Free All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, by Craig Seymour Page B

to let other guys pay to ogle us and feel our business.
    We were also aware that we were doing a job that many people thought was disgusting and degrading. But for most of us, it was a job choice like any other, amounting to a compromised negotiation among ideals, capabilities, and opportunities. The only difference was that stripping made you shockingly aware of the chasm that can exist between who you think you are and what you're willing to do for money.
    The dressing room was filled with a constantly changing cast of characters, as guys started stripping, quit, disappeared, and then, more often than not, reappeared. ("I guess rent's due," I once overheard a customer remark upon a dancer's return to the scene.) There was Patrick, a sturdy All-American type who stripped on nights when he wasn't playing the lead in a local production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Puppyboy, a short, skinny guy who crawled along the bar on all fours, occasionally lifting his leg like he was taking a whiz. (This was all cute until one night he stuck his rump in a customer's face and accidentally let out a short, sputtering fart. At that moment, he quickly lost the four-legged shtick, hopped to his feet, and dashed back to the dressing room, red-faced.)
    Then there was Sid, a straight bleached-blond punk and unapologetic hustler known for offering tips on topics like giving a professional blow job. ("Get the money in advance, then try to get the guy to wear a condom; if he insists that you suck him without a condom, tell him you have cold sores.") And Danny, a sort of gyrating cautionary tale, who was returning to dancing after a breakup with a longtime boyfriend. Fifteen years earlier, a boyish Danny was the hottest guy on the block, and he had a reputation for over-the-top temper tantrums. One time he hurled a shot glass across a club and shattered a full-length mirror. "I'm too old to pull that shit now," he told me one night, while stepping into a jock strap. "Still have my twenty-seven-inch waist, though."
    The key to getting along at the club was learning to live with other people's contradictions. It didn't take long to realize that a person's stated sexual orientation had nothing to do with how he might act at the club or the sex he might have for money. "Straight" and "gay" lost meaning for me. I soon barely noticed when, say, Steve—a married, blond, surfer-looking dude who liked to show off pictures of his towheaded daughters dressed for church—got into a customer’s car and soon had his head bobbing up and down on the drivers lap.
    Money was the all-purpose justifier for almost any type of behavior. It helped many straight guys explore homo aspects of their sexuality without having to own up to boy-on-boy stirrings. Just as frisky, sexually ambivalent frat boys use the excuse "I was so drunk last night," straight dancers could do almost anything with another guy as long as bills were exchanged.
    The money also helped assuage outraged girlfriends, wives, and other family members. A straight dancer once told me about the time his mother caught him putting together a construction worker costume—tool belt, hat, G-string—for a stripper-of-the-month contest. She was shocked to find out that her son was entering a nude dancing contest at a gay bar.
    "But Ma," he said, "first prize is five hundred dollars."
    "Five hundred dollars," his mother said. "You should've told me. I would've made you a costume."
    The other thing we talked about in the dressing room was the customers. Because we were in D.C., there was a lot of speculation—often false, sometimes true—about who our customers were: this one's a congressman; that one's a White House aide; the fat guy over there is a prominent Washington Post critic.
    We placed the other customers in categories: The good kinds of customers were the "regulars," who could always be counted on; "sugar daddies," who tipped big and bought us gifts; and "moms," who did things