Out With A Whimper

Playboy's fans and I have been raving all year long about how amazing 2009's Playmate class has been. The ladies have been absolutely stellar, with a mix of all sorts of girls and a great array of unusual talent. As soon as I heard, however, that Hugh Hefner's new favorite girlfriend would be featured as Miss December, I knew that the year wasn't going to end on a high note.

I was right, and so was everyone else in the Playboy world.

Enter Crystal Harris, a bubbly plastic mold of a woman who is Miss December 2009. December Playmate is a major title in Playboy history -- it's a month where the magazine tries to end things with a sultry, sexy

touch, with pictorials themed with Christmas charm and sensuous wintry themes. This month, they got it all backward.

In a year with 1/4 of the girls being "Hefmates," (the Shannon twins and now Crystal) it's got to be held up by some other fine ladies in order not to be a landslide towards the robed one's favorites. Crystal is an utter disaster of a Playmate: she's overly artificial, looks extremely forgettable, has horrific plastic surgery, and just doesn't look all that good naked. In fact, Crystal is a girl who looks like she's "always" naked, which takes away from that sultry charm that Playmates have when they're nude. She's like a porn star, and totally lacks any charm or sophistication that makes a girl a Playboy bunny.

While having a decently sexy body, bronzed and lean, Crystal makes up for it by being relatively ditzy in her photos. She strikes awkward poses while not really ever changing her facial expression or letting any of her strengths do the talking. Her strengths are few and far between, but involve her not letting herself do a whole lot of posing, and instead being passive, like in this decent photo.

Crystal has a train wreck of a body when you compare her to elite Playmates of 2009. Her breasts are the biggest dealbreaker, looking extremely fake and like small inflated balloons. I understand that plenty of nude models have had surgery done, but Crystal's breasts just look too silly in photos

. At times also, her face just doesn't have a dynamic quality to her, and she just wanders around photographs aimlessly, not allowing any rhythm or theme develop in her pictorial at all.

Don't for an instant say that she doesn't "match my tastes." Platinum blondes can be very sexy, and light haired beauties this year include Candice Cassidy and Lindsey Gayle Evans, some of the best bodies and posers of the year. Crystal just doesn't have "it," or anything for that matter. She edges out some of the bottom girls of the year simply because of her ability to pull through on some photos and the fact that she does have some admirable proportions here and there. But make no mistake: 2009 went out with a real whimper. Stay tuned, though! A comprehensive Playmate review of the '09 class is coming soon!

Consensus...

• Facial: B- Crystal's sharp facial features are far less attractive than many of the girls of the year, not to mention that it remains expressionless for many of her photos.
• Body: B- Crystal is very artificial, with her ridiculous breasts being the biggest flaw.
• Talent: C+ The only reason she's a Playmate is because of her personal ties, and has not one bit to do with how good she is at posing for the camera.
• Pictorial: B- There was no flow in the entire pictorial, nor was there more than one or two memorable photos.
• Centerfold: B+ Definitely one of the better centerfolds of the year, one of the few bright spots in this Playmate's appearance.
• Overall: B- Without a doubt, Crystal is one of the worst Playmates of 2009. It's not just the stellar class that makes her look bad, though; Crystal's utter lack of ability and any semblance of posing experience whatsoever makes her a terrible choice for Playmate. She obviously is the ultimate "Hefmate" of the modern era, and possibly the very last of her kind, but as she is now, we need to endure her presence. With three out of the twelve girls being Hefmates for 2009, there is a stronger chance that one of these failures may edge close to the PMOY 2010 crown, which would be an absolute travesty considering the caliber of talent at the top of the '09 class. If Crystal does get that far, it will prove once and for all that politics is truly king in the Playboy realm.