All My Exes Live in Print

By Joel Stein

The Call Of The Wild pales. Iron John is laughable. No title rivals the manliness of Naked Pictures of My Ex-Girlfriends. The braggadocio, the ballsiness--there could be no Naked Pictures of My Ex-Boyfriends. Mark Helfrich, 47, a film editor who did indeed work on Showgirls, not only took pictures of the numerous--and surprisingly attractive--women he slept with in the 1970s but persuaded them to let him print their pictures in a book being published this week (Consafos Press; 120 pages; $32.95). This guy makes Charlie Sheen look meek.

Helfrich, however, insists he's showing off these photographs not to boast but to document the era of free love. "At first glance you might think it's bragging, but if you read any of the text, you realize it's not." Text, for example, such as "It made her happy to give me pleasure. It made her ecstatic to pleasure me outdoors." And "I remember screwing in the ladies room at a Stuckey's." But Helfrich insists he took--and kept--these pictures not to document conquests but because of his love for photography. Says he: "I've taken pictures of women I haven't slept with. I'm a shutterbug."

Though it took seven years to collect their permission, Helfrich says only 10% of the women refused (and the one he couldn't track down he threw in anyway). "I'd call and say I was doing a valentine to a bygone era, a book about romance in the '70s," he said. He promised not to use their real names, which seemed reassuring despite the fact that everyone would see them naked. If ever there was a damning study of long-term drug effects, this may be it.

"Jill," who wears a Holiday Inn DO NOT DISTURB sign on her left nipple in one picture and gives Helfrich the finger from her perch on the toilet in another, says Helfrich kept at her like a dog with a bone. "When he first called me he said, 'I want to write a diary about the '70s, and I want to include some pictures of you.' I asked him to send me the pictures, and none of them had any clothes on, so I said no," she explains. Then Helfrich called to tell her she was just a tiny part of the book. Then he called to say not many people would buy the book. He closed the deal by laying down a rap about his "philosophy."

"Jill" likes the book, but she's shocked at the number of women he slept with: "I wish I had done some VD testing back then because I didn't realize he was such a busy boy."

Helfrich had other tricks to get the women to sign off, like the ones he employed on strip-Ping-Pong-loving radical-feminist "Donna," now 42. "I was shocked he still had these pictures," she says. "Then I was touched that he still had them." Even more effective than the appeal to her heart was the appeal to her vanity. "I liked the way I looked back then. Your body changes as you grow older," she says. Plus, her boyfriend was very supportive of her decision. "He thought it was pretty cool. He likes the pictures," she says. As if we needed further proof that men are simple.

Though "Donna" likes Helfrich and his work, she still thinks the whole thing is pretty weird. "I don't know how I'd feel if I were married to someone who wanted to keep naked pictures of his ex-girlfriends," she says. Yet Helfrich's wife Alexandra, 36, says "he is the most faithful man I have ever met. If I felt he was lecherous or that he would stray, it would be disturbing." Her husband took many rolls of her naked, but she wouldn't let him develop them until they were married. This, no doubt, will be in the next edition of The Rules.

One of the few people involved in the book who do seem camera shy is Helfrich, who didn't want his photo with this article. "A lot of guys see their own girlfriends through this book. I don't want to taint the photographs with my picture." His exes say he wasn't "conventionally handsome" in the '70s but was appealing in a skinny, David Bowie kind of way. He had, they say, a great rap. No kidding.

"It was just one of those fun, spontaneous things," says "Donna." "But, my God, now I will definitely think twice if someone wants to take my picture."