All Male, All Nude (VoD Review) – Gerald McCullouch takes a documentary look at a naked gay strip club

Magic Mike has certainly made people a lot more interested in male strippers. Well, people were already interested in male strippers, but now it’s more socially acceptable to acknowledge that interest. Gerald McCullouch, who’s best known as an actor in the likes of CSI and the BearCity movies, follows up his feature directorial debut, Daddy, with the documentary All Male, All Nude.

The film goes inside Swinging Richards, the US’s only all nude, all male, gay strip club. While you might expect such a venue to be in New York, Los Angeles or perhaps even New Orleans, it’s actually just up the road from an Ikea in Atlanta, Georgia. About half the footage in the documentary is from inside the club as a bevy of men dance on stage in and out of their underwear, with the other half consisting of interviews with a few of 60+ guys who take off their clothes at Swinging Richards.

It should be noted that the on-stage dancing isn’t of the highly choreographed Magic Mike/Chippendales variety, it’s more of the gyrating on a stage (or maybe around a pole) variety, although with fewer clothes than Channing Tatum and co.

The chats with the guys offer a cross-section of ideas about the good and bad sides of stripping. There’s one guy who’s using his performances to help fund his way through college and hopefully medical school. Another of the men – who is probably more enthusiastic about stripping than anyone else on the planet – enthuses about how wonderful it is, as he enjoys the job itself, as well as the freedom it gives him to explore his other passion, music. He can take a month off if he needs to, then come back and make a shed-load of cash.

There’s also the other side though, mainly represented by Pearce, who at the grand old age of 26 is having a bit of a mid stripper-life crisis. He’s straight, has a five-year-old son, and has a rather conflicted relationship with his job. While he likes the money, he also feels that taking your money off for cash is degrading. Although he could previously live with that, his son is now at an age where he’s having to actively lie to him about what he does, which is causing him to think about whether it’s time to give up the stripping game.

Other negatives are also acknowledged, including unpleasant clients/patrons, drugs and the death of one of the strippers. However, the film is keen to show that there are plenty of good things too, including a sense of fun and camaraderie, a job that many of the guys enjoy, and of course the fact that they can make a lot of money doing it.

There are also interviews with those who work in other parts of the club, which is interesting for showing how despite the wildness of what’s happening on the floor, it is still a very strictly run business. The reason for that is not just to stop it going bust, but also due to need to keep control of dozens of competitive young men, and because of all the rules the authorities lay down to allow fully nude stripping to happen. That includes everything from the fact the performers can only take tips via garters on their arms (and only their arms), to every dancer needing an adult entertainers’ licence.

Click here to watch the trailer for All Male, All Nude.

That last fact is linked to something else that may surprise many, which is that the dancers have to pay the club to be allowed to take their clothes off on the Swinging Richards stage. One of the guys likens it to renting a chair in a hairdresser’s salon, but it’ll still be a surprise to many that the dancers are paying the club for the ‘honour’ of being naked there. Of course, they make that money back (and plenty more) in tips from the patrons, and if they get a private dance they can earn around $100 for just 15 minutes.

There are also rivalries, such as dancers who don’t want to be on stage at the same time as certain other performers, either because the other person is more popular/a better hustler or because their dick is bigger (and for some people the latter will cause the former). There’s also the ‘pumping up’ that goes on beforehand, so they can be as big as possible while on stage (but not hard, as that would be illegal), but the men get frustrated if they’re shrinking back down before they get to dance. But while worries about penis size may exist, this is not a place for shy boys, as the ‘job interview’ apparently starts with them dropping their pants and getting measured.

It’s all pretty interesting, and while it doesn’t reveal anything too surprising, it’s still a nice look into the parts of the male stripping world that are normally closed to outsiders. Those who think all male strippers are slutty sexual objects with no brains and no morals will certainly have those presumptions challenged, as will those who assume every stripper is a junkie prostitute living a life of desperation and degradation.

However, while there are a few lessons to be learned about the nature of sexual objectification, the documentary isn’t above revelling in the many flopping and helicoptering penises of Swinging Richards. The footage from inside the club is admittedly rather grainy, and those who solely want to look at willies might wish the light levels weren’t quite so low, but there’s still plenty of footage of what goes on in the club, and the many penises contained therein. Some of it is quite sexy, some a tad bizarre, but it certainly delivers on the promise of it being all male and all nude.

Overall Verdict: An interesting look into the world of nude male strippers, as well as a chance for the viewer to play spot the penis. There are certainly worse ways to spend an hour.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

All Male, All Nude is available to rent online via the film’s website