Lesley Cowling
STRIP the five Cover Boys down to their bare essentials, take away their G-strings, animal skins and ripped jeans, and underneath you will find your regular nice South African guy.
But on stage, they offer themselves to their all- women audiences in fast-paced dance routines, stripping down to G-strings from a variety of macho guises: fire-eaters, cops, cavemen and gentlemen. Theres little of the take me, take me now submission associated with strip shows, however — their message is Ill take you … if you want me to.
South African women want to see men, says the groups manager, Kyle Brooks, and the show is designed around these desires. So the Cover Boys work out in the gym to keep their bodies perfect, they shave their legs so the muscles show and develop an individual style so that there is someone in the group every women will like.
Fulfilling female fantasies makes them a lot of money — about R400 a show, and they do four or five a week — but this is not the only reason they do it. It also fulfils a male fantasy to be besieged by admiring women. Max Khalek, who works for his fathers trucking company by day, admits that he cant get the kind of attention from women in everyday life that he gets from an audience. I like being in the limelight, he says, laughing. I like the women going crazy. I get a kick out of it.
Some fans carry their enthusiasm to extremes and rush on to the stage to touch their favourite Cover Boy or try to remove his G-string. The smaller the town, the wilder the reactions, and one small-town girl had to be restrained recently when she ran on stage with a pair of scissors.
The wilder the audience, the more the group likes it. The guys prefer ladies who go crazy to those that sit there looking like theyre not enjoying themselves, says Brooks.
Men, however, are often not fond of the Cover Boys. They tend to be hostile to us, especially in small towns, says John Verster, who swaps his business suit nightly for loin skins and a pacing stride. You hear them make comments about us — they say were gay and so on.
In fact, many of them have girlfriends but they are hardly ever in attendance as the management prefers the Cover Boys not to be seen to be attached. My girlfriend understands. Shes not the jealous type, says Sheldon Le Maitre, at 21 the longest- serving member of the group after three and a half years.
Verster says there is little difference between what they do and what women strippers do, though there is a difference in the attitude of their audiences: Women enjoy our show, they like us and want to get to know us. Men dont respect female strippers.
The Cover Boys are careful to keep that good feeling: they include a number of audience- participation courtship routines in the show and end by offering the women champagne and roses. After the show, too, they are friendly towards fans who want to talk to them.
But there is a limit to what theyll do, no matter how much theyre offered. Ultimately, the woman has bought a ticket to the show — she hasnt bought the man.