Q 6

PLAYBOY: Were you a Playboy Bunny once?

Lauren Hutton: I was a Bunny for about five months. It was after I'd left college and gone to New York. I was starving. And I couldn't do anything. Someone told me the New York Playboy Club was opening. I didn't think I was amply enough endowed for that. But, anyway, I was too young to work at night, so I worked during the days. It felt strange; I had never been in night clubs before.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: How do you feel about breast implants?

Lauren Hutton: I certainly wouldn't do it. I think it's silly. If someone had a strong need for them, she should do it, but I think of them as projections.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: How can a man prove to you that he's liberated?

Lauren Hutton: Well, he wouldn't have to prove it. I would assume it. I'm sort of American that way. You're innocent until you're proven guilty. So, quite often, I get stomped three seconds in. You can sort of feel attitude. I just like to be treated like another human being, except one who's frailer, not as strong physically. Women have always been, biologically, in a poorer position. They need protection. Men sometimes have to be inhuman and cruel. But I'd rather meet a bad man than a bad woman.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Why?

Lauren Hutton: Women are rougher. I think men in their hearts are much more delicate than women. The older I get, the more I think about it. My mother always taught me, of course, that men were tough creatures who would hurt you and desert you and all that. That love didn't mean as much to them. That they just had a different attitude. I got the idea of women's being shrinking violets, but now I don't think so. I certainly haven't been. I think women will survive more. Every time. And hurt for less time from a bad affair of the heart.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: How do you handle a delicate man without offending him?

Lauren Hutton: I'm from the South, and every once in a while, I go back. I meet up with all these good old boys, whom I love, because I grew up with them. I know their heart. I also know their old-timy way of puffing up [she inhales and holds her breath], and I don't buy it. They're like chameleons. In Africa, chameleons puff up when they're about to be attacked or they're threatened--which is all the time, because they have no defense. They puff up and stand sideways to present what they feel to be this huge front. Meanwhile, they're just little guys. So I tease. I come on strong and macho, then make a quick feign back to being a delicate flower. That confuses them, and then we can get by all that other stuff.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: What is romance to you?

Lauren Hutton: [Long pause] It's something that breaks patterns. So all of a sudden you're seeing yourself in a way that you haven't really known for a while. It makes you new. To get through our lives, we're so attached to patterns that become more and more complicated each second. We set up so many restrictions on what we think and feel. Every time I see those patterns broken in myself, I'm in love. It could be a person, a place, a new way of seeing the sky.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: Do you prefer garter belts or panty hose?

Lauren Hutton: I don't think I should talk about my collection of garter belts to the public. It's too rare, and other collectors will be trying to buy it.