Just pay your money, get an eyeful. It's so easy to see live naked women for us modern city dwellers, but it wasn't always that way. Think about your grandfathers and all the men prior to them who settled this land. Grandpa would just die if they knew we had such a luxury. They really suffered Puritanism and just a shear lack of females. In one century, the boom-town dance hall girl evolved into the burlesque queen, then the pinup, the Bunny, then (thank goodness) the modern topless dancer. To have a naked woman shake-it, close-up in your face, and have her table-dance, dry-hump you, and possibly go home with you, is powerful stuff, down right addictive. Remember when you where a kid, and you were getting you first taste of naked women? Remember how difficult it was to see bare skin? You were lucky to have a good National Geographic. Live naked girls were impossible. That childlike feeling of romantic anxiety to see the female form must have been what our forefathers felt all their lives.
Ourgrandfathers usually could count the number of naked women they have seen on one hand. It was a long and arduous struggle to gain the privilege of the modern gent's club. I am grateful to all of the anticensorship pioneers, both men and women who blazed the path for the freedoms we now enjoy. In this realm however, it is the women who get all the attention, and one of those censor-busting women is the famous and fabulous Sally Rand. Sally revealed very little by today's standards. Sally's fan dance is tame, hell you could show it on broadcast TV! But, back then in the early thirties open skin was contained in the burlesque houses. She transcended burlesque with dance so heavenly, public opinion overrode the moral objectors, and the law. "How dare you arrest Sally Rand, America's Treasure!" She brought public nudity to Dallas by making it acceptable for the first time. She stepped out of an airplane at Love Field wearing only a bubble held in front of her, and a small toga style wrap. She was barefoot and on her toes, a vision of angelic loveliness, a real goddess. The flashbulbs wailed, the press followed her. She wore a size 4-1/2 shoe, she was a natural blond, and a small, uniform, b-cup adagio dancer. She moved with such grace and was so clever at using minimal cover that, she would not reveal the illegal parts. She was here for the 1936 Texas Centennial State Fair of Texas. Prior to that, Dallas only had a little bit of the usual burlesque but, they couldn't show anything or else the girls would get arrested. The show girls would wear a corset-like bottom, giant tassels on top, plus a demi-coat to weave the spell over men by waving the lapels around playing peek-a-boo. The audience barely saw anything. But still the men came.
Sally took nudity out of the seedy bars and played it in mainstream theaters and got arrested everywhere she went, I'm sure because the cops couldn't wait to meet her. The infractured law was usually Public Nudity or an abstract Public Morals law. She always beat the rap with the help of her lawyers and because she maintained that she always had a body stocking on. Sometimes it was too hot for the stocking so it became a topic of considerable public speculation; "Was she wearing a stocking or not?" She levitated nudity to a high art, so much so that people couldn't object, it was "art."
I think grandpa would be jealous of our modern service of the lap-dance, but I think I'm jealous of grandpa because as an adult he still felt like a kid when he saw a naked woman. Exotic World is a museum and hall of fame for burlesque and exotic dancers dedicated to preserving the rich and spicy history of strip. The Wall of Fame at Exotic World is filled with 8X10 B&Ws of at least a hundred old-time stippers. The images are far from hard-core, but! are dazzling. They can transport you back to an innocent time when a tight sweater was all you got. Exotic World holds a annual ball and competition every spring. The Playboy Channel airs news on Exotic World frequently and did an hour special on them. Strip Tease is an Original American art. I pay homage to all the risk-taking, censor pushing, historical strippers every time I lift a mug while gazing at beautiful naked girls. "Here's to you Sally Rand."
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