In fact, given the vicissitudes of social and cultural change, it's perhaps an even more unique space that still keeps the dancers dancing and a diverse array of customers coming/cumming.In 1893 Chicago was put in the world map as a destination of culture, architecture, and innovation as it hosted the World’s Fair: Columbian Exposition celebrating the 400 th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World.
Overall, I'm glad the place is still there, and given its longevity, I gather it has probably adapted to the bachelorette party culture, which has created some controversy lately in gay male bars. It happens to everyone, even the dancers. He is still working at the same job he did in the 1990s. Too “nice” for me, alas.Īnd I did hook up with a real hot number, beard, blue collar, cowboy boots, there one night, an out of town guy on a conference. In real life gear he looked much less imposing.
He worked in sales at Marshall Fields full time, days. I not only got to touch his basket, but we even made out a bit. A particularly beefy muscle guy wearing heavy boots appeared, and I was smitten. I must admit, most of the dancers were too thin, smooth, and “twinkish” for my taste, but one night, an anomaly. The choir director I think just liked the dancers, a lot, and I also think, because he was partnered, he would hang out there to “blow off steam.” (I'm not sure if he ever hooked up with one of the dancers, but I vaguely remember hearing he did invite one over to his house.) It turns out, that Sunday night at the Shoe was called “priests' night out.” One could say that in many cases, sticking dollar bills in the lush baskets of the dancers was a way of not literally violating a promise of celibacy or a vow of chastity. (In fact, we were at the Shoe when the Bulls won their famous “threepeat” game!) After church, the choir director, the priest, one religious brother who sang in the choir, and whoever else wanted to tag along, hit the Shoe. I was involved with the LGBTQ Catholic group, Dignity, and I sang tenor in its amateur choir. That dynamic reminds of me of my experiences there in the early 90s. Heidemann makes the point that the place for many couples serves “as a compromise between one partner who wants monogamy and the other who has an insatiable libido.” Secondly, in the gay community itself, there's a stereotype that the types of customers the place attracts tend to be “dirty old men” desperate for copping a feel on a young, lithe body. Whether this dynamic strictly applies to what goes on gay male strip clubs is open to question, and I also think it ties closely into the stigmas associated with sex workers in general. First, the whole go-go girl men's club business that caters to heterosexual men contains some obvious structurally exploitative/misognynistic dynamics. It's an exotic dance club, and I am thinking perhaps there could be a couple underlying cultural stigmas. Like, oops, why are you there? What's really going on with you? Or even, in an online exchange, a LOL. Jason Heidemann, a while ago, wrote a piece in the Chicago Reader describing his experiences in detail, and he also makes the point that the place actually seems to be evoke a feeling of “shame-based resistance” for many gay guys. Not strippers (no nudity), and they usually are already stripped down to something skimpy that barely covers up the cock. Why was I there? The Lucky Horseshoe Lounge, known to its regulars as the “Shoe,” is a gay bar yes, but one that features dancers. I had to ask, especially now that that the area around it is gentrified and homogenized in so many ways since the last time I was there, early 1990s.