I was watching a cabaret show last week and I started to think about stripping. There was a male acrobat who was by no means a stripper but instead, a burlesque artiste, which is a world of difference.

by Chris Bridges | 26th January 2014

Whilst performing a series of elaborate gymnastic and acrobatic manoeuvres he managed to remove his shirt, revealing pert nipples, a torso of delicately shaded muscle and an inviting trail of hair leading down from his navel. The gentle snaking down of his trousers over narrow hips was momentary but tantalising and although I wouldn’t have objected to a glimpse of his nether regions, what he flashed was enough.

This is a contrast to the bar room glimpses of male flesh which I was greeted with during my teenage years in the late 1980s. Like many small cities we had one back street gay bar that was all mirror balls, sticky floors and neon lights with a stage (a large upturned wooden box) and a dance floor that could easily fit at least five anorexics as long as they all breathed in at the same time.

There was a drag act on a Wednesday and a Sunday lunchtime and a stripper on a Friday. The stripper always also heralded the arrival of a local bishop, clamouring to the front of the stage and discretely brushing his elderly fingers over his own crotch. This wasn’t a good look. The strippers generally followed the same routine. They’d walk in to the bar carrying holdalls which were big enough to stash bodies in. Generally, they’d be accompanied by their girlfriends; brandished on their arms as a statement that clearly shouted: “Yes, I’m showing you my knob, but I’m straight, thanks for asking, so no touching.”

The routines were pretty generic: the same pumping music, the same uniforms (oddly never traffic wardens but more often policemen or soldiers) and the same orange skin slathered in glistening oil. There’d be the same old routines: blindfolding people, bouncing their meat under a flag or pouring baby oil onto their crotches and then splashing the audience with it. The latter was usually accompanied by a squeal of horror as a room full of gays panicked about how they’d get grease out an imitation Jean-Paul Gautier jacket. Occasionally there would be a prop: perhaps a snake, a set of handcuffs or a baton of some sort. Even the men looked the same with orange skin (did strippers start this now ubiquitous trend?), over developed muscles and the odd mullet or two. The final reveal usually showed an extraordinarily engorged member, risking gangrene as it fought the constraints of a tight rubber band.

There were odd exceptions such as the man who misjudged and bought out a trio of rats in lieu of the snake (are rats ever erotic?). The definitely gay stripper who allowed himself to be fingered on stage and was later seen being blown off against a sink in the gents was an interesting routine and one that I’m sure wasn’t legitimate in the eyes of the law. My favourite of all was the stripper with the cucumber. He was kind of hot and ended his routine by inserting an oversized cucumber into his anus, which wasn’t an uninteresting sight. This went down well with the crowd until he pulled it out and bit the end of it, chewed and swallowed and he became the stuff of legend.

Naturally, this all beggars a question: if they were all so shady and ropey then why did I watch them? Well, anyone growing up in a small provincial city in the 1980s won’t need to ask this. The answer is: aged 18, what else was there to do but drink and watch some bloke whip out his penis whilst looking disaffected?

I’ve nothing against strippers. If you’re reading this as you apply your rubber bands, then good on you. It’s a great job and if you’re enjoying it and making good money then fantastic. I just prefer my male flesh with a little more slow revelation and a nice bit of 50s tweed now. How times change!