Devon Hunter

A quick update: We’ve taken some awesome pics with some great models, and the pictures are starting to show up on the www.dcfukit.org website. Here is my favorite pic of yours truly: http://www.fc-kits.org/blogslinks.html. The official launch for the project is Friday, May 29, 2009!

Happy Memorial Day!

One of the questions I received boils down to this: Are dancers who travel or work together truly friends, or does competition prevent that?

That depends on a great number of issues. Scotty and I are definitely truly friends, regardless of the money we do or don’t make around each other. We help each other in many ways, other than splitting the cost of travel. We collaborate in various ways, talk to each other about problems or concerns, and look out for each other in general. Two other guys who travel together are Will and Johnny, two beautiful Latino dancers from Miami. They really are friends.

Is it always like that? No. Probably not. I’m sure that there are people who travel together out of convenience or to lower indiviudal costs. I know of two dancers from Charlotte who no longer travel together, because one was always creating problems and not covering his share of the gas/hotel. They had no other connection, so the other dancer now refuses to travel with the mooch. It’s the same as any other working scenario: There are people you bond with, and people you tolerate (and people you avoid as well).

As for behind the scenes, I have already blogged about the competition that exists there. But that entry deals with dancers in general, not travel companions. I would say that people who consistently go place to place together over a long term will develop some kind of tolerance for each other (at a minimum), and that others get quite close. But relationships are always evolving. A perceived or actual insult, attack, theft, or any other number of bad experiences can sour a travelling duo’s connection just as quickly as anyone else’s.

My suggestion is to know the person you travel with. This person, if you share a room, will have access to your belongings. You wouldn’t want to get hijacked in your own car. You also need to know that the cash you’ll be keeping on you until you can take it to the bank will be vulnerable. I didn’t invite Scotty to travel with me until we’d danced together consistently for several months. After staying with him several times, eating with him, getting to know more about him as a person, and sharing info about myself with him (to see how he would treat it), I finally knew I could take him on the road with me. I have never had even a moment’s cause to regret that (note: Remind me, please someone, to one day tell you about the first trip we took together down to Macon, GA… HAHAHAHAHA!). But I got to know him first. We became friends first.

So, simple answer: No, not all who travel together are friends, but it’d be a good idea for them to at least respect each other.

I’m excited to announce that Scotty and I will be going to a location that is not only new to us, but new in general. An old favorite in Washington, D.C. called Ziegfeld’s/Secrets was closed down about three years ago and demolished, so that the baseball stadium could be built. After a long wait, the club reopened about a month ago, and the management there invited us to come up at our earliest convenience…

Well, that is this weekend!

If you live in the D.C. metro area, and you would like to come out and say hello, the new Ziegfeld’s/Secrets is located at:

1824 Half Street SW
Washington, D.C. 20024
http://www.secretsdc.com/

As with Swinging Richards in Atlanta, GA, this is a nude bar, so don’t be actin’ all shy when you walk in, and there’s buck nekkid peeps on all the bartops. Hope you are all well, and that some of y’all out in cyberland will come see me and say hello. I have been told that at this club there is no touching, lap dancing, or VIP giving. So, if you come out, be prepared to tip “only in the socks or armbands.” Evidently there’s a strict rule (as in Atlanta) about touching below the waist and above the knee.

I went to a very large party today for the first time in I don’t know how long. There must have been almost 100 gay men there, nearly all of whom were upstanding professionals in their 40′s – 60′s. Essentially it looked like I was walking into a gay bar frequented by older gentlemen, and that the club just happened to be at someone’s house.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. As soon as I saw how busy it was I started to feel panicky. I’ve gotten so used to relating to people in a flirtatious or sexualized and nearly anonymous manner at the clubs where I work that I was nervous about seeing people in the daylight with all my clothes on. I don’t think I realized how much I’d disconnected from daytime living. The first place I went was to the kitchen for a glass of wine (which is odd, since I rarely drink).

I went there with a delightful friend, Dave Haywards of Touching Up Our Roots, Inc.: Georgia’s LGBT History Project, who is interested in helping me with finding performance opportunities for my artistic projects. We both agreed we’d leave out the exotic dancer part, since the wealthy gay guys at this party would be likely to discount me as an artist if they knew about it. Yeah, well, we thought that would work.

It didn’t take a full 30 minutes to remember why I avoid these types of scenarios anymore. Someone came up and interrupted my conversation with a guest, making it known that he recognized me from Swinging Richards. I then watched him go around the room whispering this to everyone, and saw each individual pair of eyes cut across to me in scandalized glee.

Great.

Well, I’m not ashamed, so I didn’t avoid the conversations that followed. However, there was a distinct and sudden change in the way I was being treated. For the first few minutes I was simply mingling shyly and having light conversation. A few men had begun flirting with me (as gay men normally do with each other), and I was engaging in some intelligent discussions for a brief time.

Gradually, I was becoming the focus of everyone’s attention. I drank my second glass of wine too fast and had to sit down. Within a few moments I was blocked into a corner by a wall of crotches and people were feeling on my head, hair, shoulders, and arms. I started to get nervous actually. I was buzzed, didn’t know a single person there (except Dave, who was mingling elsewhere), didn’t know really where I even was (since I don’t live in Atlanta), and have a couple stories in my past that I’ve not shared yet concerning sexual assault. No one wanted to talk to me anymore, they wanted only to hurl their fantasies at me from every direction at once. A few proceded to tell me how far they could stick various objects inside themselves or other people. One went into great detail about how he knew how to fist someone deep enough to cradle a person’s heart in his hand and feel it beating. (It brings tears to my eyes and bit of a gag reflex in my thoat just thinking about the relish with which he describes this – it’s fine if you’re into fisting, but I’m very squeamish about some stuff).

I’m sorry, I don’t normally vent or curse here, but this is fucking ridiculous. I went there to talk about art, which was going just fine at first, but then I was suddenly transformed from a person into a rubber doll. I don’t tolerate this well at all, so I have to say that I’m proud of how diplomatically I diverted all this. I’m not sure anyone even knew I was offended, let alone a tad scared. As it became clear that I wasn’t going to perform any freakish circus acts on the spot, some lost interest and wandered away. From there I was able to manage and redirect the remaining conversations before excusing myself.

The kicker is that only at the end did I finally get to speak with the person whom I was brought there to meet. He was very excited about my projects. Just as I opened the door to leave he blurted out, “I’m so glad you’re a real dancer. Now I can have some respect for you.”

Well, fuck you too…

This party brought to roaring life all the many reasons I write this blog. When you interact with adult entertainers outside of where we work, please try to avoid reducing us to a pile of mechanized anatomical parts. I know it might be hard to believe, but we really do have feelings… Promise… Not making it up.

I was asked recently by another dancer for advice on putting music together for a performance. This depends, of course, on a wide variety of factors, so the best I can do is offer suggestions for combining music. I can’t really make specific recommendations, because everyone’s taste is so vastly different. For example, I absolutely worship at the altar of Janet Jackson, but my dancer friend Rocco up north is non-plussed by her and instead worships at the altar of Madonna. I love Madge, but my personal diva is Janet. So, there you have it. Taste is taste.

With that in mind, I would make the following suggestions when you’re in a situation where you can bring your own mix of songs:

1. Variety – this applies to genre, artists, tempo, mood, and texture. If you want several songs from a similar vein, break them up.
2. Brevity – avoid songs that play longer than 3-4 minutes. Attention spans are abbreviated in clubs. Unless the particular song is a banger that almost everyone loves (and will tolerate for 4-5 minutes), use shorter mixes.
3. Familiarity/Obscurity – gravitate towards music that is familiar, but throw in some surprises.
4. Sensuality – I personally don’t prefer pornographic clichés like “Me So Horny.” It’s actually embarrassing when some asshole DJ plays “I Wanna Fuck You in the Ass.” I mean really. Go for sexy, not trashy. You can get freaky without being a total freak (unless you’re performing for an audience that specifically fetishizes something in particular, then go balls-to-the-walls).
5. Interaction – select compositions that move you to involve the audience. Perhaps a sexy ballad gives you a reprieve, so you can stop gyrating around by yourself? Take a rest and give a volunteer from the audience a smoldering, blindfolded chair dance. Get creative though – that was the first example I came up with, because everyone does it. Think of new ways to flirt and make contact (where legal).</li> 

An example set that lasts about 30 minutes might look like this:

1. “These Words” Natasha Beddingfield (a fun, flirtatious opening)
2. “Erotica” or “Justify My Love” Madonna (absolutely smoldering)
3. Lords of Acid (high octane, humorously smutty, and lots of fun – take your pick on titles)
4. “Rope Burn” Janet Jackson or “Insatiable” Prince (for a slow jam interaction at the mid point), “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaac could be a more romantic alternative maybe?
5. “The Way I Live” Baby Boy the Prince or “Lean Like a Cholo” Down aka Kilo (a midtempo grinder with some swagger)
6. “Whatever You Like” TI or some other anthem that EVERYONE knows at least some of the words to and enjoys chanting along with
7. Missy Elliot (thick, sexy grooves that allow for interesting rhythms as you depart – take your pick on titles)