Ines Rau —Ruben V. Nepales
LOS ANGELES—“I have been a courtesan, stripper, model, housewife,” declared Ines Rau, the first openly transgender Playmate who graced Playboy’s November 2017 issue. The French model of Algerian descent now wants to become an actress.
Model-thin, Ines sported big brunette hair and was clad in all-black in this interview in West Hollywood.
Assigned as a male at birth, Ines had sex reassignment surgery at age 19, not 16, as written on Wiki. After revealing her trans identity at age 24, she first posed nude with Tyson Beckford in a French magazine.
The former Playmate of the Month, who has modeled for designers and fashion magazines, now has set her sights on becoming an actress.
“I have been many women,” said Ines, blessed with beautiful eyes and luminous olive skin. “I was living in Malibu with someone for two years. I was engaged. He broke up with me. I have slept on the streets. I have been a man and so many things. I can use all those tools from my life experience for my characters.”
“Because what is a better (acting) school than the life you had?” Ines asked aloud in her charming French accent.
“I haven’t signed any contracts, but I have a TV show coming out in March in France,” Ines pointed out. “Hiding a secret for so long, struggling, all the things that society makes you do sometimes, makes you an actor.
“I would be very happy to be in ‘Pose.’ I know many of the girls in the cast. They are friends. It’s an amazing show.”
Ines disclosed that just because she is transgender, people think they can ask her questions they would not normally ask other people, like “they think it’s normal to ask you about your p***y.”
Challenging childhood
The Paris-born model had a challenging childhood. “I raised myself on my own since I was little. I was going to my first school already by myself. My mother had me when she was very young. She met a guy who didn’t like me because of the color of my skin. He was a racist. He didn’t want to accept me as a son. My mother was in love with him.
“So I was by myself all the time. That is how I became my best friend. I started to give the love that I didn’t receive to myself. That is why I decided to do it (sex reassignment surgery), because I knew that’s what I wanted. I wanted to give this gift to myself, the freedom.”
On becoming Playboy’s Playmate of the Month, the 28-year-old said, “The experience was a dream come true. Not to be arrogant, but Playboy puts a crown on my head, like a crown of femininity, because what’s more feminine and symbolic than to be a Playmate in terms of femininity? I had a lot of people telling me, ‘How can you pose in a magazine that treats women as objects?’ But I had a long conversation with Cooper Hefner and Hugh Hefner, who chose me before he died. Hugh fought for sexual freedom and empowering women, in a way.
“It’s not because you want to be naked in a magazine. I love to be sexy and to be naked. I don’t think it’s being an object. It’s a power that we have, and it can be very powerful. So yes, it changed my life. It was an honor. It was one of the most beautiful days of my life.
Playboy cover
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get the cover because Hugh Hefner died two weeks before they released the magazine, so it was him on the cover.”
To parents with offspring who want to transition into another sex, Ines cautioned, “I will always try to educate parents to listen to their kids and let them be who they are.
“I’d say that we need to let them wait until 16 to make sure, because even though it’s just hormones and they don’t do the main surgery, it causes troubles in the brain.”
In her teens, Ines left her home in Nancy, a city located northeast of France where she grew up, and began her journey. “I left my parent’s house because my stepfather was horrible. He was violent with my mother. So I left my house at almost 17 years old. I went to Paris.
“I told my mom, ‘Don’t worry, I have friends. I have an apartment. I’m going to have a job.’ Because she was worried for me. But the truth was, I arrived in Paris and knew no one. I slept on the streets for a couple of days.”
On her dating life, Ines remarked, “It’s complicated because, especially when you transition completely, men will always see you as a man, or they want you because they have very kinky fantasies.
“I am single today, and it’s really hard to find someone who sees you for your soul…”
Ines clarified, “I have had boyfriends. I am having fun. Before coming out, I had a couple of boyfriends, but then after coming out, I just had one. We broke up after three years. I have grown. I don’t have as many lovers as before. I just want to have one and something very serious.
What galls Ines is how some men do not take women seriously. “Males think they are a superior race than women.”
Asked about the pluses of having have had the experience of being a man and a woman, Ines replied, “I think my brain is that of a male and a female. I have more strength, and I’m not saying that women don’t have that, but physically, I feel like I am very strong, even though I am super thin.”
On when she realized that she wanted to transition into a female, Ines—who danced for DJs like David Guetta when she was 18—shared, “The paradox is that I was very tomboy-like. I wasn’t the little boy who wanted to wear women’s dresses and to play with Barbie. I liked to play football. I liked to go up trees, to fight. I am telling that in my book (‘Femme’).
“But from the age of 12 to 13, I started to realize that there is a difference between what I was looking at in the mirror and what I felt in my soul. I started asking questions of myself. In my erotic dreams, I was making love to someone and the person who was in front of me, was making love to me as a woman.”
The big O
Ines was the one who brought up the topic of orgasm. “Thank God it happened. I noticed after the transition that if it truly had not happened, that would have been OK as well because, when you go on that road, you need to fulfill yourself and be satisfied with what you can have.”
On some women’s reaction toward her, Ines spoke up, “Sometimes, women can be more difficult and less accepting than men.”
Asked to comment on “Girl,” Belgium’s entry to the Oscars about a trans teenage ballerina—which sparked controversy because of its depiction of self-mutilation—Ines answered, “It’s a beautiful movie. The whole movie is, for once, very representative of what a trans person transitioning feels like, especially a teenager which I was.
“But … the percentage of a trans person who wants to mutilate herself and cut her penis is so small.”
After all the hurdles she faced and overcame, does Ines have any regrets? “No, absolutely not,” she replied firmly. “I could do it 100 times again if I had to.”
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