Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Two final stories from the not so recent Las Vegas trip:

One:

Advertising for the Chippendale dancers state that it�s for ladies only, while that for Australian Thunder from Down Under (a similar show) includes a line mentioning that gentlemen are welcome. Which led to a joke, which led in a round about way to my seeing the Australian show with K.

K�s seen enough documentaries showing women going wild at male strip/exotic dance shows so that even though she has no real interest in near nekked men bopping around a stage, she thought the experience would be fun for us to go�and educational. Yup, that�s it, an educational experience. A sociological field trip.

We showed up for our field trip a little early. Since it was Excalibur that meant waiting on a bench near a food court done up in an odd medieval theme. While waiting, I watched the women waiting excitedly in line, eager for the show to start. I also watched men walking by checking out the women in line. Apparently, both middle aged married Asian men, and young spring breaking white frat guys have the same taste in women, specifically preferring skinny (and I mean scary skinny) white women in high heels, short skirts, and midriff baring tops that barely contain possibly not so real looking breasts.

More normal sized women were not getting the same sort of leering looks. Maybe because they weren�t as large chested or not as skinny, or perhaps because they were wearing the exact clothes, going so far as to wearing the exact same size, so that their breasts were squished down, and their stomachs pushed out making them look fatter than they really were. Despite the popularity of the look, the bursting out of the sausage-casing look doesn�t seem to do much for men, straight or gay (I saw way too many exposed pushed out jiggly women�s stomachs that trip).

I was a bit embarrassed going in, though not as embarrassed by the only two other male guests, two straight guys who had somehow been dragged along to the thing by their girlfriends. Even though I wasn�t anywhere near them, I know they were there because they owed their girlfriends, since they explained this to everyone and anyone frequently and loudly. They were so mortified by the experience, that they had to get half drunk before even showing up, and spent most of the actual show in line at the bar working on finishing off that drunk. Anything to keep from looking at the stage I guess.

Some things became clear that night. One was that brides have immediate solidarity (the majority of the audience were bachelorette parties). All the soon to be brides were forced by their friends to wear clothes that clearly identified them, things like bridal veils with devil horns. Any time the would be brides talked to each other, they became instant bosom buddies.

Another thing I learned was that the stories about women loving ass are true. Before the show started, there was a warm up video of a photo shoot featuring the dancers posing for a calendar. The usual soft pornish stuff like man standing on a sand dune, man lying on sand, man lying shirtless on the couch with the top button of his tightly fitted jeans undone and staring seductively at the camera, and the like. I wasn�t that impressed, making jokes with K that on many of the location shoots the models looked really sunburned. The rest of the audience ignored video, at least until the occasional butt shot. Whenever there was a flash of ass, they went wild. Same thing happened during the actual show. They loved the dancers, but anytime there was heiny, pandemonium ensued.

Amusingly enough, other than the occasional male rear, the only other �naughty� body part I saw that night was a woman�s breast. During one of the acts, a dancer came down into the audience, picked up one the brides and carried her around a bit. Unfortunately those front only slip of shiny fabric blouse things don�t really provide adequate coverage under certain conditions of duress.

I would have preferred a sight of something else, as would have some of the rest of the audience. A couple of different times during the show the MC asked women what they thought of the men and they would yell out that they wanted to see it all! Prompting an apparent rote answer from the MC that we really didn�t want to see that flopping around; it�s not attractive.

While their dangly bits may not have have been presentable, overall the dancers were OK looking, attractive yes, but for the most part not exactly my taste. There were too many �too�s.� Too pretty, too young, too hairless, too generically good looking. On the other hand, even bland generic good looks has it�s place at times. There was a short, energetic, gymnast build guy, and another taller man while muscular was not as defined as some of the other men, that were sort of interesting looking to me. I wouldn�t say no to either of them, not that I�d ever have an opportunity to.

So as a participant in this sociological expedition I witnessed instantaneous bride solidarity and proof to the theory that the ladies love the male bubble butt. More importantly perhaps, or at least more relevant to my life as a gay man, I learned that if I want to see male flesh, there are lot of easier ways to do it then at a review aimed at a female audience. If nothing else, at a gay venue I�d probably get to see more flesh.

Two:
Before committing to the drive back home, K and I did the outlet thing, doing some quick shopping amidst the crowds of tourists speaking French, German, and even on occasion English. Although in the case of three blindingly white guys in the Jockey store, barely. They spoke with Irish accents thicker than they were pale, so that while I recognized it as English, I had no idea what they were saying.

The drive home wasn�t too bad. When I saw Zumanity last year, the soundtrack hadn�t been released yet. Being the odd kind of guy that I am, I do by Cirque CDs, but only to shows I�ve seen. I stopped at their gift shop the day before, so while K napped, I drove, skirting the edges of rain storms to repeating songs where occasional groans and gasps intermix with the beat and singers belt out (in English) lyrics demanding that their men be hung, memories of fist times, and pleading for you to �come bite the apple and come into me.�

John pointed out that I could have gotten the music cheaper on iTunes, but in this case there�s something to owning the actual CD and it�s little sliding band so that you easily reveal or censor the cover art of male buttocks as the mood strikes.

More later,

nico

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