Female and Male Strippers: A Debauched History
Although the concept of go-go boys and Male Strippers at bachelorette parties and strip clubs seem like quite a modern trapping; the fact of the matter is, that erotic performing arts have been around for a long time- millennia, if you would believe it.
Ancient Egypt had a whole host of slaves- both male and female- at the disposal of the reigning Pharaoh, ever ready for his entertainment.
Moving forwards by a few centuries, if you were to look at the Roman and Grecian cultures: the established ancestors or precursors to what is commonly thought of as the ‘Western Culture’, sensual performing arts were very much a part of mainstream society.
Being a fairly sexually liberated society, sensual performances such as those given by sex slaves could very often have a homoerotic connotation. In fact, such a thing is not very surprising given the pederasty traditions which were a traditional part of Grecian (and to an extent, Roman) culture.
Indeed, many of the taboos and stereotypes that the sexual minorities are fighting to overcome today simply didn’t exist back then. Eventually, of course, the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) came to the fore, and with it, were struck hedonism’s death knells: a death which it couldn’t resurrect itself from for at least two millennia.
When the three major religions denounced sexuality as something dark and polluted, erotic performing arts were quickly relegated to the seedy margins of society. The repressed attitude to sexuality and eroticism came to a heady crescendo with the Victorian Era in England: in fact, people sometimes say that Victorian sensibilities required even table legs to wear knickers; a hilarious anecdote, but quite to the point as it were. Fortunately or fortunately, however, times have dramatically changed since then: hedonism is back from the grave! And as of Bachelorette Party and male strippers they only seem to have got more popular with time.