Baring it in D.C. and Hollywood

By Gary M. Kramer
PGN Contributor
© Gary M. Kramer and Philadelphia Gay News

Nudity is full-frontal and center of two new books that examine queer sexuality.

“All I Could Bare” is journalist/academic Craig Seymour’s revealing memoir about stripping in the gay clubs of Washington, D.C. For those who need more visual stimulation, “Hollywood Babylon, It’s Back” authors Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince expose the skinny on scandals in Tinseltown.

“All I Could Bare” may sound prurient with its look into the seamy club scene of a stripper, but Seymour’s first-person account is absolutely irresistible. The author describes his experiences as a graduate student studying gay-male sexuality and sensuality by ultimately “throwing myself into my research.” As he explains on the first page, he did not “dance” as much as “just [stand] there and let people play with my dick.”

Seymour cites the permissive nudity policy of the gay clubs in Washington, D.C., that had allowed “performers” to bare all. He often danced in venues where touching — usually taboo — was acceptable, and he even had a regular customer who enjoyed being hit on the head with the author’s penis.

However, while things were not allowed to go further — i.e. fluid-exchanging territory — the author recounts some incidents where performers were more intimate with clients. Those interested in such details should read the book for these salacious tidbits.

“All I Could Bare” chronicles Seymour’s initial investigation into the clubs. He interviewed dancers who discuss the benefits of stripping (money) and a few of the disadvantages (being groped by undesirables). He provides a brief history of the D.C. club scene and some of the notable performers and patrons. The writer eventually is challenged by an interviewee to take the stage himself, which he does, and Seymour becomes “the thing that fascinates me.”

The candid approach to this story — the author discloses how stripping affected his relationship with Seth, his boyfriend; the issues about hygiene he and other strippers faced; and the racism Seymour, a light-skinned black man, encountered on the club circuit — grounds the book in reality.

Only when Seymour is late into his memoir and talking about his career as a journalist, interviewing performers like Janet Jackson about her personal life, does he seem to strain himself justifying his past. He may be right in his suggestion that making small talk with clients in strip clubs gave him the ability to ask Jackson about her sex life, but this seems to be a needless digression, especially for readers curious about why strippers want to bare all in public. Seymour eloquently answers that question later.

If “All I Could Bare” doesn’t use photos to tell its story about nudity, “Hollywood Babylon, It’s Back” more than makes up for it. The opening chapter of this unauthorized book illustrates “How the Stars Measured Up,” featuring nude, full-frontal photos of gay artist Keith Haring and John Malkovich on page 3. But before “readers” get too excited, it should be acknowledged that many of the images are blurry screen captures and/or often reproduced with a moiré pattern.

Authors Porter and Prince may care to share all the skin they can, but their book is poorly designed and haphazardly constructed. While there are eyefuls of many Hollywood idols — everyone from porn star John C. Holmes to Daniel Radcliffe (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”) are seen in the buff — this shameless book seems uninterested in the truth and more concerned with exhibiting naughty photos and sensational rumors.

Alas, what is crammed onto every page — using unattributed quotes and items as (in)valid as an anonymous but detailed medical report about Tom Cruise’s cock — are no more worth reading than the poorly reproduced photos are worth viewing. “Hollywood Babylon, It’s Back” is just phony and filthy. Readers looking for good prurient content deserve better.