caitlin@sfbg.com
SEX Last week, local blog SFist reported that a gay strip club named Randy Rooster was in escrow to snag the building formerly occupied by Diesel’s distressed-kneecap denim and elite luggage sets on Harvey Milk Plaza.
Randy Rooster denuded its website of all info before we even had a chance to wonder. But what exactly a gay strip club would mean — much less in a neighborhood where you can’t swing a patent leather mini-backpack without hitting a gyrating go-go — remained to be explained. Surely limos full of bachelorette party “woo!” girls would figure it out for us.
To satisfy our curiosity over the waxed and winking men of the pole, I took the opportunity to chat with Justin Whitfield, who stripped for years at Le Bare (www.lebare.com), a Houston strip club catering to straight ladies. He tells me the club became the country’s premier spot for rich and lonely oil wives during the late 1970s and ’80s.
Whitfield and fellow manmeat Taylor Cole recently published Take It Off!: The Naked Truth About Male Strippers, on the heels of stripper-pride flick Magic Mike. “The movie’s awesome,” Whitfield says. “In my real world, I don’t tell people I was a stripper. Now I can hold my head up.”
The book’s publisher is Ellora’s Cave (www.ellorascave.com), whose catalogue is mainly heavy-breathing romance novels. While I can’t say I recommend Take It Off! as a literary endeavor, I can tell you that the pic of Cole chair-dancing and the “Sexcapades” chapter are looks into world without equal in a Randy Rooster-less San Francisco.
To the South Bay bachelorettes who will surely flock to any future Chippendales-like endeavors in the city, Whitfield counsels enthusiasm: “I cannot stand the women who come in and have made up their mind not to have fun,” he says. “If I’m in a real good mood I can convert these ladies. But sometimes, it’s like I don’t want to be around her because she’s depressing.”
But don’t get too stoked party girls — those jouncing Speedos are not gift bags. “I’ve had my bottoms pulled down,” Whitfield tells me ruefully. “Not fun.”
LAURA ANTONIOU READING
She rose to fame by creating an extensive master-slave society in the pages of her BDSM fantasy series The Marketplace, but Antoniou reads tonight from her latest: The Killer Wore Leather, a kinky mystery novel. The reading kicks off a week of SF engagements for the writer including the Ms. Leather pageant, Bawdy Storytelling on Sun/21 (www.bawdystorytelling.com), and Wicked Grounds on Tue/23 (www.wickedgrounds.com).
Thu/18, 6:30-7:30pm, free. Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk, SF. www.goodvibes.com
INTERNATIONAL MS. LEATHER PAGEANT
Leatherwomen the world over flock to SF for this annual contest crowning the individual who becomes the community’s spokesperson, role model, and mentor. Check out workshops, boots and cigar parties, and of course, Saturday night’s pageant, where 2012 titleholder Sara Vibes makes way for fresh meat.
Thu/18-Sun/21, $35-199. Holiday Inn Golden Gateway, 1500 Van Ness, SF. www.imsl.org