My Playboy Pictorial (Seriously)

When I was a high school senior, I posed for a Playboy photographer. Granted, the photographer was the boyfriend of the policy director of NARAL-IL, and he was taking pictures of me and other nubile young women for a fundraising calendar that we were putting together. Of course, despite the small amount of censorship evident at left, we were all dressed, although I now suspect the calendar would have sold much, much better if we were unclad.

At the time of this picture, I was involved in the NARAL Teen Advisory Panel. We were working hard to prevent harmful parental notification laws from being enacted in Illinois. I am happy to say that our efforts we rewarded at the time, although the battle continues some 12 years later with a court injunction enjoining the implementation of a terrible notification law. (Incidentally, the Alan Guttmacher Institute found that 60% of teens in states without parental consent laws tell one or both parents about their intent to abort an unplanned pregnancy.)

Anyway, I love this picture because despite the fact that I was mostly likely the only virgin in the group, I grabbed the biggest handful of condoms for the shot. (Sorry, I cut the others out since I am not sure where to find most of them to ask their permission to post their picture, but trust me – I was holding the most condoms.) My pigtails also rocked on, although the bangs could have used some serious help. Ah, the innocence of youth posing for Playboy photographers and thinking they can actually make the world a better place. Those were the days, I tell ya.