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'E' Is For 'Exhibitionism'----Stop Press---- Yes! After delays, diva strops, and disappointments, the cast of Ireland's newest burlesque night, Rouge, will be making an exhibition of themselves again at The Hub, Temple Bar, on Sunday 5th June. Doors open 9.00 pm. Show starts fashionably late. Feather Girls and fetish freaks! Strap on your dildos, gird your loins, and buckle up your bondage gear! The rest of you may wear whatever tickles your fancy, but be ready to give a big hand for drag king, Gringo O'Hara, with regulars Idle Mae Lawless and the Pony Girls. Headlining the night will be sultry siren singing sensation Ingrid Madsen. And
performing for the first time at Rouge is new talent Joe Destiny, cherry-picked
from drag troupe the ShamCocks. But watch out for those blonde beauties, the
Chiquita Girls! Is that a banana down your pants, ladies, or are you just Afterwards, get down and dirty at Savage, the cracking post-cabaret club hosted by DJ Tony Walsh. If you fancy a spot in the limelight, or just wish to show off a particularly fetching outfit, this is your chance to get up on the stage and shake your best assets. Of course, Fluffy will be there in the thick of it all with her Ponygirl friends, dressed in full Basque, bridle and ponytail. Whether self-flagellating on stage or kicking up our hoofs on the dance floor later, we will be having the time of our lives. Which brings me neatly to my topic for today. What is this urge to take, scantily clad, to the stage? I know that weary strippers the country over are probably sick to the gills of performing for drunken stag parties and fat businessmen in polyester suits. But all of the burlesque girls I know simply relish what they do. Speaking personally, it isn't for the reward of a 5 euro note tucked by greasy mitts into my cleavage* (although every little helps!), nor the free drinks plied on me by smitten admirers. Face it, most of the guys I've met that way begin by announcing that they love my costume (good, good), and then spoil it all by asking where they can buy heels like mine in a size twelve. No, I think the answer lies in a lifetime of discipline by well-meaning, if strict, parents, nuns, teachers and other authority figures. A lifetime of kindly scoldings and tuttings have left many of us hopelessly sensible and repressed. Too much study has made others over-conscious of their responsibility as good post-feminists. Too much overtime has left us jaded and exhausted. As ponies, we get to regress to a simpler, more fun existence. We get to be bold and frisky. Nobody can tell us to sit still, or behave like young ladies. Nobody can order us to work late, or to brush up properly for the next board meeting. Nice? Never! Naughty? For sure! We get to dress up. In the kind of exotic garb that lurked perhaps in an older sister (or cousin's) forbidden knicker drawer. And the people who come to see us seem to get into the spirit of things too. Like in childhood plays we put on for our relatives at Christmas, we get to perform for a kindly and appreciative audience. We get to let it all hang out, and still be perfectly clothed for the occasion. We get to be the strong, sultry chicks out of adult comic books like Sin City. We get to be your typical bad-girl fantasy, without being the pawn or pleasure object of just one man (or girl). We can display on the outside what many people hold bubbling within their Marks and Spencer control pants. Like flashers, we get to express what millions of people are terrified, yet furtively desire, to reveal. Without getting arrested. Hurrah! And it is this expression of the inner self that is key to the Pony Girl mentality. Because in our own, unique way, we are doing what every artist out there sets out to do - revealing a part of ourselves in a creative way. Porn, Schmorn! Like performance artists, we love nothing better than making an great big show of ourselves. More philosophical musings soon, Whiplash and wellies, *Please note that the placing of banknotes in pony cleavage is a liberty
permitted only to our ponymaster Gringo O'Hara. As with lap-dancers, it is
very much frowned on to touch the girls at Rouge. Don't even think of it.
Partly out of politeness, but mainly because Idle Mae or the members of our by Fluffy Dutton |
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