BALCONY

I’ve been to four parties in the last six months. Attendance was down and the energy was lethargic. Then suddenly the March party was crowded and lively like the old days.

The March nude party was the most well-attended and lively in some time. I don’t think it’s my imagination that things have got more and more free-wheeling in the lap dance room. Had fun but the presence of female bartenders was, as usual, a minus for me. Had several dances. One guy tried to charge me for five songs when we barely did three. But two other dancers were fantastically generous. Something quite unusual happened as well: a non-dancer attendee cruised the heck out of me all evening. Hardly the norm in this atmosphere where the focus is overwhelmingly on the dancers, not on regular guys like me.

I have always loved male strip clubs, and I’m well aware that they have nothing to do with the real world; they are a place of sexualized fantasy. Therefore I don’t care if the strippers are gay or straight. It’s the unique turned-on atmosphere I’m after. I’m a guy with 100% same sex orientation, so the presence of cis-straight women ruins this vibe. Sorry. I wish Campus would open a separate all-male room upstairs, which was rumored when the new owner took over a while back. The boisterous groups of women in there nowadays can dominate the space in a way that is so disappointing that it’s tragic compared to the past. Don’t forget: they had their own Ladies’ Night which was fine. And yes, at Swinging Richard’s I would go straight to the all-male lounge in the back, and stay there. I know I’m swimming against the tide but it would be fun to be able to reclaim an all-male space just once in a while.

omg. That pic is so depressing it’s barely believable. When I think of the hot times I used to have in that club. Meanwhile Campus can still be fun, but on a visit just before the new management took over, there was a table of loud-ass women who dared their birthday girl to get onstage herself. So she did. There she was: drunk, shoeless, braying, champagne bottle in hand, gown sliding off her shoulders, mascara smeared. Where was management to rid of us this interloper? Eventually the real dancers started up again but the damage to my memory of the hot gay history of Campus was done. Sacrilege. Recent visits have been better but I’ll risk being a called a passé curmudgeon here, and say that the male-only era was preferable.

DC was once a male strip paradise. It’s dizzying just to think about the great times I had there.

Pumpjack club has for years advertised nude shower shows on Thursday nights. But I’ve never heard first-hand info about it. Has it ever been mentioned on these threads? Would really like to know more.

Atlanta has made it more difficult to operate a fully nude club since the heyday of Swinging Richard’s. Dare we expect that an Atlanta Johnson’s would return to this tradition? Tricky zoning/grandfathering laws.

My recent visit to Stag revealed a surprising vibe for a (male) strip club. You might call it pansexual/queer/genderfluid.

The loss of Swinging Richards was just plain tragic. The times I had in there….

As a frequent visitor to Portland (and many other cities to compare it to), the anxiety expressed on these posts is highly exaggerated. It’s true that the streets of Old Town and the Pearl District contain their share of houseless inhabitants, but I would certainly not be scared away. (The Uber driver, “don’t get out”? Really?)

I have loved my trips to Montreal from NYC for 25 years. But now that every night is ladies' night, proceed with awareness, fellas. Packs of high-pitched screaming bachelorettes can take hold of the atmosphere. Like last Saturday at Campus, where a particularly brazen gal got onstage herself. Barefoot, drink in hand, barking unintelligible nonsense, dress strap askew, her wanton girlfriends loving every minute. I dunno; I used to think of the Montreal strip clubs as sacred territory. I waited it out and had fun with one of the guys anyway. At the opposite end of the bar. But rarely has the feeling of a new order been so palpable.