Or, in the spirit of Rocky and Bullwinkle episode titling, The Day I Went to Hunkomania.
Before this past Friday, I only had one known experience with a male stripper. A couple of my friends in college decided it would be hilarious to hire a stripper to come to their dorm room for our friend Janice’s birthday. So we all gathered, under the pretense of pre-gaming with watermelon flavored vodka (shudder) before a birthday night out, when the buzzer rang. Janice assumed it was just another guest. Then, an aggressive knock on the door with an accompanying voice declaring we had elicited noise complaints. Janice, wide-eyed, opened the door to find a decent looking man decked out in a police uniform that looked as though it had been purchased at Ricky’s. It was a little too spandex-y, the wrong color blue, and had a very fake-looking badge that read “sheriff” affixed on the right side. I’m pretty sure there are no sheriffs in Hartford, Connecticut. Janice was still busy apologizing for our volume when the dancer plopped down the boombox he had been carrying and started slowly unbuttoning his shirt. Janice’s face morphed from one form of horror to another. I bee-lined, red-faced, to the corner, being sure to be out of harm’s way, and, while the dancer gyrated in a royal blue thong, I made a quiet promise to myself that I would never again be in attendance at such an event.
Fast-forward about 8 years to last Friday. As one of the bridesmaids in an upcoming September wedding, me and a fellow bridal party member took it upon ourselves to organize a bachelorette party for the bride-to-be. It had come to our attention through various routes in the grapevine that this particular bride would very much enjoy an audience with strippers. Through various internet searches I decided that if we were going to do the stripper thing, we would go to the most hilariously-named strip club in the city: Hunkomania. I promptly put ten tickets to Hunkomania, plus a hot seat for the bride-to-be, on my American Express card. I mean, if I was going to charge tickets to a strip club, I might as well get some extra Jet Blue miles, am I right?
As the night approached I became more and more nervous about the whole thing. I spoke with a few people and was told, in equal measure, both that there would be no penises and that there would be penises everywhere. I kept my fingers crossed for no penises. I had all these ill-fantasies of me, sitting in a neon-lit room, bass blasting, penises in all directions. I am not going to say that I like penises as much as the next person because, honestly, that would be a lie. Penises serve their purpose and when they are not serving their purpose, I would like them to be tucked away in their underwear house. And that is the case for a penis I know. Stranger penises are a whole other story. I never want to see a stranger penis. So, you can imagine my dismay when I imagined dozens of stranger penises in every direction. That would not a happy Rebekah make.
Upon arriving at the club I was happy to find that there were no exposed penises. Instead, there were topless men with very nice abs and a lot of shrieking women. I tried to get into it. I ordered my drink and put a few singles in the waist band of a school teacher (for real, he told us). I looked around at the carefully toned bodies. I giggled with my fellow Hunkomania attendees. It was all going well until some dude stuck his head in my chest! No hello, no how are you, no check for consent, straight to the motor boat. Okay, so, not only do I not like stranger penis, I also do not like stranger touching especially when that touching comes from a dude and involves anything other than a light tap on my shoulder. I told him to stop, he told me, while being muffled by my breasts, that it was okay. I told him it was most certainly not okay and got my fingers prepared to poke him in the eyes. He noticed my fingers and backed away slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. I figured word would spread that the girl in the pink and white striped dress was an observer and not a participant. I was safe for a bit of time until this guy who I nicknamed in my head “The Humper” because every time I saw him he was literally writhing on someone decided that I looked lonely. He sat next to me, leg draped over my leg, and said
The Humper: Do you know what’s about to happen?
Me: You are going to stop touching me?
The Humper: No, do you know what’s about to happen?
Me, in a menacing voice: Do you know what’s about to happen?
The Humper then decided it was wise to move on to other people. He honed in on the bachelorette which, I think, was the perfect decision. Also, I think my lightly veiled threat made its way through the rest of the hunks and I was able to enjoy the rest of the show with minimal physical contact and absolutely zero penis sightings.
All-in-all I think it was a success. Zero penises. Personal space established. Bachelorette in the hot seat. Some of the finest abs I have seen in real life. Once the initial shock of it all wore off I was able to enjoy myself. I was also able to ignore some of the more, um, questionable aspects of the show like when it opened up to news coverage of the Kennedy assassination and the fact that music from The Lion King and costume including headdress accompanied the first black dancer to take the stage. Sometimes you just have to check your political sensibilities at the door.
franklyrebekah 