|
| All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C. | 
 enlarge | Author: Craig Seymour
Publisher: Atria
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy New: $11.50
You Save: $11.50 (50%)
New (27) Used (10) Collectible (2) from $11.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 40448
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 1416542051
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.77092
EAN: 9781416542056
ASIN: 1416542051
Publication Date: June 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A FRANK, FUNNY, EXPLICIT, AND INSPIRING MEMOIR ABOUT HOW DANCING NAKED IN GAY CLUBS IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL HELPED A COLLEGE PROFESSOR DISCOVER HIS TRUE SELF.I felt that I'd made a transformation as surely as Superman slipping out of a phone booth or Wonder Woman doing a sunburst spin. I was bare-ass in a room of paying strangers, a stripper. After years of wondering what it would be like, I had done it -- faced a fear, defied expectation, embraced a taboo self. It was only the beginning.... All I Could Bare is the story of a mild-mannered graduate student who "took the road less clothed" -- a decision that was life changing. Seymour embarked on his journey in the 1990s, when Washington, D.C.'s gay club scene was notoriously no-holds-barred, all the while trying to keep his newfound vocation a secret from his parents and maintain a relation-ship with his boyfriend, Seth. Along the way he met some unforgettable characters -- the fifty-year-old divorce who's obsessed with a twenty-one-year-old dancer, the celebrated drag diva who hailed from a small town in rural Virginia, and the many straight guys who were "gay for pay." Seymour gives us both the highs (money, adoration, camaraderie) and the lows (an ill-fated attempt at prostitution, a humiliating porn audition). Ultimately coming clean about his secret identity, Seymour breaks through taboos and makes his way from booty-baring stripper to Ph.D.-bearing academic, taking a detour into celebrity journalism and memorably crossing paths with Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Mary J. Blige along the way. Hilarious, insight-ful, and touching, All I Could Bare proves that sometimes the "wrong decision" can lead to the right place.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
Positive, insightful and witty look into lives of DC's gay strippers and their followers June 8, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
In this unique and engaging memoir, Craig Seymour attributes his childhood fascination with street hookers, glimpsed as his parents drove through his native D.C. at night, as the likely motivation to do his master's thesis on the social interaction of male strippers and their customers in the "hands on" D.C. gay clubs of the late '80's and early '90's. When one of his interviewees at the clubs suggested he'd get a much better perspective by actually working as a stripper, he agreed, with much trepidation yet excitement at no longer being an "outsider" in that world. For a period of years that reached through his doctoral studies, Seymour became a regular performer at several of these clubs located in the seedy S.E. section of downtown, ironically a short distance from the White House and Pentagon. Throughout these years, he returned home each night to his longtime (and first) lover, Seth, who didn't really understand his need to dance naked in front of strangers instead of teaching (as he did) to finance his graduate studies, but nevertheless tolerated it as something Craig needed to do.
The "memoir" section of most gay book stores has no shortage of books by former strippers, escorts or porn stars, doing a "tell-all" about their exploits for a willing audience of readers. Seymour's book is refreshingly different from this crowd, not just because he "drew the line" at stripping, but because he recognizes and reflects on the reasons why he needed to do it, and how it has helped and shaped his personality and future career aspirations, which included a stint as a music critic, celebrity journalist/photographer, and now as a professor of English. It's a witty and positive message of being open to live one's dreams, regardless of any possible consequences, and being honest and open-minded in dealings with people you meet at any stage in your life. The book also gives considerable insight into the mindset of other strippers, including "gay for pay" straight boys there (supposedly) just for the money, as well as the lives of some of the regular (but occasionally racist) customers, who craved the forced intimacy and fantasy "connection" made with these boys. Last but not least, it gives a historical and political perspective on gay nightlife in Seymour's beloved home town, which razed all of these clubs about ten years ago to make room for the new baseball stadium for the Washington Nationals. Much recommended, five dancing stars out of five.
Rally 'Round the Pole, Boys June 10, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Seymour, Craig. "All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C.", Atria Books, 2008.
Rally `Round the Pole, Boys
Amos Lassen
I love this book. "All I Could Bare" is a fun read and it also has a great deal to say about gay society. When I first heard it was coming out I immediately put it on pre-order and when it came today I sat down and devoured it. Craig Seymour was a graduate student at the University of Maryland when he decided to write this master's thesis on the strip clubs of the nation's capital. This decision was to take Seymour on quite a journey. In the 90's the gay clubs in D.C. were notorious and Seymour gives us an honest and unabashed look at his life. He found a new vocation while doing his research which he had to keep secret from both his boyfriend and his parents. This is Seymour's story and quite a story it is. But the book is about more than that. It is about how we confront our fears and how we follow our dreams and about and accepting who we are.
Seymour looks at his past and shows how it helped make him the man he is today, professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.
Seymour does not moralize or sentimentalize. He gives us the honest and raunchy facts. What is so amazing is that what he writes about actually happened in the city where the laws of our country are made. Seymour tells it like it was and holds nothing back and he does so with style, grace and humor.
Funny, raunchy and inspirational June 4, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
When this book first came across my desk, I wondered if I'd be able to relate to some gay guy who fantasizes about stripping, and then makes that fantasy come true. But this book is about more than that. Sure, that's Craig Seymour's story, and he's sticking to it, but he also makes the book about so much more: about following your dreams and passions, about facing down your fears, about being who you really are. And to top it all off, Seymour accomplishes all this with a page-turning narrative that somehow manages to be raunchy, inspirational and hilarious, all at the same time. If you can only read one book this summer, this one is it.
Great writer, juicy story and a great read June 26, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
LOVED THIS BOOK! It's easy to read and entertaining and deep all at the same time. Seymour goes from being a guy who wanted his epitaph to say "He Never Embarrassed His Parents" to a stripper who takes all his clothes off so men could fondle him for money. Craig comes across as a guy you'd hope to meet and not just for his body. As only someone who's participated in the system can describe, he grasps the nuances and complexities of sex work.
He seems to have a great spirit with observations like the following:
"It was easy to think of the customers as just dirty old men, but many, like Dave, had led lives that had been full of secrets and compromise. That made their time at the clubs seem less like a hedonistic indulgence and more like a taste of hard-worn freedom."
He also pays tribute to Frank Kameny, an often-overlooked brave pioneer in the days of pre-Stonewall gay equality and exposes the hypocritical Matt Drudge.
Thanks for baring your soul, Craig!
Rich Merritt, author of Code of Conductand Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star
 An honest and bracing tale from our nation's Capitol June 5, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I read these bad boy memoirs with hesitation- as a genre they often display a maudlin sentimentality, or worse, incipient moralism. But Seymour's book has none of that. It's an honest and bracing tale from our nation's Capitol. It is astounding to think this permissive culture flourished steps from the White House not so long ago. Seymour fell down the rabbit hole of DC's lost raunchy strip clubs, and came back up to tell us all about it, with his clear vision and the perspective of a student of history. He demonstrates a humor and self-awareness rare in memoirists (and rarer still in strippers). Seymour makes the go-go box high ethical ground with his honest and loving approach to his vocation- whether it's stripping or writing. He's got absolutely nothing to hide- unlike the hypocrites, moralists, and profiteers who are currently running our nation into the ground.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
