When I went to my first Naked Boys Reading, a nude gay literary salon in Dalston, I enjoyed it so much that I made some kind of throwaway comment afterward that I might like to take part in the next one.
Little did I think though that my comment would actually lead me to being onstage without my clothes on, reading Rimbaud, Verlaine and Edmund White to the packed basement of Vogue Fabrics at the next event. But it was a great experience and one I might even hope to repeat.
The theme for last week’s Naked Boys Reading was ‘Daddies’ and there were a mix of said daddies, sons and admirers reading, five of us in all. Hosted by the inimitable Sharon Husbands, whose acerbic New York wit went down a storm with the audience, Zia started us off with some real daddies gay erotica and an excellently knowing delivery.
Sitting on a stool, he worked the room well and his effort was appreciated far beyond the otherwise enjoyable visual fact of his tight six-pack and sizeable endowment.
James transported us to the nineteenth century drawing rooms of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. I was third and DJ Squeaky’s hilarious childhood stories and proper sexy daddy Andrew’s take on Steinbeck finished us off in style.
Was it a nerve-wracking experience? No, it was more liberating, to use a certain cliche. In fact, for most of the boys it was so liberating they stayed naked for the rest of the night, dancing away starkers to the Duchess of Pork’s fantastic tunes that kept the party going after the readings finished.
The beauty or the appeal of the night is that what people notice and what gets faced through the door is indeed the naked boys aspect to it, but the really important part of the night is the ‘readings’.
Once someone has started reading, and their reading is engaging enough, the fact that they’re naked is irrelevant – of course, the challenge being that you have to make it interesting enough in the first place, something that all these boys did with panache.
Luckily, I received enough lovely positive feedback afterwards that gave me that good feeling that people were listening to the content rather than just staring at my cock and balls!
• Vogue Fabrics, 66 Stoke Newington Road, Dalston, N16 7XB
