Male Strip Club - 1970

The audience is as expected.

No one in this picture had a happy life.

That's clearly the Gaiety in NY and this looks like the 80s.

R3 is right. its the gaiety. I miss this place. :(

I've never been to a gay strip club. I should find one here in Denver.

The stage looks like the Gaiety but I don't remember windows on the right of the stage.

Depressing.

Tragic

The windows may have been boarded up through the years, but they were clearly visible on the exterior of the building on 46th.

I miss the Florida location of "Swinging Richards", dammit.

R7 and 8 prefer to suck cocks through gloryholes. They think it's classier.

R3 - the 80's? Are you serious? The haircuts and style is late 60's or early 70's at most. Most definitely not the 80s.

Such a depressing picture.

Exposed pipework, dingy lighting, plastic vinyl seating, grim audience, half boarded up window... you can almost smell the stale beer, cigarette smoke and nacreous layer of permacum. Depressing indeed.

[quote]The haircuts and style is late 60's or early 70's at most.

Not nearly long, nor free-flowing, enough.

R14 - you think guys that age grew their hair really long? With the horn-rimmed glasses? Are you high? They guy in the right front row looks hippy enough.

They do look pretty serious.

Can someone start a thread about Elton John? Please, I don't ask for much on here.

Does anybody remember when they first heard him?

I was not alive then but I imagine it was a different look/sound.

I only know him as a contemporary but wasn't he like Michael Jackson big?

He pops up on media in such cheeky context now but those stadium videos on YouTube are insane.

Sorry for thread jacking. In a related note, I was snuck into the gayity as a (legal) teenager by a semifamous former c list tv personality.

I think it was the clubs final iteration but i watched with amazement from the sides. some people recognized my host but nobody batted an eye. So NY.

That is my bit of gossip in exchange for the Elton thread.

For you, R17.

So many eyeglasses...

Is that Gacy to the immediate right of the dancer's knee?

It may look depressing and dinghy to you bright glittering queens...but I saw some of the most beautiful men on the planet... naked and hard. I started going to the legendary Gaiety in about 1982...out of work broadway dancers, straight collage boys needing to make a buck, porn stars and exhibitionist ,hustlers were on full display. They had a side room where between shows the boys used to mingle with the audience...most dressed in nothing but a base ball cap and sneakers...if you wanted you could slip a beautiful boy a 20 and you could take him back stage and suck his dick...no one batted a eye....this stopped when the mayor of ny started to clean up times square...up until then, the Gaiety was a gay mans heaven..

Didn't things get awful gummy & soggy while sucking the cock of a collage boy?

[quote]if you wanted you could slip a beautiful boy a 20 and you could take him back stage and suck his dick...no one batted a eye....if you wanted you could slip a beautiful boy a 20 and you could take him back stage and suck his dick...

You started doing this in 1982?

[quote]no one batted a eye....

No, they were all dead.

That's his gay leatherboy strip routine titled Whiplash!

On stage:

[quote]straight collage boys needing to make a buck

Were these the same sort of straight college boys that now do porn for Sean Cody & Corbin Fisher?

I will second the comment about no one in that picture having a happy life. I bet that every single one of those men, EVERY SINGLE ONE in that picture lived a closeted, tortured life. If not "tortured," then sad and secretive. Duplicitious. Fear-based. I know it sounds dramatic and like over the top hyperbole but it is likely the absolute truth. The closet was their only option, at least in their minds. They were of a different time. Not that long ago, either. Those guys were bankers and teachers and car salesmen. Businessmen who would have been ruined if anyone found out they were homosexuals. Many, if not most were married. Some might have been "confirmed bachelors. Not a one of them in that crowd has a remotely happy look on his face, as if they felt some sort of collective shame at looking at that naked man with lust. Or, just as likely, that they were keeping on eye on the door to make sure there was not a raid or that the cops were not going to bust thorugh the door at any minute. The men in that picture are TENSE. Remember, this was only a few years after Stonewall and things had BEGUN to change but old attitudes, old fears, old learned behaviors die hard. Gay men kept their eyes peeled, always hyperaware of their surroundings. That is, to me, why this picture is so damned depressing.

R27. Always nice to hear from Debbie Downer

It looks more like a dentists convention. Albeit a cheap one.

All this talk of self-loathing and shame, at least there was a Gaiety, now there's nothing. Tell me which one is more self-loathing

It's a different time r30. Back then there was no internet, there was very little public acceptance, there was no alternative if you wanted to see a nude guy. Now you can see anything you want from the comfort of your own home. Many people now would see the Gaiety as a depressing place to be, not liberating, joyful, self affirming or sexy. Watching strippers seems very old now.

Contact lenses not yet invented during that time.

Are you people kidding me? That was how we expressed joy back then. There was no fake machismo hooting and hollering and ther was no bachelorette screaming and groping.

There was civilized raw lust. And we liked it!

R31, looking at a picture, and seeing a real live hot guy, and touching him, are worlds apart. Not at all the same thing.

You don't have to go to a strip club to touch another man unless you look like Lou Grant and have the bank account of Lou Filerman

I loved reading R21's recollections of his experience at The Gaiety. Would love to hear about other eldergays' experiences from clubs like this in the 60s, 70s, 80s. Making ageist jokes or holding prior generations to the cultural standards of 2015 are very easy, but as someone far too young to have had this type of experience, I really appreciate the context that our older members provide.

They had pubes then. Despise the shaved look of my contemporaries.

[quote] seeing a real live hot guy, and touching him

Or you could go on Grindr.

I'm worried about feline AIDS. It's the #1 killer of cats, ya know.

R38, no... that's still different.. That's two guys hooking up by mutual agreement.

With a stripper, as with an escort, there's a safe distance. You're not going to get turned down. You don't have to worry about staying 'in your league'. And you get what you want on your terms and then you leave and there's no chance of any miscommunication or someone you don't want getting attached, getting attached. Or worries about going into a stranger's home or inviting a stranger into yours.

R36: ate those the golden memories you long for being spewed at R40?

^^are those??

Back in the day, did the "patrons" smoke inside the theater? Imagine the smell if they did.

Society has been historically cruel and repressive. A 1970s male strip bar was progressive then. In some ways these places were the exciting frontier of 20th century gay liberation.

R44 that comes off as revisionist.

Those men look like deer in headlights and about as comfortable as a hooker in church.

I'm well aware that you don't have to hoot & holler like peg Bundy pawing billy Hufsey, but that scene looks more depressing than the bus ride I was forced to take to Sunday school when my granny moved to town when I was 9.

There were better scenes of liberation going on when the true movers & shakers were involved.

These are just fat, closeted drones looking to white knuckle it through their dysfunction at home.

I can almost hear the stripper now, "I'll plant my own tree and will try hard..."

The photo is definitely The old Gaiety. Show Palace and the others were fun, but not as much as The Gaiety.

I went about once a month until it closed. It was a lot of sleazy fun. I often went with pals after a party if we were in midtown. I also had some hustler/porn pals who did shows there. The moment when they come back onstage after getting hard was always an applause moment!

For only $8-$12, you could enjoy a constant strip show. Some guys couldn't dance worth anything, while others were clearly trained dancers making a quick buck.

I never tipped. You didn't put money onstage, or touch them (unlike more interactive other venues).

But I did rent a particularly hot dancer's services, and it was worth it !

I did sneak a camera in (an SLR!) and got some hot pics, which I won't share.

But you can enjoy the notorious 'Butch Boy' video 3 of three. He also taped hustlers jerking off and fucking in his apartment, with lots of mirrors for a full view! What an accomplished perv!

In this tape, he videotapes guys cruising in a Central Park toilet, interspersed with nearly an entire show of the best bonerized Gaiety strippers in one night, including the ten-man finale!

I remember seeing a few of these guys, in particular the big Latino stud whose erect cock is bigger than a banana! He also performed on the Robin Byrd Show on cable access, but never showed it hard there. In person, he was astounding!

Then that bitch Madonna did her 'SEX' book photo shoot with Udo Kier, and too many others 'discovered' it. It became crowded and sometimes filled with screeching harpy bachelorette parties on weekends, so I went during a weeknight and sometimes got a nearly private show right in the front row.

[QUOTE]R36: are those the golden memories you long for being spewed at R40?

R41 - Ha. Nope. But, R47 sure made up for it!

R47 - Thanks for sharing your memories. I'm a millennial gay, but unlike some who've perhaps gotten a bit too assimilated and homogenized, I'm not here to condemn you for not being more chaste and heteronormative. I love that you and your pals had some filthy fun in the 70s and 80s and I appreciate you sharing the details with us. I know some will roll their eyes and/or clutch their pearls, but THIS is part of our history, too. It's not all just about Pride marches and protests and the legitimate theatre. Respectability politics makes me wanna barf. Hope you still get to keep things a bit queer and and maybe even a bit dirty in your later years, R47!

Also, just started watching the video you linked, R47. Looks like a fascinating time capsule. It appears to be from the early 80s, or am I mistaken?

There is no such thing as gay strip club where gay men go. Real gay men can have sex anywhere. If we want to watch naked men we can watch them in a sauna or watch men fuck in a dark room. Strip clubs are for pathetic straight guys who want to look at tits of drug addicts. When some of those convince themselves they've become gay they carry over their sick bevhavior and go to what is then called a gay strip club.

[quote]They had pubes then. Despise the shaved look of my contemporaries.

Who's the idiot that came up with the idea of shaving pubic hair?

R49, now that you mention it, I'm not sure I've ever heard of a contemporary, modern-day gay strip club either. That said, there are many club nights in LA, SF and NY which are pretty much strip joints featuring go-go boys wearing jockstraps and less - some of them more interactive than others. While not officially a "strip club", it perhaps offers a similar, though less passive experience.

What I notice about that pic, aside from the glasses and grim expressions, is that all the men are looking straight at the stripper's junk. Nobody's looking up at his face!

The average age of the audience is 82, which is surprising to me, but then again, I've never been to a strip club, so I wouldn't know.

the curtains are very sparkly

I agree with r47. The Gaiety was an interesting place until that cunt Madonna exposed it. It was one of the last places where men could go and be surrounded only by men.

I often wonder if the family of tourists eating at Howard Johnsons knew what was going on over their heads. And oh, that flight of stairs to get up there. I'm surprised they didn't have more heart attacks in that place.

r50, it started with women, so that magazines could show the pubic area while pretending it was only the abdomen (See: Illustrated, Sports). Then Millennials as a whole decided that body hair anywhere was loathsome. There are even commercials showing girls shaving their forearms! Creepy pseudo-pedo trend.

I don't get the whole stripping scene. Male or female, I find it kind of ridiculous and not at all sensuous or erotic.

Well, different "strokes", eh?

Love what you've done with the place!

Where in NYC do closeted men like this go today? Or has the internet solved that problem?

If this pic is from the '80s, as some contend, why is it in B&W?

B&W is still around, just as color photography was in the 60's, it never indicates the photo's age.

It may still be around, R61, but it was hardly as common in the '80s as it was in the '60s. Since you're so smart, though, let me ask you instead "Why didn't the photographer take this picture in color?"

In what club did Mark Consuelos do his dancing?

[quote] now that you mention it, I'm not sure I've ever heard of a contemporary, modern-day gay strip club either.

What's your definition of a "contemporary, modern-day gay strip club"? What about places like the Nob Hill Theater in SF, or Stockbar and Campus in Montreal?

The Cock in NYC is a modern day strip club. Well it's actually a bar with strippers.

yum-ooooooooooo

I'm sorry but there's no way that photo is real. NO ONE would have been allowed to take a photo like that. I used to go to the Gaiety in the 1970s, and the last thing I, or anyone else wanted, was for someone to take a picture of me there.

It's fishy, this photo.

Aside from the nudity, people seem to forget that it's theater, good, bad and ugly, and there's a lot of fun in that too.

I love the window air conditioner--its that kind that made a hell of a noise and probably dripped too. Worse seat in the house!

[quote] "Why didn't the photographer take this picture in color?"

That's a good question!

The picture does look depressing. The audience appears both captivated and ashamed while watching the (miserable looking) stripper go through the motions.

Yeah, there's a WeeGee aspect to the OP's pic. Not my experience at the mid-80s-early-90s Gaiety.

"There is no such thing as gay strip club where gay men go. "

There are in Montreal, and HustlaBalls in LA, NYC and Europe feature onstage sex. SF still has the Nob Hill, a similar stage show, but the dudes also shake it through the theatre and let patrons suck them.

Club Adonis in NYC is infrequent, or monthly, but $50 entry. Mostly big muscle hustlers who get nude and hard, but you have to pay extra for lap dances, whatever that leads to.

From a perspective of one who went to the club during the time discussed. At that time, I was a very young gay man ( 21-22) , who really hadn't experienced anyplace where gay men gathered in the open . I went into he place for the first time and it excited me, not only because of the strippers performing with erections, but because of the element of sleaze and the 'forbidden" nature of what was happening. I went a few times, then discovered the Showpalace, where the "dancers" were not as attractive, but had actual sex on stage, including ejaculation. This was fascinating. The audience virtually disappeared. Then, after graduation, I moved, but still have very vivid memories of my initiation to gaydom from the stage of the place over the Howard Johnson's. So, not everybody turned out to be miserable.

Give it up, do as I say

Give it up and let me have my way

I'll give you love, I'll hit you like a truck

I'll give you love, I'll teach you how to ...

The Gaiety was opened all day. That photo was probably in the daytime while the young ones were at work. And that first photo was only the half, the dancer would then go behind the Mylar curtain and come back out a few minutes later hard and dance and finish his set.

Nob Hill is a dive. Gross.

Campus and Stock bar in Montreal are both awesome, as is Swinging Richards in Atlanta.

That's the saddest looking strip club I've ever seen. Looks like it's in someone's old garage.

The audience is 95% eldergays and not a one of them is bald—I mean shaved headed. What were the odds?

Can you imagine noticing one of those men as your dad all these years later?

Quelle horreur!

R79. I'd say good on them. Dads have needs too.

Nobody wants to think about their dads needs though.

Yeah how were you born ?

I started stripping in my late 20s after being asked for years. I'm so mad I never worked at the gaiety. I was asked when I used to go and watch right before it closed. I was too scared then. Not true that everybody in that pic didn't have a happy life. I loved stripping and watching strippers. So sexy and fun. I love SECRETS in Washington DC. The boys are hot and dance fully nude. I would to love work there for a little bit. Of course swinging Richards is great too. New York City is dead. All the places closed. Even the urge downtown which was great. Male dancers every night. But the management were scumbags and got their karma. Only places in NYC now are club Adonis and buffboyzz for nude dancers at a private location.

[quote]Only places in NYC now are club Adonis and buffboyzz for nude dancers at a private location.

They have nude dancers at The Cock.

I don't really get it. If you were asked to dance, that means you were in a similar league lookswise to the other strippers. I can understand being into strippers if you could only ever enjoy such good looking guys by paying - and you want to avoid the potential harm of dealing with escorts/streetwalkers etc. - but if you could pick one up for free and actually fuck them, not just stare... what's the appeal?

[quote]If you were asked to dance, that means you were in a similar league lookswise to the other strippers.

Not all strippers are good looking. I've seen some fugly strippers who had huge dicks.

[quote] Not all strippers are good looking. I've seen some fugly strippers who had huge dicks.

Yes but a big dick can but you in a different league. I'm wondering why guys who were in the same league as strippers (let's call it "can get laid by hot guys easily" league) would be into going to strip shows. It's understandable why the guys who would be shut out of said league without paying would be into strip shows - like kids with their nose pressed up against the toyshop window.

R12 = not alive in the 1960s or 70s

Were all gay men that bored by the male form in 1970's strip clubs?

I confess that I love strippers and strip clubs/shows. I've been to Montreal several times, and the Nob Hill, and I used to go to the late, lamented Campus in SF, and I went to the Gaiety once and that other club in the theater district that featured mostly dancers of color (can't remember the name.) I also used to go to Wet in DC a lot.

So ... I need to plan a trip for later this month -- where in the world can I go to find good strip shows? Don't want to go anywhere cold, or where I've already been, so that rules out Montreal. Maybe Atlanta for Swinging Richards, although it could be cold there. How about Mexico? Thailand? Europe? Brazil? Suggestions, por favor.

[quote]Dads have needs too.

[quote]Nobody wants to think about their dad's needs though.

[quote]Yeah? How were you born?

Apparently, R81, lots and lots of DLers like thinking of "their dad's needs." I'm sure you've noticed all the "Hot Daddy" threads. Like you, I find thinking about sex and my father simultaneously a must to avoid, but it seems to be a DL-approved weirdism, as R80 and R82 and many other DLers attest.

R86 is right. There are a lot of ugly ass strippers. Yes R85 I am just as hot as any other male stripper if not hotter than most and I LOVE male strip shows. I tip and everything. It's fun and sexy.

My friend the Cheapest Person in the World goes to strip clubs but doesn't tip. And he wonders why the strippers ignore him. I mean it. He does.

R92 = Bruce Vilanch

R90 I love love Antrpologie in Puerto Vallarta. It's not as good as Montreal clubs but it's fun and warm. I've heard good things about Club Papi events in Tijuana but haven't been. Good luck!

What does one usually tip a stripper?

Sure is a lot of speculation about people's lives based on one single photo. They're sad, they're closeted, they're self-loathing, my god, what a bunch of third-rate Nancy Drews.

Well they're probably all dead so their feelings won't be hurt R97

I'm not dead!

Superstar singer-songwriter Juice Newton cut her teeth as a warmup act in places such as this

The only time in my life that I ever went to a strip club was when I went to Montreal back in the 80s. The men who stripped there were incredibly handsome. Somehow, their performances didn't seem at all sleezy. They were very wholesome, as I recall. And mostly they were uncut.

It was a blast, come on you naysayers, lost it a bit late in its life with no more smoking and very little pubic hair (coincided). But even then, the little coke machine lobby off to one side was where all the action happened and it was a kick. I had one guy hit me up and I said no (and I was another customer), but then he asked if I would be with one of the dancers if he paid for it -- and THAT was tempting, I must admit. (And one I still regret in terms of sheer fun debauchery).

Alas, I was with a friend who said he'd never speak to me again if I went for the offer, ha. Wish I had anyway! It was indeed my final act for offers like that.

This painting by Patrick Angus captures some of the side action at the Gaiety. I had forgotten they would show porn movies too.

Really, you folks who are speculating about how unhappy those guys look are INSANE. They are "in the zone", getting off on the nudity, the music is playing behind them, the guy might be appearing nude for the first time after a couple of tease dances, whatever. I would've looked exactly like that and sure I did at some point if the guy was hot. (And I was only in my 30s when I was visiting there before we lost it). Seriously, are some of you those people who post things like "10 Qualities Happy People All Have" on Facebook? You give positive thinking a bad name.

It. Was. Fun. End of subject.

R90, you've never been to Swinging Richards in Atlanta?

R105 No. Last time I was in Atlanta was at least 15 years ago, and I don't remember there being any strip clubs.

A lot of the Atlanta ones like Bliss are going out of business. I'd have thought they were recession proof but no... Richards is fun but only once a year or so, it's a fucking investment starting with the door charge. B.J.s in its new location on Cheshire Bridge Road is a far better bet though the dancers are hit and miss (I loved it more when it was by the Tara but, no, they moved).

R95 - Antropologie? Seriously? I went there once and it was anorexic Mexican boys. The good ones are now at Wetdreams, which is pretty great. And prostitution is legal - so there IS sex in the champagne room if you want to. Never did, but it's a pretty sexy place.

Every major city should have a "Swinging Richards" in it. Let's make this happen, people.

Bouncing cocks are fun to watch.

I would spend all my time and disposable income at this place if it existed now.

7 out of the 14 men on the right side of the photo are wearing glasses. Does this mean that gay men are all near sighted? Someone should do a study on this.

[quote]I would spend all my time and disposable income at this place if it existed now.

No, you wouldn't. The audience was men over 100. How they climbed the stairs to get up there is beyond me! I guess lust is the old Viagra. If you sat in front of them, they would hiss at you.

The dancers were the nastiest of whores (because all the lookers died in the AIDS crisis). And then Madonna came through and publicized it and turned it into a tourist attraction.

But I did love sitting in Howard Johnson's, around all those tourist families, knowing that above our heads, men were strutting around naked.

Do straight men who go to titty bars and female strip clubs today live "tortured," sad and secretive lives?

Yes

[quote] because all the lookers died in the AIDS crisis

Yeah right. Only beautiful people got AIDS, which is why you never see a good looking gay to this very day.

Surprise act

Makes me think of looking at pictures of the pre-automobile era when I was a kid in the 70s. Looking at these makes me think what a simplistic life these people were living - without smartphones. Smartphones have changed sooooo much about the way we live, it feels like there is such a stark divide.

The video in R47 is from 1991/92, if anyone cares. The Sounds of Blackness song that one stripper was dancing to gave it away. It looked a lot older - but the early 90's looked a lot more like the 80's than later 90's.

Carry on.

R112 Correlation does not imply causation.