What women want: Hunks and G-strings

Niyati Saxena leads a hectic life. When she is not busy running the show at the multinational company where she works, the 45-year-old is spending quality time with her two teenage daughters. Recently a friend urged Saxena to take time off for a girls’ night out. The group, however, did not do the regular pub hop, but chose to head off to a farmhouse on the outskirts of Mumbai.

As the women waited in dimly-lit room, three young, athletic men dressed in dark suits joined them. “The men started dancing to a seductive number being played in the background. And then to my utter disbelief, they started undressing slowly till they were standing before us in brightly coloured G-strings,” laughs Saxena who vividly remembers the ‘prim and propah’ women around her squealing in delight at the sight before them. After the initial shock, Saxena got into the mood and even danced with one of the strippers.

“I am hooked and can’t wait for another wild night,” she says.

Welcome to a city where women, irrespective of age, profession or marital status, seem to be opening up to the idea of adult shows.

“There are hordes of adult activities for men. So why can’t women indulge in some fun too,” asks Sangeeta Sharma who runs a single women’s club where members meet once a month for strip shows, lap dances and pole sequences.

According to event managers, the demand for male strippers has shot up in the last two years. “Earlier the requests came only from affluent middle-aged women. Now more than 80 per cent of my clients are middle-class working women in their 30s and 40s,” says Vishal Shah, who organises strip shows for corporate houses and private clubs in Mumbai and Delhi.

However, hiring a hunk for a bare-all session is an arduous task. Though a clandestine network exists in the city, it takes endless phone calls and some serious string-pulling to find a male stripper. Since everyone involved —event managers, strippers and clients — insist on discretion, the hiring takes place only through word-of-mouth. Usually the client circle gets bigger when women present at the show take down the number of the stripper for services in the future.

“Modelling or dating agencies listed in classifieds are often fronts for stripping or escort services,” claims Ravi Singh, a dancer and professional stripper. However, the services don’t come cheap. Singh charges anywhere between Rs15,000 to Rs50,000 for a single session where he dresses up for the occasion depending on what the clients want.

“I am an inspector one night and a doctor the next,” says the man whose portfolio includes corporate shows, hen parties and girls’ nights out. Singh claims that his act is naughty but there is no sex involved though he does get clawed by his female audience once in a while.

“Most women are not looking for sex but for some wild fun where they can let their hair down and be themselves,” he adds.

Names have been changed on request