You’d think that a 25 year-old guy, with a normal testosterone level  (i.e. stratospheric) , would become a drool factory over the prospect of having a Playboy Playmate sitting in his office for an hour or so.

You would be wrong.

There were twelve Playmates a year (obviously) and each month, one of us low-echelon editors would be assigned to write her “playmate copy.” Playmate copy is the text that accompanies each Playmate lay-out, the driveling nonsense that attempts to turn an 18-21 year-old woman, whose only real asset is her beauty, into a cultured, sophisticated, grown woman with an interesting background and ambitious plans for her future.

This exercise was akin to trying to get honesty out of a Congressman.

In fact, it was so painful that, when your turn came around, you would do your best to avoid it. It was a form of torture that was still pending in Geneva. And mostly, it was fiction. Fiction is generally fun to write, but you have to have characters and a plot.

Most of these women were blank slates with cleavage. I don’t mean to criticize them too harshly -- they were just too young to have had much worldly experience. Unlike them, I had survived many years of hard living, having just graduated from college with a degree in English.

Of course there was no chance of a lowly editor like me having anything even approaching a sexual relationship with any of these gorgeous creatures. That virginal terrain was cultivated exclusively by Hef. How we all admired him for his dilligence and dedication!! 

So you’d be sitting at your desk, doing something useless, when the Managing Editor, Shel Wax, would enter your office with a mischievous look on his face and tell you it was your turn. I think he enjoyed the look of hopeless desperation that formed on your face. “Isn’t it Bauer’s turn?” you would croak, knowing that it wasn’t. “Nope,” Shel would say. “Bauer did Miss June. It’s your turn. Miss July. We need it by tomorrow.”

Here was how it worked: First, you’d get the Playmate’s layout. They were all pretty much the same –- sitting, standing, and lying-down poses, lips puckered, butts in the air, eyes aflame with nothing. Then you’d make an appointment with the Playmate. She’d arrive, sit down, and maybe smile. Sometimes she’d be wearing something revealing. Sometimes she’d cross her legs provocatively. You’d exchange small talk. There would be awkward silences, as you forced your facial muscles to maintain a smile. Then you’d get down to business and ask her some questions.

“What are your goals in life?” you’d say. “I want to be a model and an actress,” she’d respond. (Yawn). “Where did you grow up?” “Kansas.” (Yawn). “Got any interesting stories from your teenage years?” “I was Miss Topeka two years ago. It was such an honor” (Yawn). What was that like?” And so on.

On one occasion -- I think it was my interview with Miss July -- I actually dozed off for a few seconds. Maybe it was the six martinis I'd consumed the night before. Maybe it was the neverending story she told me about her glass unicorn collection.

Anyway, after the interview, you'd try to locate a theme among all this babble and write a coherent story, which you’d have to seriously embellish, although it was mandatory to keep more-or-less to the truth. After all, Playboy was known throughout the world as a bastion of journalism.

I lucked out once. I was assigned a Playmate who’d gotten a Masters Degree. I had no clue what her field of study was, and I was afraid to ask. But she was educated, so I called Shel and told him how literate she was and that maybe it would be a fun idea if she wrote her own Playmate copy. He thought about it for a moment –- realizing full well that this was clearly an attempt by me to get out of writing it myself –- and said… "okay."

She did a splended job too. I'd never read Playmate copy that was entirely about Proust, but there's a first time for everything.

The good news? I didn't have to do another one for two months!   

(I know. Some of you men will think I’m an idiot. Some of you women will think I’m a sexist pig. Let the games begin.)