An unabashedly, busty blonde with a penchant for tackling the taboo, former Sexcapades columnist and journalism senior Shauvon Torres was Sacramento State’s Carrie Bradshaw.

Taking a break from studies in the spring, Torres – who probably once pondered writing about “going down” – moved down under and lived life in front of cameras while sharing a house with six strangers in the latest season of MTV’s “Real World: Sydney.” The show is now airing Wednesday nights on MTV.

“It was one of those things you always think about but you never think it happens,” Torres, in a Merced Sun-Star article, said of being cast for the show.

In the article, Torres admitted that auditioning for the show was a spur of the moment decision, barely making the deadline for audition tape submissions. By December and after a few trips to Los Angeles for callbacks, she was told she would be a housemate.

It was an unexpected decision for 24-year-old Torres, who once confessed in a column to being a private person.

“I know it’s OK to be (at an adult store) for whatever my reason may be, since I’m old and mature enough. I guess I just prefer to keep my activities and sexual things private, not laid out for the person in line behind me to know what makes my cat meow,” Torres wrote.

However, Torres said she adjusted to living with the camera’s constant presence.

“You kind of ignore it,” Torres said in the Merced Sun-Star article. “You have to live a normal life – you have to eat breakfast, brush your teeth. The crew doesn’t make you uncomfortable.” Torres even missed the cameras after taping was over, she said in the article.

Without divulging plots from upcoming episodes, Torres admitted to falling into the “party girl and sex vixen” role, as evidenced in aired episodes in which she has made out with a male cast member, fooled around with a local “mate,” and admitted to capitalizing on her opportunity to access Aussie boys.

However, she wins sympathy with some viewers because of her “suddenly single” status. MTV reported that Torres broke off an engagement prior to moving to Sydney because she was asked to choose between her fiance and her career.

Torres is a Merced native who moved to Sacramento in 2001 and attended Sierra College before transferring to Sac State. She will resume her studies at California State University, Los Angeles so she might pursue new possibilities for a career in entertainment under representation from Reel Management and MM Agency.

Marilen Bugarin can be reached at [email protected]