All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C.

LOVED THIS BOOK! It's easy to read and entertaining and deep all at the same time. Seymour goes from being a guy who wanted his epitaph to say "He Never Embarrassed His Parents" to a stripper who takes all his clothes off so men could fondle him for money. Craig comes across as a guy you'd hope to meet and not just for his body. As only someone who's participated in the system can describe, he grasps the nuances and complexities of sex work. He seems to have a great spirit with observations like the following: "It was easy to think of the customers as just dirty old men, but many, like Dave, had led lives that had been full of secrets and compromise. That made their time at the clubs seem less like a hedonistic indulgence and more like a taste of hard-worn freedom." He also pays tribute to Frank Kameny, an often-overlooked brave pioneer in the days of pre-Stonewall gay equality and exposes the hypocritical Matt Drudge. Thanks for baring your soul, Craig! Rich Merritt, author of Code of Conductand Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star

Funny, charming, brutally honest, and at times downright addicting; Seymour creates a vivid picture of how one simple research assignment can lead to a journey of self discovery. Seymour's story is both relatable and inspiring as he takes his audience on a whirlwind trip from eager customer to behind the scenes stripper; while exposing the highs and lows of his struggle to feel comfortable in his own...G-string. Stripper or not this tale of love, loss, and ultimate sacrifice shows that no dream is too big to achieve once you step outside of your comfort zone and expose (no pun intended...well maybe a little) yourself to the world.

Seymour, Craig. "All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C.", Atria Books, 2008. Rally `Round the Pole, Boys Amos Lassen I love this book. "All I Could Bare" is a fun read and it also has a great deal to say about gay society. When I first heard it was coming out I immediately put it on pre-order and when it came today I sat down and devoured it. Craig Seymour was a graduate student at the University of Maryland when he decided to write this master's thesis on the strip clubs of the nation's capital. This decision was to take Seymour on quite a journey. In the 90's the gay clubs in D.C. were notorious and Seymour gives us an honest and unabashed look at his life. He found a new vocation while doing his research which he had to keep secret from both his boyfriend and his parents. This is Seymour's story and quite a story it is. But the book is about more than that. It is about how we confront our fears and how we follow our dreams and about and accepting who we are. Seymour looks at his past and shows how it helped make him the man he is today, professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Seymour does not moralize or sentimentalize. He gives us the honest and raunchy facts. What is so amazing is that what he writes about actually happened in the city where the laws of our country are made. Seymour tells it like it was and holds nothing back and he does so with style, grace and humor.

In this unique and engaging memoir, Craig Seymour attributes his childhood fascination with street hookers, glimpsed as his parents drove through his native D.C. at night, as the likely motivation to do his master's thesis on the social interaction of male strippers and their customers in the "hands on" D.C. gay clubs of the late '80's and early '90's. When one of his interviewees at the clubs suggested he'd get a much better perspective by actually working as a stripper, he agreed, with much trepidation yet excitement at no longer being an "outsider" in that world. For a period of years that reached through his doctoral studies, Seymour became a regular performer at several of these clubs located in the seedy S.E. section of downtown, ironically a short distance from the White House and Pentagon. Throughout these years, he returned home each night to his longtime (and first) lover, Seth, who didn't really understand his need to dance naked in front of strangers instead of teaching (as he did) to finance his graduate studies, but nevertheless tolerated it as something Craig needed to do. The "memoir" section of most gay book stores has no shortage of books by former strippers, escorts or porn stars, doing a "tell-all" about their exploits for a willing audience of readers. Seymour's book is refreshingly different from this crowd, not just because he "drew the line" at stripping, but because he recognizes and reflects on the reasons why he needed to do it, and how it has helped and shaped his personality and future career aspirations, which included a stint as a music critic, celebrity journalist/photographer, and now as a professor of English. It's a witty and positive message of being open to live one's dreams, regardless of any possible consequences, and being honest and open-minded in dealings with people you meet at any stage in your life. The book also gives considerable insight into the mindset of other strippers, including "gay for pay" straight boys there (supposedly) just for the money, as well as the lives of some of the regular (but occasionally racist) customers, who craved the forced intimacy and fantasy "connection" made with these boys. Last but not least, it gives a historical and political perspective on gay nightlife in Seymour's beloved home town, which razed all of these clubs about ten years ago to make room for the new baseball stadium for the Washington Nationals. Much recommended, five dancing stars out of five.

When this book first came across my desk, I wondered if I'd be able to relate to some gay guy who fantasizes about stripping, and then makes that fantasy come true. But this book is about more than that. Sure, that's Craig Seymour's story, and he's sticking to it, but he also makes the book about so much more: about following your dreams and passions, about facing down your fears, about being who you really are. And to top it all off, Seymour accomplishes all this with a page-turning narrative that somehow manages to be raunchy, inspirational and hilarious, all at the same time. If you can only read one book this summer, this one is it.