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San Diego gets a new Pet

By Larry Knowles

September 11, 2006

San Diego--San Diego resident Kimberley Rogers says she doesn’t have any friends in town, which is hard to believe, since she’s “Pet of the Month” in the current issue of Penthouse Magazine.

“It’s true. I don’t know a soul here,” she says, sitting on the patio at Deitrich’s Coffee in Hillcrest.

A healthy skepticism exists among the public about the true background of a Penthouse model. It’s well known that the Pets’ names are made-up and the profile embellished. So, what’s left to believe?

Rogers, however, is as forthcoming as she is engaging. During the interview she speaks freely about herself and her past, asking only a few times that information remain off the record. She quite-reasonably requested, for example, that her real name and new neighborhood in San Diego not be printed.

She represents the new Penthouse. In January 2005, the magazine changed its format, retreating from hard core porn to “tasteful nudity,” along the lines of Playboy. Gone are the hard core pictorials, the gyno-shots that the magazine built its reputation on.

“The image I had of Penthouse was of women with their legs spread,” she says. “I never would have posed for the old Penthouse.” When her agent told her that Penthouse had softened its format, she agreed to do some test shots for the publication. The test shots would eventually become the October pictorial.

Her profile on www.kimberleyrogers.com says that she grew up in Australia, spent time in the Midwest, and recently moved to San Diego. The Melbourne native explains that she moved to America’s Finest City about a month ago to get away from Los Angeles, a city which she has grown to hate.

“There are so many people in Los Angeles who act like they’re really important. The people in San Diego, I think, are more down to earth.”

She maintains that she has been too busy getting settled and pursuing a modeling career to get out and meet people. Questions about her favorite hang-outs draw a resigned shrug. “My life here is pretty boring. I’ve just been unpacking.”

“I did find this great beach called ‘Swami’s,’” she adds. “I go during the week, so there aren’t a lot of people there. I love quiet, so I take my fins and go out and swim.”

While the notion of a Penthouse Pet frolicking alone at a local beach may spur some guys to take afternoon strolls along the Encinitas shoreline, Rogers says recognition doesn’t bother her. In fact, she says she’s looking forward to it.

“It would be nice if people recognized me, but I doubt they will,” she remarks. “I don’t consider myself famous or anything.”

She is on her own in San Diego and admits the move has been a little unnerving. Relocating, however, is nothing new to Rogers. She spent the first sixteen years of her life moving around every couple of years, living in Fiji and different parts of Australia before being uprooted and dropped in St. Louis, Missouri.

“It was a big culture shock,” she says. “People are a little more conservative in the Midwest.”

Those Midwestern values eventually clashed with her modeling aspirations. She began posing nude two years ago, during a time when she worked for a luxury car dealership in St. Louis. When the photos from her first shoot made it to the internet—and the computers of dealership management—she was called in to explain. She did, without contrition, and was promptly fired.

“That’s when I decided to really go for it,” she states.

Rogers’ says her family supports her nude modeling and adds that her mother has been particularly encouraging. In fact, the pinup laughs when recalling the times that her mother has proudly introduced her as a model, only to have follow-up questions hone in on the type of modeling she does.

Rogers is a licensed pilates instructor and says that she would like to find work at a pilates studio in the area. Given the popularity of pilates, and the recognition for the Penthouse shoot that’s sure to come, she won’t be alone in this town much longer.

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