What It Takes to Say Yes

The question I’ve always had about Playboy isn’t moral—it’s psychological. What does the decision actually feel like? The moment you agree, before the cameras, before the prints, before your family and friends and ex-classmates and strangers scroll past it. You say yes and then there’s no un-saying it. That seems to require a particular kind of peace with your own body, or at least a particular relationship to visibility, that I genuinely find interesting.

Katerina Giannoglou is the May 2018 Playmate, and she seems to have made that decision with very little internal drama. The shoot happened in Cape Town—her first time undressed in front of a camera—and she describes it without ceremony. No hesitation, apparently, no particular nerves.

Her background is vivid in a way that makes sense of the composure. Born in Erlangen, a mid-sized Bavarian city, to Greek parents, she grew up close to forests and meadows, outdoors as much as possible, cycling with her brother, family picnics, the unhurried rhythm of a provincial German childhood. At 19 she left for Milan and spent three years on runways and in ad campaigns. Now she’s based in Hamburg, speaks German, Greek, and Italian, and has the ease of someone who has lived several lives in one.

There’s a specific kind of beauty that reads as completely undefended, and Katerina has it—not in spite of the Playboy context but somehow clarified by it. She chose this. That’s its own kind of statement.