this year's model
younger days, she'd "prayed to die" so the pain would go away. Like many other teenagers, relief from the feelings of inadequacy came from drink,
recreational drugs and sex.
This was 1982 and for teenagers the world over, the risk of HIV and other
sexually-transmitted infections didn't figure in the calculations. "Although
I'd heard of GRID (Gay Related Immune deficiency, a very early name for
Aids) I didn't think it had anything to do with me," says Rebekka.
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A more immediate consequence was an unwanted pregnancy, and a termination
that caused her to haemorrhage and required a blood transfusion. Getting
emotional, Rebekka comes clean: "I've read a lot about how I became
positive through a blood transfusion, or by having unprotected sex a single
time on the beach. The truth is I became HIV positive because I had unprotected
sex. At times I tried to find an explanation of how this (HIV) happened
to me and the blood transfusion provided an answer. But, no, it was sex."
On hearing the news of her diagnosis, Rebekka's initial reaction was that
God was finally answering her teenage prayer to die. "But that was
then, not now - life's good now," she cried. Her life as a Playboy
model had suddenly taken off, and her first priority was to ensure that
her status remained a secret. This posed particular problems as she carried
on working. She'd found the lifestyle of all-day shoots,
constant travel and hard partying tiring at the best of times. Now she was
