I hope fellow fans won’t mind if I post a tribute to Karen. We’re usually not a talkative bunch on VEF. We’re mostly interested in sharing photos and videos of our favorites, which is great. But I’d like to share my thoughts about Karen and hope others might share theirs.
Karen’s performance, I think, speaks to everything that was right about PB in its Golden Age, when it was at the height of its popularity and profitability. It opens with Karen smiling in a peasant blouse. Next she performs gymnastic moves, plays on the beach, and splashes in a hot tub. She’s having fun and enjoying being a Playmate. She teases us with the strap of her gown or a downward glance. Then Karen seduces us: she knows how beautiful she is and she knows the effect her beauty has. And finally, she loses herself in the moment.
What's wonderful about her photos is that they celebrate Karen as a person—her humor, friendliness, playfulness, strength, athleticism, passion, and sexual energy. They capture her pride and confidence. She's beautiful in every sense. Her photos are erotic, artful, and sensual in the way that PB’s photographs always are at their best. Her shoots were not modeling sessions or lingerie shows—they were performances to die for. In PB today, many Playmates pose passively before the camera, leaving us cold, even if they reveal more of themselves physically. But Karen, by revealing her warmth, feelings, and sexuality, has given us a vision of female beauty and seductiveness that is overwhelming, one for which we fans are forever grateful. That's why, I think, we voted her “Ultimate Playmate” on our old Yahoo PB website and why she’s the most popular PM on VEF.
Of course, Karen’s shoots were great because she enjoyed being in front of the camera. She’s having the time of her life—caught up in the excitement, eager to please her fans, and determined to give a great performance. Perhaps it’s the gymnast in her. What also made her performance great, however, was the way that PB presented it in her original layout. PB let it unfold slowly. When we see Karen outdoors in her peasant blouse, smiling and playing with her pet squirrel, we are smitten; when she invites us into the gym to watch her practice on the balance beam, we are moved by her talent, grace, and beauty. We’ve already fallen for Karen—which leaves us all the more speechless when she disrobes in the gym and seduces us in the bedroom.
The opening photos of Karen’s shoot are essential to her appeal to her fans and to the experience that PB offers its Playmates and readers at its best. PB has a bundle of these pictures in its archives, as shown by several they’ve shared in miniature in the “Dear Playmates” section and on Playmates.com. There are probably many more great photos of Karen and her pet squirrel, Karen on Muscle Beach with family and friends, Karen in the gym, and Karen in a night gown. It would be fun as well to see Karen in the sundress she was wearing on the patio at the start of her beach shoot (she looks great in what we’ve been able to see of that outfit, but by the time PB has allowed us to join the proceedings, half of it has already fallen to her waist). And it would be wonderful to see Karen wrapped in her shimmering robe in the bedroom, before she opened it and let if drop from her shoulders to the floor.
To withhold these pictures simply because they show Karen wearing clothes is a terrible mistake, artistically, financially, and emotionally. Without these photos, Karen can’t connect with us, nor we with her, except as a physical presence. Even Karen, lovely as she is, needs time--a few moments at least--to win our hearts. And having risked so much for us, Karen deserves that time, to establish herself as a person and command our respect and admiration. By withholding her opening photos, PB demeans Karen and her fans, by implying that she has value only when she is naked—something she complained about in her interview with the Brandon
Sun. But PB is also losing money by withholding them. PB cannot offer a powerful, compelling, profitable alternative to pornography if it fails to appreciate what makes its photo shoots great and why so many of its Playmates and fans have been able to connect with each other over the years as people and as friends. By respecting fans and Playmates, and by letting great performances unfold in their entirety, PB’s magazine and Cyber Club might survive in a hard-core world, by offering something different and better.
Next, Karen charms us. She balances playfully on the balance beam, frolics in the surf, laughs when a dog comes up to her on a patio, and performs a stunning gymnastic move in the bedroom. She’s at ease, having fun, and loving every minute before the camera.
Karen has fun in the hot tub, too. She puts the
play in Playmate. She’s the happy, smiling, outgoing, fun-loving girl-next-door-to-die-for.
Just as important to the success of Karen’s performance was her willingness to explore the boundaries of PB’s erotic art. She gives in to her sexual passion and celebrates it. When she is in the gym or the bedroom or by the fireplace, she strikes provocative poses, as many Playmates do. But Karen goes beyond that. She seduces us boldly, deliberately, and dares us to resist. She leans forward in the gym as she disrobes, giving us our first loving look at her body. As she lies on the bed or gets down on all fours, she looks straight into our eyes, telling us not to be shy, inviting us to linger on the shape of her bottom and the curve of her breast, knowing we’ll return to her beautiful brown eyes. She sits cross-legged, hunches her shoulders, and leans forward again, inviting us again to take a long look. Then she stands nude before the bed, bends forward with her hand on the rail, and lets her hair and breasts fall. She knows the sexual passion she arouses in us, and the stunning beauty of her breasts, and she revels in it. They’re real, they’re spectacular, and Karen does everything she can to let us fans see them, appreciate them, and enjoy them from every angle as she lets gravity do its work. We’re grateful!
Then, as her performance reaches its climax, Karen plays with her body. She squeezes her breasts gently with her arms, rides the strap of her gown, fondles herself, arouses herself, and lets her feelings overwhelm her. Karen is probably acting at these moments, like Meg Ryan’s character in
When Harry Met Sally, but we’re guys: we don’t mind, and Karen’s acting is great. She shares a private moment with us: her expressions capture her feelings.
Why PB shared few of these photos in its magazine is a mystery. They don’t reveal more physically than other PB photos do—in fact, these photos show us less of Karen’s body than many photos of other PMs do. What they reveal is her sexuality. If PB were to market the great ecstatic photos of Karen and of other Playmates who have pushed the envelope—Patti McGuire, Marilyn Lange, and Patty Farinelli come to mind—it could make a mint, and it wouldn’t be going the hard-core route to do so. Letting the girl next door, a natural beauty, express herself sexually is breathtaking. Fans would be delighted to pay for a chance to see these climactic photos—and Karen’s performance isn’t complete without them.
I hope that Karen didn’t have second thoughts about being a PM because she revealed so much of herself before the camera. That’s precisely why so many PB fans admire her and think of her as the ultimate girl-next-door—why we wish her happiness and are thrilled that she has accomplished so much in her life. Her generosity, her spirit, and her passion shine through. Karen embodied the best of PB in its Golden Era, when it celebrated not only natural beauty, but sexuality, in a proud and powerful way. Our favorite Playmates of that era shared the fantasy, it seems, of PB fans—of a woman who was proud of herself and her body, who revealed herself not only physically, but emotionally and sexually, and left us utterly seduced. There is nothing more breathtaking than a beautiful woman who laughs, has fun, flirts with us, tempts us, and gets caught up in the moment, making her fantasy ours, as Karen did. We’re in her debt, and grateful for all she has given us.