/ 9 September 1994

Seeking Satisfaction In The Land Of Sleaze

You can get just about anything you want from sex entertainment these days — but satisfaction is not guaranteed. Stefaans Brummer reports

IT was a rather casual affair. They had met all of 10 minutes earlier, and no pleasantries were exchanged. Now, between vigorous manual and oral efforts to resuscitate Johans limp member, she was coyly discussing his failure with the audience.

Lovely Cindy, as the two dozen onlookers knew her, turned to Johans concerned buddies, rugby fans from the Lowveld out on a night on the town after watching Transvaal trash Province.

He just stays limp; its probably the alcohol, she purred before going down on him one more time. What they achieved in the end was coitus, but it did not take long before Johans condom-draped appendage again failed him, her and the audience.

A poster on the wall at the central Johannesburg club — which is open to all adults, subject to management discretion and a stiff couvert charge — proclaimed: We cater for the impossible. Perhaps it should have added that management takes no reponsibility for a customer like Johans failure to deliver.

Live-sex shows are available in Johannesburg and one does not have to look too far to find them. Should you prefer something less explicit, that is even easier to come by.

Up in Hillbrow, the Summit Club and the Dorchester Hotels Club Caligula are standard bearers of the art of visual sex, with trained dancers providing the entertainment.

At the Summit, the diverse crowd of night revellers stop their boogying every hour or so to watch a dancer strip down to nothing in a carefully choreographed routine involving many layers of clothing, perhaps a bath, perhaps a flaming torch, sometimes a volunteer from the audience to give or receive a rub. But there are limits: no legs part too wide.

A Rasta in the audience, a regular visitor, had but one complaint: they should have more black strippers.

Club Caligula was in the news last week: on Thursday it was raided by Narcotics Bureau detectives. The charges levelled against management: public indecency on stage, pornographic material on screen, gambling and allowing prostitution.

By Saturday, Club Caligula was back in business. Strippers danced their acts within the same constraints as at the Summit Club. The large screen broadcast fleshy videos, but no hardcore. Women of the night — olive-skinned oriental and other exotic nationalities — and topless waitresses mingled with white-collared, beer-bellied patrons. In this, the Dorchesters land of sleaze, a sturdy paunch seemed almost as necessary a qualification for a patron as a sturdy wallet, maleness and a Labradors intent, drooly grin.

One man was different. Richard, an athletic type, pointed out his chick. A striking topless waitress, his girlfriend was in a corner snuggling up to a patron with a well-to-do air. They can look and they can touch, but thats about it, said Richard. He claimed not to be jealous.

Back to the rugby fans at the downtown live-sex club. Johan, from Nelspruit, unmarried and about 30, said: When she (Lovely Cindy) asked me, I immediately knew I would not be up to it and I told her so. I closed my eyes and tried everything, but it didnt work. And my buddies were watching me.

Stagefright was the reason he could not perform, he said, but he insisted he would visit again and give it another go. Johans best buddy said he would never go on stage himself, but confessed to having proposed his friend as volunteer.

Buddy number two, immersed in a beer, had no views. He originally volunteered himself, but Cindy gave him a curt youre too drunk. The friends agreed that Cindy had been in complete control and allowed only what she wanted.

A bouncer, wanting to lock up, interrupted the discussion: These girls do it only because of the money. Do not think for one moment that they enjoy it.

Johans pride must have taken another knock.