HOOK: E-zine By, For, and About Men in the Sex Industry

I started in a smoke filled pool room at the age of 18. The manager of the establishment eventually stopped carding me. I’m not sure legally how it occurred, although I’m certain, ultimately, it was illegal. I started appearing in drag shows as the “boy toy.” I would pick up tips in tight strategically ripped jeans.

One night on my way to the club, I stopped for gas on the way out of town. At the gas station, I was struck dumb by this tall, slender, olive-skinned guy with dark, black hair and dangerous dark eyes pumping gas for whom I assumed was his mother. When I went to pay the attendant I discovered that the man had paid my bill, upon arrival back at my car, he was there leaning as only bad boys can lean. The Lincoln Continental he was riding in was no where to be found and he uttered simply, “I need a ride.”

He rode with me to the club. Upon our arrival, I noticed a chaotic atmosphere with a frantic club manager in my face. “Get back there, you’re opening for David Burrell.” I stuttered, “David Burrell?” I knew he was going to be there. It had been advertised in the local alternative papers that the porn star and Playgirl centerfold was going to strip; but the “Men of Adonis,” were supposed to open. They never showed and now I was in position to open.

After the manager bellowed his orders, my bad boy pickup stopped the manager and said, “He works tonight for $150 minimum and all tips his!”

“Who the hell are you?” Barked the manager.

“I’m Russ’ new manager,” answered my seemingly new knight in bad boy armor.

My head spinning and my knees knocking, I walked through the smoky hazed dance floor to the backstage area to find the porn star by himself and seemingly peaceful compared to my state of mind.

“Who are you?” he calmly asked with a smile.

“I’m your opener…” I said shrugging my shoulders and faking a sheepish grin. I think I was even too nervous to raise my eyebrows for effect.

“The other guys didn’t show…..well, let’s get you ready.” As he started digging through his bag of thongs, jocks, and various other scants.

Basically the porn star dressed me as he excitedly told me about his appearance on The Joan Rivers Show.

He rubbed oil on me and said, ”Hit those lights, remember that blur and never realize there are people in that blur, never let them know what ya got stashed in these little pieces of material, take their dough and make them feel like they’ve had the best sex of their life.”

My new manager came back just as they were making announcements to wish me good luck and give me a shot of something for “courage.” The porn star, took me aside, took the drink out of my hand, tongued me, pinched my nipple, and said, “You feel a little horny?”

“Yeah,” I stammered as I noticed my new boyfriend in the corner, and then noticed I was hard as a rock.

“Good…… go get you some,” he giggled as he pushed me out into the spotlight.

I never saw the porn star again; but I remember him now and how lucky I was that he was there; and know that nothing ever came close to capturing that night again.

In the wee hours of the morning as I lay next to him reeling from first taste of the show biz life, a litany of rules begin to be laid down to me from this man I had already immaturely fell for. He knew I would be good at stripping because I had proved to him tonight by kissing another man in front of him that I was a W-H-O-R-E! As he spelled it out barely an inch from my face in the dark; and if I wanted to become a star in the biz I would never listen or touch anyone but him again. Suffering fools, as I came to learn, was a hard, long lesson.

The worst fool of all was I. By the age of twenty, I no longer went out onstage. The entity I had become went on. My relationship with boyfriend and manager exclusively had become a local white trash version of the Ike and Tina Turner saga.

Thanks to me, he no longer worked and was getting laid by a new boy every night. I had grown to appreciate the hour or so by myself while he got his rocks off. In the meantime, we continued to fight. What money I had left went to doctors patching up whatever damage had been acquired the night before. I befriended drag queens who taught me the subtle art of covering up bruises.

In short, I had become a numb stripping zombie. Selling my body in the strip business seemed like a vacation from the boyfriend, but I had become his possession and began to feel like everyone’s toy. My mystery was dying and grew cold, bitter, & aloof.

Standing backstage one night I realized I had just performed my last gig. Something somewhere finally turned off, allowing me to feel something else. The manager came back stage to pay me and in one complete sobering moment I had thanked, hugged, and quit.

I was gone emotionally. Mentally, I had spent everything to create illusions of sexuality and forays into fantasies for the starved voyeurs; but I was on empty. Two years of my youth had passed and it was nothing more than a down payment on an uncertain future. And, now in an ill lit backstage cluttered with drag queens and strippers getting high and blowjobs from various seedy people, I floated past them on what seemed like a white noise.

In hindsight, I was the stereotypical hillbilly boy broad sided with the glare of spotlights and promise of fortune, and of course, the adoration of hundreds of desperately horny people. At first, it was love on a big grand scale. Then it became exactly what it was, civilized whoring.

Some might say that being a stripper would make one really sexy and a pro in bed. It hardened me for a while. After working through my burnout, it ultimately did give me the tools for seeking out people who were lovers with a sense of passion and romance. Those who look at it simply as an act, don’t get very far with me.