Adults Only

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

By Micheline Auger

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Where have you been all my life Chico, Neo, Brazil and last, but certainly not least, Mr. A.J. Steel!

Mr. Steel is the manager of Hollywood’s Men of Steel who appeared at Alpine’s infamous Bull Moose Saloon last month.

The first time he looked at me, his intensity made me spill my drink, while reaching for my tape recorder. His expression was unmistakable. Something along the lines of “What the *!%#& do you want?”

“Yo baby, I’m a reporter and I’m gonna make you famous...”I said.
“You can’t talk to the other dancers, but you can talk to me,” Mr. Steel said as he led me backstage to watch them warm up.

He’s been dancing for 20 years, ever since winning a Chippendale’s competition against 500 other guys. “It was pretty amazing,” he said.

For the last 15 years, he’s been touring and choreographing his troupe, in addition to performing his own shows.

“I dance about four nights a week, on top of all the choreography I do. I’m an entertainer. It’s all about you guys. Without you, we’re nothing.”
I’ve been waiting so long to hear those words.

Why gone so long?

The last time the Bull Moose had “dancer guys” was five years ago.

“We did it about three or four times, but then the interest died down,” said owner, Jim Blittersdorf. “The girls said they would rather have the girl dancers so I‘ve been focusing on that. Thirty percent of our audience on girl night is women, so it’s pretty popular.”

I’ll be taking you to girl night, called Bare Essentials, as well.

But first, the time has finally come for the men. The ladies want to see the dancer guys, and it’s a packed house full of lusty ladies armed with fistfuls of dollars and an appetite for alcohol and well … I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

Or not: one good ol’ gal from Idaho Falls said, “I like a nice, hard smooth behind and I expect to be able to see, feel and, hell, I’ll even smell it, if he’s cute enough.” Some women drove more than 100 miles to see the gyrating maneuvering of men with pecs bigger than the peaks of the Grand and guns more powerful than those west of the Mississippi during hunting season (OK, I might be exaggerating).

“I love the daddy types,” says one woman from Jackson. She’s here for her friend’s bachelorette party. “We came here a couple months ago to see the girls dancing but they were snowed out, so I ended up on the stripper pole and nearly broke my butt,” she said. “You’re not going to use our names are you?” 

Stripping in Jackson
Everyone I talked to agreed that if someone were to open a strip club in Jackson, she would make a killing, and yet, we have not one.

“I’m not sure why Jackson doesn’t have one,” said Blittersdorf. “They’d probably make your life so difficult, you wouldn’t want to deal with it.” 

The Bull Moose’s problems with the city of Alpine are notorious (“The Bastard Son of Alpine, Wyo.,” Planet JH, May 9, 2007) and Blittersdorf’s civil lawsuit against the Town of Alpine for reparations is currently before the 10th Court of Appeals after being thrown out of federal court by Judge Brimmer.

“It was bizarre,” Blittersdorf said. “He basically said I should have known better, that I had no right to expect protection in a place like Alpine, and I was like what if I was a black man moving into an all-white community?”

“Good luck,” said Jackson Police Chief, Dan Zivcovich when I asked him about opening a strip club in the Hole. “Businesses are regulated, and there are ordinances against sexually explicit acts,” which would include nude dancing under a city ordinance which prohibits “the uncovering of human genitals, buttocks, pubic area and female human breast.” 

As for the Bull Moose? “We were grandfathered in,” Blittersdorf said.

It’s a love fest
“I love the ladies of Wyoming,” said Mr. Steel. “They really seem to appreciate what we’re doing, and they’re not too aggressive. They don’t grab or scratch us.  They’re respectful and fun.”

The Men of Steel’s combination involves choreographed dancing, role-play, such as good cop/bad cop (or actually just bad cop/bad cop), and then during breaks, they move around the crowd to give more individualized attention. Once everyone is nicely warmed up, they set up $10 and $20 “hot” seats on stage. Within no time, all six chairs are filled with eagerly awaiting ladies whose treat is a gentle or not so gentle lap dance, depending on the dancer and the woman.

“I know how far I can take it. If the girl is more aggressive, I’ll go there with her, but if she looks tentative, then I’ll back off. You have to know how to read the situation. And if you don’t know what a woman wants, you have no business being out there,” said Mr. Steel.

The Bare Necessities
And come they do - or don’t, as the case may be – the following night at the Bull Moose featured the ladies of Bare Necessities, “Idaho’s premiere adult entertainment company.”

“Usually, it’s much more crowded,” said Blittersdorf, who estimates that they typically attract 100 folks on exotic dancing night. “I don’t know if it’s because we had the dancer guys last night or what.” The Bull Moose sold 161 tickets for the previous night’s Men of Steel.

Blittersdorf introduced me to gatekeeper Matt who manages the Bare Necessities. He promptly told me, “You can’t talk to the girls. It’s against company policy. And if I see you taking pictures, I’m gonna smash your camera.”

“Really?” I asked. Gosh, A.J. was much more accommodating.
“Well, I won’t smash it, but I’ll take it away.”

With a low attendance, the vibe was subdued, to say the least. My friends and I ordered drinks, and picked out a table in front of the stage.
“You want to take one of those round tables,” one gentleman offered. “That’s where the action is.”

“What are you looking forward to tonight?” I asked a guy new to exotic dancing night.
“The ladies,” he answered.
“And do you have a preference in type?”
“No.”
“Do you think you’ll get a lap dance?”
“I don’t know. “

Tunnel vision
Studies have shown that there are no gender differences between men and women when it comes to multitasking, but my informal research shows that women have no problem cat-calling men, downing a drink and waving a dollar bill in the air, all while talking to me.

Dr. Christina Williams, the chair of the psychology department at Duke University, has done studies with rats, where the male rats have exhibited more “tunnel vision” than female rats, and I would say that tunnel-vision was in full-effect this evening at the Bull Moose Saloon. But to be fair, these guys didn’t come here to talk.

Hoping I’d have better luck with another table, I approached a young couple. The woman initially didn’t want to talk to me because she was afraid she would get fired from her job if anyone found out she was there.

“Oh yeah,” said Blittersdorf. “We had one girl who was driving a bus for a school district, and cocktailing here on the weekends. When they found out she was working here, she got fired.” 

After I promised to not reveal her identity, “Laura” said that she and her boyfriend had been going to strip clubs since the beginning of their relationship.
“It’s more interesting than going to a bar and just drinking,” the boyfriend said. “Laura” agreed.

You can look, but you can’t …
Manager Matt came out on stage and gave a similar speech to the one that Mr. Steel gave the previous night. Inspiring, but brief: “No touching.”

 And with that, out came the ladies of Idaho. Before I could whip out my Washingtons, Felony was climbing on to our table. Personally, as a woman, it should be no surprise that I like a little foreplay which, in this case, would have been some choreographed dancing similar to the night before, but no, these ladies like to get down to business. Dressed in a bustier and g-string, Felony quickly became the favorite at our table.

 “Look at her stilettos” said my man-friend. “They’re made of dice. It’s a subtle indication that she’s a player. I like that.”

Personally, I was impressed by her convincing sex-face and how strong, yet flexible, she was. My friend and I discussed whether she did Pilates or yoga. For those of you in yoga, she began in a shoulder-stand, which descended into a variation of “plow pose” which involved Felony’s legs tightly wrapped around my friend’s neck.

“As in any service profession,” my man-friend continued, “you have to look like you like what you’re doing. She looks like she likes what she’s doing.”
Abbot, the DJ, was spinning a seductive mix of death metal that had been given to him by manager Matt, a contrast to the Guns ‘N Roses and dance music from the night before.

“There’s no comparison,” Abbot said, when I asked him about the two different nights. “Women never get to have this treat. They really let loose.”
Letting loose was not what it was about tonight, at least not to the extent that it was the night before. “It’s kind of intense,” one man commented who preferred the girl-next-door charm of Kyra. “It’s not like you can let yourself get carried away.”
And it’s true. Behind every successful exotic dancer is a creepy looking bouncer. So hands off, sort of.

Company policy
“All the girls here are nice girls. They’re like sisters or friends to me,” said Blittersdorf. “Some of them are going to school, and don’t want their real names to be used. They want their privacy.”

Since I wasn’t interested in blowing anyone’s identity, I thought I’d call the Bare Necessities office to ask for a brief and harmless interview with one of the dancers.  Something along the lines of “When did you start dancing? What do you think of Wyoming men? How do you get your skin so soft? Pilates or yoga?”

Again, I was told company policy. When I explained that I had interviewed A.J. Steel the night before, I was told, “The Men of Steel are a touring company that go state to state, so it’s different for them. These are local girls, and it has always been our policy not to give interviews. You went down there and saw what the girls do. I don’t see why there’s any need to talk to them.” 

I’m gonna assume they exfoliate daily, do both Pilates and yoga and love interpretive dancing.

Like going to the beach
Most of the women I spoke with were surprised when I told them about the apparent lack of demand for dancer guys.

“They should have as many nights with men as they have with women,” said Janette from Idaho Falls. “Nowadays a lot of women go to the men one, but you don’t see men going to the men one.”

“Have you gone to ladies night?” I said.

“Oh yeah, I like tits.”

“Do you have a preference?”

“Oh yeah,” Janette says, “I like big ones.”

“I mean a preference in the nights.”

“Oh no, I like them both.”

It’s not that Blittersdorf hasn’t tried to bring more men in for the Men of Steel.
“In the past, I encouraged guys to come, especially later on in the night, but most of them don’t really want to see guys walking around with thongs on. But you know, you go to any beach, and you see pretty much what you’re gonna see here.”
One Alpine lassie agreed: “Guys should come on these nights, even if it was toward the end, because the girls are all hot and bothered.” 

There are a few fellas in the audience, enough to count on one hand, and except for the random guy sitting at the bar (with his back to the stage), most of them were with their wives or girlfriends.

“They wanted us to come,” said one hubbie. “We live right up the hill, so it’s easy. We don’t have to drive or get a room. We can just walk home.” 
“Do you go with your wives on exotic dancing night?” I said.
“No, they come with us.” PJH

Exotic dancing is every Saturday night at the Bull Moose Saloon in Alpine, Wyo.. The Men of Steel will be appearing sometime this summer.

Courtesy Photo
Dirty Dancing


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