All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C. Paperback – August 4, 2009

On the surface, Craig Seymour's "All I Could Bare," is simply a coming-of-age chronicle of his adventures as a gay stripper in the late 80's and early 90's, in the notorious, no-holds-barred gay nightclubs of downtown Washington, D.C., a scene which had flourished in plain sight for more than two decades. The book briefly traces the neighborhood's historical development and notoriety as a gay mecca and offers up some interesting, if not entirely original, composites of characters. These range from (gay and "straight") chiseled poster boys--who gleefully profited from the attentions (and the hefty tips) of their rapturous admirers--to the largely diverse and self-aware crowd of "sugar daddies" who avidly sought, paid for and indulged in sexual fantasies elsewhere denied them.But "All I Could Bare" is actually a time-honored search for self, identity, a sense of place and community, the quest to make sense of it all. In contrast to the work of the controversial "gay" author John Rechy, there are no kernels of nihilism here: Seymour inevitably manages to wean himself from the nightclubs (though never quite entirely), gradually morphing into a skillful entertainment journalist and, later still, forging a successful career in academia (Rechy also parlayed his vast experience--and his existential angst--as a gay hustler into a profitable academic sideline). All told, Seymour's journey is a bona fide--albeit improbable-- success story told with a great sense of humor and insight.For all its merits, however, the memoir is not faultless. Despite his frankness, Seymour is pathologically selfish, as when he describes the painful break-up of a long-term relationship and scarcely pauses to acknowledge the shattering effect that his obsession with stripping had on his partner. I also wish Seymour had been more forthcoming about the minefield of race relations within the gay community. As a Black man light enough to pass as Latino or "other" than Black, Seymour himself appears to have been exclusively attracted to Whites. For all his self-examination, he offers little to explain his obvious compulsion to seek White (beauty-standard) validation--something that no amount of nurturing from his attentive Black family could assuage. Moreover, his tendency to skim over the persistent problem of gay racism begs the question of whether he would have had such a rewarding run as a stripper if he had not often been assumed to be any other nationality. Indeed, a less amiable writer might have challenged or at least pondered this unsavory aspect of the culture more deeply. These foibles matter, especially in a book that literally and figuratively proclaims full-frontal disclosure. And yet in all other aspects, "All I Could Bare" feels authentic and true. The book is so engrossing that I could not put it down, and it took only a few hours to read. For better or worse, this is one memoir that offers a relatively sunny tour of a very peculiar fun-house that is never less than fascinating.

Don't take my 3 stars to mean this book sucks. It doesn't. It's decent. It's just not amazing.It's a fun, light read. It's certainly not raunchy or a "tell all", at least in the sense that it didn't expose anything (IMO) one couldn't assume or figure out already. It is interesting to journey with the author as he takes a fascination and bit of a fixation on stripping and quite literally runs with it, until (and after) he becomes one of them.I found the psychoanalysis half-baked, and even the author seemed to include it only because it is surely expected. I would have preferred just more of the stories and observations to stand alone. It also felt vaguely defensive - almost like it had to prove that strippers aren't ever the stereotypical drugged-out prostitutes one might expect.These are minor beefs, though, in what amounted to something that was worthwhile, but I would only recommend to someone who first thought "I want to read that!", and not to anyone who is ambivalent about it.

This is an easy breezy read and it's a lot of fun. There's enough "backstage dish" to satisfy anyone who has wanted to know what goes on behind-the-scenes at male strip clubs that cater to men. Seymour talks about his customers and the other dancers in a frank, candid and friendly way. He obviously has no axe to grind with the owners or operators; simply put Seymour took up stripping as a topic for his master's thesis but found he was good at it and, at times, made good money. I found the depictions of the other dancers and the customers fascinating. I tore through it in about a day and a half and now I'm going through it again. A light read but a hell of a lot of fun.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I bought All I Could Bare, but Seymour's depiction of strip clubs in our nation's Capitol was amazing. You often hear people say, "This book has it all," and often that's an exaggeration. With All I Could Bare, Seymour delivers. From the steamy to the seedy to eventually a greater sense of self-awareness, Seymour takes his readers through his journey in adult entertainment and shines a light on the underpinnings of identity and desire. The book's a memoir, but more often than not, you'll find yourself thinking that you're in the middle of a really great, really riveting novel. In fact, in some respects it's better, because the memoir form allows Seymour to add fascinating details and histories that would be hard to include in a work of fiction. Topping it off, there's some interesting gossip included. Save the singles you'd be giving the go-go boys and get this book instead.

I picked this book up with great interest, because I wanted to know what "really" goes on in the world of strippers. I found that this was essentially an apololgia, rather than an expose. The author does spends the first half of the book exploring both his motives and the supposed motives of the men that paid him, then goes into an extended rationalization for his activities, followed with a rather uninteresting account of his life since. What we have is a justification for a man doing exactly what he wanted to do, which includes hurting his lover. When his lover says, in effect, "why ask my opinion, you're going to do it anyway", he is dead on. There isn't much here that is news.

All I Could Bare is a light-hearted coming-of-age story in tube socks. Craig Seymour’s master’s thesis at University of Maryland led him first to visit the city’s strip clubs for “research” and ultimately to get on stage himself. He paints an endearing portrait of a seedy 90s Washington, where he found himself and learned skills that would later aid him as an entertainment journalist. It’s a quick, entertaining read probably of most interest to those that appreciate Washington as a city. Though fun, nothing in the book is particularly shocking.