Former Playmate Talks Candidly About HIV; Rebekka Armstrong Contracted the Virus at 16 and Made a Mission of Cautioning Others

The energetic blond in faded, low-rise jeans and a fitted black shirt could have been talking about the importance of a balanced diet or detailing healthy fitness regimes for high school students. 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 recently told 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, was in the Keys to tell her story and demonstrate that AIDS does not discriminate based on race, gender or sexual orientation. Her presentation in Marathon 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.

Armstrong was born in California and subjected to verbal abuse by an alcoholic stepfather who brutally beat her mother. Armstrong spoke candidly about her resulting self-esteem problems and family concerns. At 16, she had a complicated abortion, and her boyfriend dumped her.

A one-night stand on the beach the same year altered Armstrong's life forever. "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." Launching a modeling career by age 18, Armstrong appeared in Playboy in 1986. But chronic fatigue and easy bruising forced her to get a physical that included an HIV test.

"I knew for a fact it would be negative. I wasn't worried. . . ." But Armstrong's test was positive. Later, after attending college to become a certified phlebotomist, she began a speaking tour advocating safe sex. "For a few minutes pleasure . . . it's not worth it," she told her young audience.

"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."

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