP) -- Rebekka Armstrong's dream of a perfect Playmate life ended because of a night of unprotected sex on a California beach.
The 29-year-old blonde, Playboy's Miss September 1986, continues to startle boys with her looks -- and her story of living with AIDS. She speaks at schools around Massachusetts, discussing the perils of promiscuous, unprotected sex.
"I give AIDS a face, and I give it reality," she said. "Sex is a very normal, natural thing, and when you're a teen-ager, your hormones are raging and you're think you're indestructible. But sex is how I got AIDS."
Armstrong left a huge impression on students when she spoke in California, said Stephanie Dew, a teacher at Santa Monica High School.
"A lot of the students, particularly the boys, came because they were interested in the novelty of seeing a Playboy Playmate, and once they got past that they heard the message," Dew said.
Armstrong just moved to this small town outside Boston with her husband, Joey, a film editor. They have a normal sex life but always use protection. He is HIV negative.
Armstrong contacted Playboy when she turned 18, and after the centerfold edition lived in Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. By her calculations, that was two years after she contracted HIV, the AIDS virus, from the only man with whom she ever had unprotected sex. She couldn't find the man later.
An AIDS test came back positive in 1989. She began abusing drugs and twice tried suicide.
"I was thinking, `Normal people spend every single day of their life building toward a future, and I don't have a future,'" she said.
Four years ago, after several of her friends died of AIDS-related diseases, she ended her silence. Although diagnosed with full-blown AIDS three years ago, Armstrong is not ill at the moment.
"Right now, my career move is living, it's a full-time job," she said. "I'm still a Playmate, and I'm really glad, because Playboy gave me a voice. And I'm using my voice now to fight AIDS."
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