View From The Penthouse

New Zealand Woman's Weekly - 19 November 2001 Sarah Nealon It may sound clichéd but you really do have to wonder what a nice girl like Bree Maddox is doing taking her clothes off for a living.

The chatty, super-bright Penthouse Pet and on-line centerfold recently graduated in the top one percent of students at her local university but has no qualms about baring all for the camera.

"There's nothing wrong with the female body," says the 21-year-old Perth woman, who has a commerce degree in marketing and PR

"I guess that was instilled in me from quite a young age. I was taught that there's nothing wrong with your body and to celebrate what you've got rather than hide it."A fashion model since she was 10, Bree, who visited New Zealand recently to promote an adult lifestyle expo, started posing naked for magazines when she was 18 and has no regrets.

But shouldn't someone as intelligent as her be aiming to be a doctor or lawyer?"Why is it that the people who have those brains feel obligated to do those professions?" she asks.

"When you talk to a lot of lawyers, they hate it. I don't see why I can't be in this industry. What law is there out there that says I have to go on and be an academic or in an educated profession?

"I use my degree all the time because, every day, I'm either negotiating contracts, maintaining relationships with clients or marketing myself by giving interviews. I'm enjoying this profession so much and it's lucrative."

Indeed it is. Using her earnings, Bree financed her studies and, this year bought her first house. And her 80-year-old grandmother is one of her biggest fans."My grandmother goes and buys every magazine I'm in," says Bree.

"She went on TV in Australia and said she thought my photos were beautiful and that she was very proud of me."On the subject of feminism, Bree says she's neither a feminist nor an anti-feminist.

"I don't see myself pushing the feminist movement back or pushing it forward. It's never been my goal to do either of those."