Sigma Pi hosts Aids Awareness Week w/ Playmate Rebekka Armstrong

As part of the National Aids Awareness Week 2005, Sigma Pi hosted a SafeSex real talk with Playboy Playmate Rebekka Armstrong on Thursday Oct. 27 at the Community Arts Auditorium. The lecture was the finale of a serious of Aids Awareness events that educated students on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and provided free HIV testing as well free condoms through out the week of Oct. 24 to Oct. 27.

The catabolic eating of muscle mass was one of the disease’s symptoms Armstrong elaborated on. She spent a great deal of time attempting to break the stereotype that once HIV is contracted, one can simply “take drugs like Magic Johnson.” She went through a list of drugs with more hideous and tormenting symptoms than the disease itself. The first drug she was prescribed to handle the disease was AZT, which left her in pools of her own vomit and feces to the point that she needed a trail of mattresses to crawl from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen.

This was only the beginning of a long and vividly painful trek of discovering more about herself, her disease, and what was needed to live the rest of her life.

Women, she noted, are more likely to contract HIV heterosexually because of the fragile nature of the vaginal walls. Each miniscule tear that is resulted from penetration can allow the virus to enter the bloodstream. Though she herself has finally found a combination of drugs that work for her, Armstrong reiterated the fact that “Everyone’s AIDS is different. What may work for me may not work for you.” And that 30 percent of the HIV-positive population cannot tolerate any of the currently known drugs. And even if both partners have AIDS, the possibility of sharing each other’s diseases results in a forced restart of the entire drug process.

Armstrong had a dysfunctional childhood with bickering and battling parents — leading her to begin drinking at the age of 11. She said she clung to her first high school boyfriend — doing whatever it took to keep him, even if that meant premarital sex, and in turn, an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion. This, in turn, led her to be very open, vulnerable and susceptible to friendly fraternity boys and unprotected sex. She contracted the virus at 17, leaving her HIV-positive throughout her career as a Playmate. When asked if she contacted all her partners from the period in which she didn’t know she was HIV positive she replied adamantly: “Every last one.”

The most heartening aspect of the evenings’ performance was Armstrong’s ability to relate to the audience. The first time she said “bitchin’” showed her age and made it obvious that she was of a different generation. But regardless, her story was human and still managed to relate to the audience, of at least one member who said, “I was deeply moved.”

The question came up pertaining to her feelings on Playboy and pornography now that she has changed her lifestyles.

“I don’t feel that I did porn,” Armstrong said. “I tastefully posed for a magazine; there was none of this (opening her legs). And as far as pornography goes, I think it’s just too accessible for children.”
Armstrong closed her show with a slight bash to the Bush administration in their views on abstinence, as opposed to birth control methods.

After the lecture, the gentlemen of Sigma Pi and the ladies of Alpha Epsilon Phi and Kappa Delta invited Armstrong to the Hard Rock Cafe where she was announced an honorary sweetheart of Sigma Pi Fraternity.

~Excerpted in part from The South End