The Frantic Fun of Hunk-o-Mania
New cautions aside, there’s still a workplace where men and women freely engage in supervised, sort-of-sexual touch.
Spiked story for The New York Times due to COVID, March, 2020
For 22 years there’s been a “safe space” in New York City where women go on weekends to touch and be touched by men. It’s not a Kripalu-sponsored yoga class for couples, or an energy healing workshop at the Open Center, but rather a night at Hunk-O-Mania, the interactive male strip show geared for female audiences.
Women scream, laugh and lust as Hunk-O-Mania strippers dance and disrobe across the stage to throbbing pop music. They slowly reveal the proverbial six-pack abs underneath fireman, military or Wall Street costumes.
There is no full-frontal nudity, but when a stripper rips off his pants in a flash, the audience is treated to perfectly toned buttocks in taut bikini briefs, underwear or a G-string.
The Hunk-O-Mania show has hopped around Midtown clubs but is currently housed in the Copacabana, just north of Times Square, decorated with spinning disco balls and sparkly palm tree motifs. Guests pay a cover charge of $25, $45 or $65, with a two-drink minimum.
Unlike most male strip shows or revues designed for female entertainment, Hunk-O-Mania is an interactive experience. Customers can touch the well-groomed, tattooed and often glistening strippers’ muscular chests, sculptural biceps and rear ends when they roam the floor offering lap dances or onstage during acts — all at an additional cost, of course.
If a woman takes the “hot seat” chair onstage, she’s signing up to participate in a routine that “may include suggestive dance moves, a kiss on the cheek,” states the Hunk-O-Mania’s disclaimer, as well as physical contact of a nonsexual nature, lying on the floor, or “a harmless spank.” In reality, some stage acts do go a little bit further.
“It’s a place for women to have dirty but clean fun,” said one stripper, who goes by James Thomas and looks like a baby-faced Eminem wearing two neck chains and glints of gold at his earlobes. (Mr. Thomas, 32, preferred to use his stage name — because of problems with obsessive fans, he said, rather than any stigma about stripping.)
He works as a machinist during the day and has been stripping, managing and M.C.-ing at Hunk-O-Mania for nine years, primarily in the company’s Atlantic City location, one of 19 in the United States.
Hunk-O-Mania is a popular outing among women celebrating birthdays, promotions, upcoming marriages, who come for a show that is unapologetically sexually charged, but is also full of humor and levity. Many customers wear sparkly tiaras and sashes stating “50 is Fabulous” or “Bride.” The ethnically diverse audiences vary wildly in age, but are always called “girls” by the M.C.
And although all genders and sexual orientations are welcome at Hunk-O-Mania, the show is designed for women attracted to men. Handsome, muscular men.
At a recent New York City show, a woman with a long ponytail wearing a silver minidress and “Bride to Be” sash, eagerly bounced to the music in her “hot seat” chair onstage as a stripper danced and disrobed. Eventually wearing only underwear, kneepads and a backward baseball hat, he prepared to incorporate her into his routine, and incorporate he did.
After flipping her around in the air and laying her on the stage faceup, he simulated licking his fingers and theatrically slipped them under her dress while giving a knowing look of complicity to the audience. The crowd erupted in shrieks and the horizontal woman laughed, her friends zooming to the stage to take photos of the audacious spectacle.
The stripping policeman act is always introduced by the M.C. as “part black, part Puerto Rican, part Irish” (no matter what the stripper looks like), to suggest broad appeal. On this night he was further described by the MC as “one of those bad policemen,” prompting laughs and cheers from the audience.
“Punisher,” a.k.a. Sharay Hayes, 46, is Hunk-O-Mania’s most outrageous act, solely performed by Mr. Hayes. He jumped onstage in full leather S-and-M regalia, complete with a an eye-slitted mask covering his entire head, a harness, chaps and a G-string with dangling front fringes, which jerked about wildly when he thrust to the music.
While one “hot seat” woman in black stiletto boots and long blond hair smiled and laughed while being manhandled by Punisher, the other woman slunk off the stage. She later said, “it’s a little too public for me,” followed by the disclaimer that she’s not a prude.
The woman onstage, who identified herself as Agnes Jackson, originally from Poland, had already had a couple of lap dances while sitting in the audience to celebrate, she said, her 50th birthday.
In between acts, roving Hunk-O-Mania strippers clad in underwear or pants often pulled down to reveal their perky derrières, engage with customers at $20 a song. It’s how most strippers make the bulk of their money. A stripper might straddle a woman, bend her over a chair to gyrate against her from behind or slither down her front until his head is inches from her crotch.
While it might seem legally risky, especially these days, to have a business predicated on sexually charged touching, Hunk-O-Mania’s founder and CEO Armand Peri is undaunted. “Everything is very well lit,” he said, “done in good fun, in good taste.”
All strippers must abide by Mr. Peri’s strict code of conduct, which forbids alcohol or drug intake at shows, and his “less is more” mantra about customer interaction. There are no “dark spaces” for private lap dances.
‘WE ARE TRYING TO BE MORE CAREFUL’
Mr. Peri knew the risks of running an interactive male strip show for women long before Hunk-O-Mania. He is a former male stripper, who performed as “Armando the Barbarian,” initially to support himself while pursuing a bodybuilding career.
“We are trying to be more careful with the moves the guys make,” said Mr. Peri’s wife, Fran Peri, who is from southern Brazil — the couple met at a club in the Brazilian city of Florianópolis — and joined the management team 15 years ago. She was referring to the wave of sexual harassment cases, “the new culture, the #MeToo movement.”
But customers don’t seem to be complaining. In fact, most women in attendance seem to relish the opportunity to touch men on their terms, as well as be touched, in a controlled yet exhilarating atmosphere. Women’s lustier sides can emerge at Hunk-O-Mania, unlike in other places, like nightclubs, where women’s expressions of lust can be complicated, sometimes eliciting unwanted reactions from men.
Lynda and Gina Guarneri, a mother and daughter from Keansburg, N.J., have become ardent Hunk-O-Mania fans over the past year, primarily at the Atlantic City and Hamptons locations. They recently attended their first New York City show and Lynda, sporting a quasi-buzz cut, enjoyed a lap dance.
Were they worried that Hunk-O-Mania would be too sleazy before attending their first show? “I was hoping!” Lynda said, with a brash laugh, adding that Hunk-O-Mania strippers are, in fact, always “gentlemen.”
Jessica Carroll took the “hot seat” onstage at her bachelorette party several years ago and recalled getting her favorite stripper of the evening: “backward hat, no shirt, jeans, that rugged kind of look.”
Along with several other strippers paired with women seated onstage, he put his crotch in her face, hidden under a towel. “He had something on under there,” Ms. Carroll said, “but the crowd didn’t know that. The crowd just thought that his member was in my face. It was funny.”
“They mimic sexual positioning, but never to the point where I felt threatened or uncomfortable,” Ms. Carroll said. Yes, she was embarrassed, amused and “red in the face,” as she put it, “but never where I was like, ‘Oh my God, I have to get a lawyer and sue this guy.’”
One customer, who was on her second visit, brought her 87-year-old grandmother from St. Petersburg, Russia, because she thought Hunk-O-Mania was a “hilarious” experience. The coifed grandmother in tinted glasses smiled slightly as a man donning a pair of royal blue bikini briefs flexed and danced for her, even gently placing her hand on his chest as he knelt before her. Female family members took photos, wiping away tears from laughing.
Recently, friends surprised Janene George and took her blindfolded to a Hunk-O-Mania show for her birthday. While she was slightly anxious upon arrival, she was game to occupy the “hot seat.”
Ms. George, wearing a black cat suit, said that while the “policeman” engaged her in some acrobatic activity onstage, he whispered, “it’s OK, you’re safe, I’m going to be gentle” to her. “They do make you feel wanted,” Ms. George said. “I mean, even though they are getting paid to do it.”
FLIPPING THE STRIP
“Women are wanting to have that sexual experience,” said Maren Scull, a sociologist, “and to be a public sexual consumer.” Dr. Scull, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, Denver, studied and researched male stripping for female audiences at a strip club she renamed Dandelion’s, to protect identities. The club is in the western region of the United States, she said.
Dr. Scull thinks if women had more socialization in arenas like male strip shows that allow women to express their sexuality in public places, “we would see more male strip shows and other kinds of sexual entertainment for women.” She added: “I think it’s good for women to have spaces to express their sexuality if that’s something they’re inclined to do.”
Katy Pilcher, a senior lecturer in Sociology at Aston University in England, has studied men stripping for women in Britain. In an email she wrote that “the show rests upon making women customers feel that they can transcend the normal boundaries of femininity,” noting that women were encouraged to scream and shout, acting “loudly and potentially ‘sexually aggressively’ in public.”
There is a lucrative market for male strip shows geared for women, from Chippendales to the more underground. When Dr. Scull visited other strip shows where men fully disrobe, she witnessed some “peculiar” acts. One stripper inserted his penis into a carved-out pineapple filled with whipped cream, and another placed his penis in a hot dog bun on a paper plate, slathered it in mustard and ketchup, surrounded by potato chips.
“A girl next to me said, ‘That doesn’t look right,’” Dr. Scull said. “We both just laughed, like, this isn’t sexual, this is just strange!” But according to Dr. Scull, the house was packed; women were screaming and throwing money. “They had to use a giant push broom after each person’s set,” she said, “and would just use a dust pan to put it in a bucket.”
Hunk-O-Mania is a so-called “safe space” because the strippers are adept at reading women. Some women don’t want to be touched, while others wave around bills for lap dances (technically “Hunk Bucks,” later cashed out for big bills so strippers don’t go home with hundreds of dollars in singles).
“We definitely don’t want the guys to be the aggressors,” Mr. Peri said. “Let the women be in control.” Mr. Hayes, a.k.a. Punisher, said he won't approach a woman who has her arms and legs crossed, making no eye contact.
How important is it to enforce a strict code of conduct at a male strip club for women? Very. According to Dr. Scull, Dandelion’s strippers were allowed to drink alcohol, and some were intoxicated and touched female patrons with what she describes as “little to no regard.” On her very first visit to Dandelion’s, she said, one stripper picked her up and lay her on top of him onstage.
He “just started gyrating in a sexual fashion,” Dr. Scull said, “in front of my teaching assistant.” She said strippers would also sleep with customers.
If there is any inappropriate touching at Hunk-O-Mania, it’s from female customers, according to the strippers. Mr. Hayes said that a woman might slap a little too hard, even “squish the banana” as he put it, but he simply diverts the woman’s attention or adjusts her hand.
“We just kind of smile and keep moving,” he said, noting that unlike female strippers who are at risk when men act inappropriately, male strippers are not. “We have a club full of guys who are in shape, musclebound. If I run into a woman that makes me feel in danger, then that’s one tough chick!”
Mr. Thomas pointed out that obnoxious customer behavior usually happens when women are intoxicated. “Some girls ask, ‘Why didn’t you take your penis out?’ Typically Mr. Thomas makes a joke to deflect aggressive touching, but in extreme cases, he said, “I’ve had to actually complain and get security on women.” Nearly all strippers said they don’t get physically aroused on the job; they’re working.
After the lights came on at the end of the two-hour Hunk-O-Mania show, women eagerly recapped the evening, laughing incredulously at the images captured on their phones. Some strippers milled around in civilian clothes, obliging the customers with their selfie requests; some flirted.
Mr. Hayes, who has a radiant smile and was a kindergarten teacher before becoming a stripper 25 years ago, posed with the Guarneris, giving a frisky little hump to the mother’s leg that made her laugh.
Does it bother him to be objectified every weekend?
“Bother me? Yeah, right!” said Mr. Hayes, who described himself as extremely introverted, adding that he would be at home with his cat were he not at Hunk-O-Mania.
“As men, early on, we do all this stupid stuff to get any attention from women,” Mr. Hayes said, listing cars, muscles, being captain of the football team. “To actually have a job that attention from women is all I get? It’s like, come on, like a fantasy job.”