My Cover Story
LESSON: If you’re a germaphobe, don’t sit on the furniture at a Playboy shoot.
Yes, I was in Playboy. But get your mind out of the gutter. I wrote “The Women of Enron” cover story for Playboy’s August 2002 issue, after the Houston energy giant’s historic bankruptcy.
In keeping with the magazine’s spirit, I did playfully ask my editor if he’d double my pay if I wrote in the nude. He was not amused.
Besides pay, why did I take the gig? Because the pink-slip pictorial sounded like crazy fun.
Plus, there’s no shame in writing for Playboy. I’d follow in the hallowed footsteps of John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Stephen King, Roald Dahl, Margaret Atwood, Arthur C. Clarke, Vladimir Nabokov and my beloved P.G. Wodehouse.
And I was curious. Why would energy traders, web developers and recruiters shred rather than file financial documents—yet be shocked when the Feds pounced and the company collapsed?
I also wondered why female former employees would shed, not shred, for far less pay than Playboy perennial Anna Nicole Smith (whose marriage to an ancient oilman was another notorious Houston tale). She reportedly got $25,000 to pose for one issue. Most Enron women scored a meager $1,000.
Doffing their duds also seemed an odd career move for women needing new jobs and wanting to become a midwife, an art gallery owner and a math teacher. (Imagine the parent conferences for the last woman, if hired.)
So, spurred by my inquiring mind, I geared up to do my best and write text for a T&A spread smacking of journalism, not voyeurism – even though I knew many subscribers wouldn’t admire my carefully-crafted words, at least until they’d lingered on the photos around them.
For on-site research, I had my own clothing dilemma: Dear Abby, what does one wear to interview a naked woman, so she’ll be comfortable?
I chose a plain black pantsuit and no jewelry to attend a photo shoot which was done, fittingly, at the home of a plastic surgeon known for enhancing the ta-ta’s of strippers, reality stars and his own daughter.
I needn’t have worried. The poser didn’t seem to note my attire or seem remotely perturbed by my presence. She had a crew of 20-something guys in hoodies and faded jeans to satisfy.
They posed her bare body here, there and everywhere in a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows. (The home’s gardener seemed most efficient that day, devoting special attention to the hedges.)
The only other female present was a 50-something peroxide blonde with her own improbably perky rack flaunted in a sheer top. She rummaged through her bag of tricks, filled with corsets, fabric filigrees and barely-there blouses.
The goal was to coyly highlight models’ hidden assets while obscuring what the cool dudes deemed figure flaws. And their standards were brutal. (Between takes, I witnessed their gleeful joy of judgment within the bare-assed beauty’s earshot.)
I soon learned why one of the 10 Houston “hotties,” Shari Dougherty, had needed no such accessories while posing starkers on Enron’s former garage rooftop one Saturday downtown—to the delight of a quickly expanding crowd.
The self-proclaimed exhibitionist wound up with eight photos and two pages devoted to her, while the other women had one picture each.
Shari was among five women I invited to dine (and be further peppered with questions) on Playboy’s dime, also for the story.
Though her scanty “blouse” left nothing to the imagination, I still felt compelled to admonish her repeatedly at the table, “Shari, put your top down.”
It was rush hour and we were on the patio at Maggiano’s Little Italy in the bustling Galleria area. By dinner’s end, nearly two dozen waiters had gathered around our table—and not to refill our glasses.
It also was Dougherty—who else?—who posed for a Playboy video at a Houston luxury hotel.
I was there, too. And as videographers unloaded their equipment, suddenly we were surrounded by the Secret Service.
It turns out our video shoot was across the hall from then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s dinner meeting with a Saudi Arabian crown prince.
Rather than run us out, the Secret Service simply monitored us. Closely. For international security, of course.
As for me, while my pay was paltry compared to princely sums, the experience was priceless.
And I still get to say, “Yes, I was in Playboy.”
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