‘Playboy’ Model Has Shot the World’s Most Dangerous Nude Photoshoot

Playboy seems like an amusing throwback in the days when there is so much pornographic material on the internet that you could never get through it all in a hundred lifetimes. Nude calendars seem even more old-fashioned, like something you’d find in a Three Stooges bit in a mechanic’s garage. So if you’re a Playboy model selling a nude calendar, you’ve got to do some crazy things to bring attention to it.

One of those things is a nude photoshoot in shark-infested waters.

For Marisa Papen’s shoot for her upcoming calendar, she went diving off the coast of Hawaii in the buff, alongside a few sharks with no cage or anything between them.

News.com.au reports Papen wanted to “challenge the taboos surrounding sharks as well as nudity,” and that she has a history of stripping in dangerous or headline-grabbing places such as at the Vatican or Egypt’s Karnak Temple Complex.

“It was one of the most peaceful experiences of my life being with the sharks,” she told Real Press. “Being in their presence, I felt complete serenity. People ask me if I was scared, but actually, I was not scared at all.

“They were Galapagos sharks. There were also a couple of reef sharks around and one tiger shark that swam up to us, we didn’t get to photograph him though, he was in and out.”

I feel like things would have been far less serene if she had any sort of small cut before she dove into the water.

“The message is all about breaking stigmas and taboos, nudity is seen as bad in our society, and so are sharks,” she said.

“Over the years, sharks have gained a bad reputation because of the film industry. I wanted to challenge viewers by looking at these magnificent creatures with a different eye.”

Now, it is true that sharks are much less of a danger than people tend to think they are, mainly because of Jaws. Right now I want you to stop and think how many people are killed by sharks every year. Just picture a number in your head.

The actual number is four. Four people are killed in shark attacks in an average year, and only two of those attacks are unprovoked. That is actually fewer people than are killed in Jaws.

I have my doubts on how much anyone’s opinions on sharks will be changed by the calendar, though. But there have been many worse uses of nudity, so good for her, I guess.