It’s not often that we PB fans speak about the most compelling photos of our favorite PMs, the ones that are truly “erotic,” as PBs photos are at their best—the photos that are not only beautiful, but exciting beyond belief—the ones that arouse our deepest sexual feelings. I love the “boudoir” photos of my favorite PMs, the glamour photos, and the girl-next-door photos. But I must admit (and I think most PB fans will agree with me) that the photos I can’t get out of my head—the ones I think about time and again—are the ones that overwhelm me and leave me burning with desire. Not every PB model was willing to go that far—to create truly erotic art. Most never ventured beyond glamour or boudoir photography. But a brave few, like Karen, didn’t hold back, and worked with PBs greatest photographers—Ken Marcus, Pompeo Posar, Dwight Hooker—to create erotic art for the ages.
Karen said on a number of occasions that she didn’t know how to model when she arrived at her first shoot. It took her some time, she admitted, to learn. But think of what she had to learn. She didn’t sign up to be a fashion model or a runway model, which is hard enough. As Karen said in her interview with the
Regina Leader, which paraphrased her thoughts, “Looking sultry and seductive takes skill, not to mention nerve, when you think about all those people hovering around you and you’re the only one with your clothes off.” Fortunately, Ken Marcus, who was hired by PB to heat things up, is a master teacher, and Karen (who would become a master teacher of acrobatics in her own right) was a coach’s dream.
Karen did a wonderful job when it came to her “girl-next-door” photos. She’s adorable.
Karen and Ken Marcus also did a great job in her glamour photos, with dramatic lighting, costuming, and makeup. She’s out-of-this world beautiful.
And Karen did a sensational job in her boudoir photos, which captured her beauty in lingerie. She was relaxed, poised, and welcoming. She didn’t hold us at arms-length—she drew us in, as if she had posed just for us.
But none of these photos were meant to rouse our sexual desires to a fever pitch. They leave us yearning to see more, but alas, most PMs stopped there, and left us hanging. Karen didn’t. She and Ken Marcus kept going, and created the finest erotic art that has ever appeared in PB—one more reason why Karen is the most beloved PM among vintage fans.
It’s hard to know how Karen’s great erotic photos came about. Karen got off to a superb start in her tease in the gym. With another model, these might have been just glamour photos or girl-next-door photos. But Karen’s expressions—alternating between sultry and giddy—and the grace of her movements, her stunning curves, her nervous energy, and her joy at giving us a chance to fantasize about her gigantic breasts popping out of her top, never fail get my heart pounding, my nerves tingling, and my blood pressure past the red line. We can feel Karen's excitement as she drew nearer and nearer the moment when she’d peel off her gym togs and become a
real Playmate. She was ready to shine. And thanks to Karen’s and Ken Marcus’s artistry, we can sense Karen’s feelings, moment to moment, as they bubbled to the surface. There’s nothing more genuine, or erotic, than that.
But Karen’s most erotic photos took place in the sexually-charged atmosphere of her bedroom shoot. Most every PM had a bedroom shoot, but few were as determined, as Karen was, to drive us into a frenzy. She wanted to arouse our sexual feelings, and she did, with Ken Marcus’s help. And think of how hard that was for Karen. If you’ve seen Ken Marcus’s video on glamour photography, you know what Karen meant when she said her photo sessions were hard work. Think of how difficult it was to create a photo that drives me wild every time I see it.
It’s a stunning mash up of two genres: high-fashion and erotic. It’s a glamour photo, as we can see from Karen’s hair and makeup and the way Ken Marcus photographed her face. The setting is sumptuous: a fur rug, plush satin sheets, a designer bed, and Karen’s elegant heels. Everything bespeaks the luxury and wealth we would expect in a glamour photo. But Ken Marcus wanted Karen completely nude—not the most common attire for a glamour photo. He realized that Karen would look her best—her most fashionable—not wearing a stitch. Clothes would only hide her riches. And Karen knew what Ken Marcus was going for emotionally. She wasn’t there to sell clothes or household furnishings. She was there to sell Playboys--
her Playboys. He wanted Karen to seduce us, flat out, and leave us speechless at the sight of her gorgeous body, her beautiful face, and her spectacular breasts. He asked Karen to drop her breasts as far as she could, straight down, so our desire for her would burn white hot.
Think of how hard it was for Karen to hold that pose, knees bent, feet together, stooped over, tummy muscles flexed tight to give her a tiny waist, her lovely behind thrust out, and her back as straight as she could make it. And Ken Marcus and his assistants must have taken many minutes to get her photo just right, as Karen held her pose. They backlit Karen to accentuate the curves of her hair, back, and behind, and front-lit her to illuminate her tan lines and make her gorgeous, pale breasts glow in an otherwise dark setting. The staff combed Karen’s hair so it would appear to fall naturally and would accentuate the cascade of her breasts toward the floor. Ken Marcus must have moved Karen’s hands and elbows several times to get just the right angle, the right pitch of her body, the right turn of her head to create this spectacular shot. And then Karen, probably fatigued at that point, and perhaps even sore from posing in such an awkward and unnatural position, had to rise to the occasion and give us that look—the most important element in her photo. She didn’t appear fatigued, distant, hesitant, or frightened by what she was doing. She let us know, as she looked straight into our eyes, that she was proud of what she was doing, that she wanted us to enjoy her, that she enjoyed being with us, and that she wanted to thrill us to the very core of our male beings. She wanted us to desire her more than we had ever desired a woman. Yes, she might even have been thinking about stardom. And in the firmament of PB, she succeeded.
But again, it was not just Karen’s artistry, her expressiveness, but her collaboration with Ken Marcus that created her heart-pounding erotic photos. I wish Karen and Ken would speak with us about how those photos came about—who pushed whom. But I have the feeling that they pushed one another as Karen got turned on. There’s little doubt in my mind that Karen was aroused by what she was doing. Once she got comfortable on the set with Ken Marcus and the crew, and grew confident in her modeling and in the beauty of the photos they were creating, it appears she let herself go. As Patty Duffek said in a chat with fans years after she posed, she got so hot and bothered one day on the set that she rushed home and made her boyfriend very happy that night!
Karen was one of those special PMs who PB photographers yearn for—who embrace not just the glamour and boudoir shoots, but the erotic possibilities of PB’s art. PB photographer David Chan described his ideal PM in an interview in 1982, which certainly speaks to Karen. He searched for “a looker with lots of oomph. The face comes first. We still want a little bit of the girl next door. We still want a bit of innocence. I usually look for the eyes that sparkle and entice you. The lips, the mouth, the way they pout. When you’re doing a Playmate, you have to have everything. Be a 10.” But he hoped for more. “When I get aroused is when everything clicks. When the shooting is great, when she responds. That’s great guns. That’s my high.” Karen has all of those qualities. And to say Karen “responded” to Ken Marcus and his camera would be the greatest understatement in history of PB.
But how did Karen’s great erotic photos come about? Were they her idea or Ken Marcus’s, or did they press farther and farther on together as the set got hotter and hotter, as they realized that they were creating extraordinary erotic art, the perfect collaboration between photographer and model?
It’s still a mystery to me how Ken Marcus coaxed that performance out of Karen, and how Karen summoned the courage, despite her anxiety about the whole enterprise, to throw herself into it the way she did. Erotic doesn’t begin to describe her bedroom shoot. I wish Ken Marcus would speak with us someday about Karen and her shoots, so we could get a better sense of how they came about, what from him, what from her, and what from the moment. I mean, did he say to Karen, “I’d like you to look down at yourself, and . . .”
Or, “Karen, I’d like you to crouch in front of the bed, brace yourself with your right arm, and with your left I’d like you to . . .”
Or, Karen, I’d like you look straight into the camera, and with your fingers . . .
Or, “Karen, I’d like you to take the strap of your gown and . . . “
Or, “Karen, I’d like you to lean back against the bed and . . . “
Or, “Karen, I’d like you to open the top of your gown, and with your right hand I’d like you to . . . and with your left . . .”
Or finally, “Karen, I’d like you to open your gown all the way, reach over your head as far as you can with your right hand and grab hold of the ornament on the top of the bedpost, and with your left I’d like you to . . . “
I don’t think I could ever say such things to Karen or anyone else. I’d be too embarrassed. Heck, I’m too embarrassed to write them in this note, which is why I suppose I wasn’t cut out to be a photographer for PB. How do you ask a young, beautiful, inexperienced model to play with her body that way? And why did she say yes, yes, yes, in the most passionate way? Did she hesitate at first? Did Ken Marcus encourage her, and if so, how? Maybe these photos were Karen’s idea, and maybe Ken Marcus dared to ask. I’d love to know. But Karen must have known in her head and heart what he was asking, or hoping for, and how turned on we’d get if she agreed. It doesn’t appear that she was tricked into these photos. She is too daring and committed in these photos for that to have been the case. And she was anything but naïve—she (and Ken Marcus) knew what would thrill us, and she knew she was so breathtakingly beautiful she could do it.
So we don’t know how these photos came about, and may never know, but I’m glad they did. As I’ve said elsewhere, Karen didn’t just fulfill my fantasies—she created them.
Yet her photos, superbly staged and sexually charged as they are, would not have been perfect had it not been for the extraordinary looks on Karen’s face. When you think of how long she had to wait as Ken Marcus and his assistants bustled around her, fussed about her, and repositioned her, about how difficult her poses were to hold and how far she was asked to go, it’s amazing that she was ready, willing, and eager to thrill us when it came time to click the shutter. Her knowing look as she cradled her breasts, her bold look with the strap of her gown, her inviting look in the next photo, when she flat out offered herself to us sexually, and the last two, when she let her feelings flow, aroused and passionate—my God, how beautiful, and how, well, to put it euphemistically, erotic! Has any fantasy woman ever turned you on more than Karen does? And it’s clear that she meant to arouse our sexual feelings and desires. She knew what PB hoped for and what PB fans were desperate to see. And she was not only willing, but happy and excited to go all the way for us. Yes, she wanted her issue of PB to fly off the shelves, to bring her fame and fortune. But the honor of posing for Playboy meant more to Karen than that, as we can see from the passion she poured into it. I have the feeling that at that moment in her life, she believed in erotic art and embraced it. And I think (and hope) that she was as turned on as we are, and happy to be on that set. That’s the excitement of erotic art at its finest. Fun for us and for our heartthrobs alike.
Karen’s shoot appears to have been an artistic turning point for Ken Marcus. None of the PMs he had photographed before, from Aziri Johari to Lisa Welch, displayed the degree of sensuality and sexuality that Karen did. But after Karen’s shoot, he recaptured again and again what he had achieved with Karen, and he apparently asked every willing PM from then on to play with her body as Karen did. He reached that same artistic and emotional peak with Patti Farinelli, as her fans well know.
And he persuaded Cathy Larmouth, Heidi Sorenson, Alana Soares, and his last PM, Justine Greiner, to strike the same kinds of erotic poses. And he photographed every prodigiously endowed PMs who graced PBs pages from Karen until the end of his time with PB, I imagine by choice, given his seniority—trying, I'd like to think, to recreate what he had with Karen.
Karen’s vintage fans are not the only ones who have noticed how compelling and erotic her photos are. Ken Marcus’s peers awarded him the PB photography award for his layout of Karen. To this day he gives that honor a prominent place in his honor-laden bio. And VEF members who are on other, shall we say more “demonstrative” threads, are as taken by Karen as we are. Those threads aren’t my cup of tea, nor are PMs in general their cup of tea, but I do follow posts on Karen or Patti wherever they lead. On the most frequented such thread (initials “WC!”), most PMs from PB’s Golden Era have received not a single post. Fans on that thread prefer hardcore or hard softcore photos, so even the greatest PMs don’t receive many posts. But Karen surpasses by far every other PM in posts on the WC thread, followed by Patti Farinelli and Alana Soares—a testament not only to their beauty, but to Ken Marcus’s skill and to the erotic intensity of their photos. We softcore fans feel the same way: no PM has more posts on the “My First Playmate Crush” thread than Karen.
I’d die of embarrassment if Karen were to read our thread and be embarrassed or upset by our passion for her, when she should be proud of everything she did. What an accomplishment. What Karen did was hard to do—physically, emotionally, and artistically—and she did it splendidly: a virtuoso performance by a young woman who had to learn from scratch. It’s sad to think so many people tried to make her feel terrible or ashamed for having done something magnificent. She and Ken Marcus created beautiful, timeless art. The problem is that erotic art is not cherished and admired the way it should or could be in our culture. Hypocrisy abounds. But we’re human, our favorite PMs are human, and we should enjoy our humanity, including our sexuality. What guy wouldn’t love to have a beautiful, large, framed, signed, limited-edition, gallery-quality print on his wall of Karen bending over in the front of the brass bed? And what fan of Karen, looking at that print, would think of her as just a “sex object,” as detractors of erotic art insist? We fans think of Karen as person, extraordinary in every way. Don’t blame us for the tacky sideshow of the old-fashioned PB clubs, the PB mansion, and the PB “lifestyle.” Even PB’s trying to get away from that under the leadership of Conner Hefner. And why shouldn’t Karen enjoy being gorgeous and sexy? I’m pretty sure from her photos and her artistic career that she does. Every beautiful woman I’ve ever known does.
I hope to write another note on Karen’s discussion thread in defense of erotic art, and in praise of Ken Marcus, but for now, let me say again and again as I have in the past, “Karen, thank you. We’re ordinary guys who know the difference between fantasy and reality, and love both. Glad that you, a special yet down-to-earth person, also know the difference between fantasy and reality, and embrace both too.” Why not live life to the fullest? Karen has. She’s an exemplar (and dare I say a “model”) for all of us.
For a great interview with Ken Marcus in
Model Mayhem, in which he discusses his career, see:
Part 1
Part 2