OCT. 8, 2007

If you really want to look at naked people, they’re all over the place. No more so than on the Internet. If you don’t believe it, try typing the word “bazookas” into Google’s image search. The result is a cross between a carnival freak show and a chiropractor’s wet dream. Nobody in your office probably remembers it, but there was a time when looking at naked people at work involved drilling a peephole into a restroom wall. You can still make that kind of thing happen, but unless you’re willing to wait quietly in the janitor’s closet for an inadvertent money shot, you’ll probably want to take advantage of digital technology – if only to install a web cam in the peephole. But really, why go to all the trouble? You don’t have to work nearly that hard. There are literally millions of pictures of spectacularly endowed, relentlessly turgid, beautifully air-brushed naked people on the Internet and you barely need to lift a finger to get at them. It’s every schoolkid’s fantasy come true – like finding a whole Dumpster full of nudie mags. Of course the down side of the whole deal is the inevitable real-world letdown of finding out that most real people don’t have rock hard, toned physiques, glistening, hairless nether regions, double D breasts, or 10-inch peckers. In fact, most naked bodies fall well short of the Internet standard, even on the Internet. You don’t have to drive out to Hippie Hollow to see cellulite, saddlebags, leathery skin, faded tattoos, or wild, unkempt tangles of pubes. There are plenty of sites devoted solely to amateur exhibitionists who apparently don’t have access to a soft-focus lens or acne medicine. Gone are the days of crouching in the bushes beneath the neighborhood MILF’s bedroom window every night hoping she’ll lotion the razor burns on her privates. Thanks to the internet you can tell her how to shave and where to apply the lotion, as long as you have a working credit card and a box of tissues within reach. Not surprisingly, with the increase in readily available porn on the Internet has come a corresponding interest in and acceptance of porn in real life. More people than ever are taking control of their sexuality and trying to actually live out the crazy donkey/goat/monkey/gerbil/midget/Vaseline/rope swing/jackhammer/gimp mask/gorilla suit fantasies they see online. It could be society is paving a landing strip for the four horsemen of the apocalypse or it could be that it’s merely pulling a big bug of Victorian repression out of its ass. Either way the end result is more skin for everyone – at least until it’s burned off in the lake of fire. Until then, expect things to get a whole lot freakier – sort of like this weekend when local burlesque troupes Kitty Kitty Bang Bang and Burlesque for Peace present the Texas Burlesque Festival. Over 50 performers and nine troupes from Texas and beyond will be baring their wares on Friday and Saturday night at the Parish and Antone’s respectively. If you like to unwind with a little bump and grind, this is definitely your festival. In between performances will be seminars on how to burlesque for success: makeup, hair, choreography, costuming, and chutzpah. Who knew showing off your bazookas involves so much smoke … and mirrors? Don’t worry, somewhere underneath it all is some live, naked flesh worth your money.