The naked truth: Playmate of the year tells all

Playboy’s new Playmate of the Year, Chula Vista’s Raquel Pomplun, would like to clear up a few misconceptions.

No, she’s not a ditz. “It’s really easy for men, especially men in power, men in business, CEOs in other companies who don’t know us, to just judge us as bimbos.” How often does that happen? “All the time.”

Yes, shedding her clothes for Playboy’s legendary camera felt strange, but not because she’s shy. “I was more nervous that my body wouldn’t look great, versus my body being naked.” Pomplun credited the crew with being “so professional. They don’t even look at you. They don’t even care. ’Cause they’ve seen so many women naked. It’s like, ‘ah, whatever, another one.’ ”

The 25-year-old centerfold is Playboy’s first Mexican-American Playmate of the Year, which she called “such an honor.” And no, she didn’t do anything untoward to get her job. At a bustling Chula Vista cafe this week, Pomplun said she’s faithful to the husband she adores.

“The common rumor is that ‘She slept her way to the top,’ ” she said. “I’ve proven that you don’t ‘buy’ Playmate of the Year. You actually work for it.”

Friday, Pomplun’s pictorial lands on the 60-year-old glossy’s pages, just a month after the L.A. “Bunny House” was listed for sale amid financial troubles for the soft porn empire. Pornography is so ubiquitous, Pomplun said, that the magazine is rethinking its aesthetic.

“This generation is already over the nudity, because they can get it anywhere. I guess explicit nudity doesn’t surprise anyone anymore,” she said. “So what they’re trying to do is go back to, ‘I’m not going to put it all out there. I’m going to tease you.’ If it’s already out there, why not have fun and be creative with it? Not, like, ‘Oh, another naked woman.’ ”

A Playboy bunny sparkled from a chain around Pomplun’s neck. Dressed in a delicate off-white blouse and black pencil skirt, she took sips of cool water and nursed a tiny cough — an occupational hazard after a long day of back-to-back interviews.

Growing up in Tijuana and then Chula Vista, Pomplun, who now lives in L.A., never thought she’d be “another naked woman.” She worked hard in school and took ballet lessons, and even on the towering black heels she wore to the interview, she still carried herself like a classical dancer. She wanted to be a scientist. “I’m a math freak.”

She submitted pictures on Playboy’s website with the blessing of her husband, Alejandro. They got married when she was 22, and he’s “a true gentleman.” When Playboy signed her as Miss April last year, the biochemistry major said science became “Plan B.”

Posing naked “opened a lot of closed windows in my head.” She learned to celebrate her health, her body, her youth. “It made me more confident and less obsessive about little things. … I learned to appreciate my body a little bit more. Not a little bit more. I appreciate it, period.”

By now she is used to fielding questions about morals, objectification, feminism. One reporter told her he was reluctant to write about her because he has two daughters — implying she’d be a questionable role model — but he was happy to discover she was “actually a wonderful lady.”

The backhanded compliment stung.

Pomplun seeks approval only from people who matter to her — her family. She described the atmosphere in the Pomplun household as “very open-minded,” one where Playboys were accessible to Pomplun and her two older brothers. That’s how she discovered the magazine, as a girl. The first model she saw was a redhead. The year was 1998 or 1999, making her 11 or 12.

She remembers telling her father, “ ‘Oh, these women are so gorgeous. … They’re posed as muses. That’s an honor.’ This is what came out of my little girl’s mind. I never thought that they’re using them or they’re a piece of meat. I never thought that.”

She cleared up a final misconception — that she’s just an object. In the same breath she brought up Hugh Hefner, Michelangelo and da Vinci’s nudes, as a celebration of the female form. “I feel Hef did the same thing, but just with photos. He could have used painting if he wanted, but he created that art with photos. Yeah, it’s a little bit erotic, but who doesn’t like that?”

roxana.popescu@utsandiego.com • (619) 797-6312 • Twitter @roxanapopescu