By KEVIN WILLIAMSON
Calgary Sun

Jenna Morasca and Heidi Strobel are stripping for more than just peanut butter this time.

The duo -- whose sexy antics dominated Survivor: The Amazon this spring -- have doffed their duds for the current issue of Playboy, which finds them frolicking in various stages of undress in a jungle setting (actually an indoor studio in Brooklyn, N.Y.).

In an interview with the Sun, the girls were mum about how much they got paid -- rumour has it Morasca, who won the show's $1-million prize, received close to that sum from the magazine -- but it's "very generous," says Morasca.

The pairing of the reality-TV bombshells and Playboy is an obvious match. For one thing, they already took off their clothes on the show in exchange for chocolate and peanut butter. For another, Playboy has a history of approaching Survivor players -- Colleen Haskell from the first Survivor rejected an offer, while Jerri Manthey from the Australian Outback bared all.

The pictorial -- which the self-described "best friends" agreed to do together or not at all -- was shot the morning after Morasca, a 23-year-old swimsuit model, was crowned Survivor champ on May 11. The editors turned the shoot into a glossy spread in record time, a mere 90 days.

"It's a respected magazine," says Morasca. "It was an honour to be on the cover."

"Our dads didn't totally freak out, so that was a good sign," says 24-year-old Strobel, who has quit her job as a phys-ed teacher. "You can't be a schoolteacher and be in Playboy. It was a very hard decision because I've spent the last five years devoted to kids. When I was in college, I chose to be a teacher."

With the Playboy money, she says she plans to go to medical school once the publicity blitz surrounding them subsides.

Whatever they're wearing, though, both women realize it will be difficult to shake the "wicked stepsisters" label they were tagged with during the series' run.

"That was mainly the media. We got a lot of people coming up to us on the street, saying, 'You and Jenna rock,' " Strobel says, who nevertheless admits it was hard for her to teach everyday while her students and fellow faculty were watching her misadventures.

As with most past Survivor players, they say what viewers saw was a fraction of the truth -- and specifically skewed to goose the drama. It's something they understand, even if they say they never played to the cameras.

"We didn't think about the show. You're completely cut off from the world -- there's no television or cellphone, so after day two, it was all about the game," Morasca says, adding there's nothing forced about her friendship with Strobel. "The whole relationship was just natural ... She's the sister I never had."

And they insist that, despite appearances, they got along with everyone on the show, including Rob Cesternino, the computer nerd who backstabbed them, but who now they consider a close friend. "He's 20 times funnier than he was on the show -- he's just a riot," says Morasca, who confirms her infamous screaming match with him was genuine.

"You only saw about a minute, but actually it went on for about five or seven minutes.

"At that point, I was (angry). He'd betrayed me and I know we were betraying other people, but he did it to me, so that made it personal. He made Heidi cry. I know we were never supposed to yell at anyone, but I'd just had it with him."

Of course not everything viewers saw was skewed.

Strobel readily acknowledges they used their sex appeal to their advantage -- especially since the tribes were initially divided along gender lines.

"It'd be ridiculous not to use your sex appeal. It wasn't just us -- it was all the girls. The girls always had their eye on the money, but the boys got distracted."