This isn’t meant to be salacious in any way, but I recently pulled up our local (Honolulu, Hawaii) newspaper archive to confirm something that no one else of my generation (born in the 60’s) remembers.
We used to have “live sex shows” advertised in the entertainment section (along with strip clubs and XXX movies) of your local newspaper in the 70’s. I put “live sex shows” in quotes because it was supposed to simulated. However, there were a few arrests because sometimes the performers didn’t just simulate the act.
We also had a restaurant (The Dunes) with topless, later nude waitresses and later, nude waiters. And there was the (in)famous The Glades which featured the “Boys will be Girls” revue with Princess Hanalei topping the bill. These latter two were well known as a common insult was to say that someone worked at The Dunes or The Glades as walking past the clubs was commonplace (even for kids) during the daytime. Once the night came it, it became the adult Wild West!
I thought it was perfectly normal until the City began a campaign for the shut down and renovation of what was essentially a red light district in the (I believe) the late 70’s / early 80’s.
In the 60’s and 70’s, Drive-In’s were the last stop for movies (even soft-core) before they were removed from distribution and there was one (Kam Drive-In) that despite the fence surrounding it, the top half of the screen could be clearly seen from the road. I remember my Mom telling me to look the other way when we passed, but I’d always manage to sneak a peek!
There’s a hill (actually a mountain) to the side of the theater and you’d see people sitting there watching the movies.
San Jose is home of the World Famous Pink Poodle. I’m a bit surprised that it’s still in business. Funny, looking at the Yelp page, the first “ask the community” question is “How much is a lap dance?”
Edit: It was Prince Hanalei at The Glades and The Dunes wasn’t in the downtown red light district, it was on the bottom of a hotel along the busy highway to the airport. I think it’s a Ramada Inn now.
One section of the Chautauqua Gorge in Western NY in the 80s had boulders that had been spraypainted by amateur enthusiasts warning hikers that clothing was optional beyond that point. Despite continuing on nonetheless on several occasions, I never saw any practicing nudists, so for awhile I wondered if it wasn’t just a joke, but I later read that it was indeed an informal nudist area.
No idea, but apparently one of the big sellers at old timey carnivals was things like the tattooed lady - because it was a strip show. They’d give a preview of the tattoos out front, just showing a little bit of skin, then invite the adult men inside the tent for a “more complete” show and cigars.
I think a few of the other attractions worked the same way (bearded lady, snake charmer, etc.)
There were places with nekkid dancers when I was younger, but I haven’t noticed any for several years. There was a drive-in that showed movies like “Summer School Teachers” and “Night Call Nurses” near my elementary school. You could see the screen from the church where my scout troop met, and it was also easy to sneak in. Our local paper had ads for the Lonesome Pine drive-in, which was up near where Liz Taylor choked on a chicken bone (remember the John Belushi skit?). They showed XXX movies. The place near my school showed Fritz the Cat, but I was too young to be out and about at night back then. The most I could hope for was a quick peek as we drove by.
I graduated high school in 1984 in suburban Connecticut and learned from joking comments made by others in my school that there was apparently a gay bar in that little town. I had no idea. I think I remember where it was and there’s a thrift store there now. Not that scandalous, but it was a small town with an active commercial district along the Boston Post Road.
Nudism is about as far as you can get from risqué or “adult” entertainment.
In Portland, Oregon in the 70s I didn’t know of any live “adult” entertainment, although I suppose there might have been strip clubs somewhere out in the suburbs.
I moved to SF in 1980 and of course there were the famous strip clubs along Broadway, at least one of which advertised live sex acts. I never went so I don’t know how realistic it was. I did hear one or two stories that it was simulated, but who knows.
I spent a year in Tokyo just before that, and I don’t believe there is anything to see there. There are areas that have things like hostess bars and “Turkish” baths (they call them Soapland now because Turkey objected) where you could get a variety of services, but no public display of nudity. Of course in any environment as closely controlled as that one, there are almost certainly private shows, probably run by yakuza, where you can see or do just about anything you can pay for. Now that I think of it, there are probably analogs of that in just about every big city. But I don’t think that’s what the OP is looking for.
The local bookstore, and one or two drugstores, sold Playboy, Hustler, Oui and similar nationally distributed nudie mags of the 70s. One of the local bars would have go-go dancers during deer season as there was a huge influx of hunters from the Pittsburgh area and they had money burning holes in their pockets. In the mid-80s there was a video rental place that had a small collection of pornos available.
Well, the metro area included Washington, DC, and I’m told there was a seedy side to Arlington that was almost as bad. (In VA, strippers had to keep their thongs on, in DC everything goes.) But in our little town, nothing like that that I ever heard of, even today. Quite a few people protested when the city council gave an operating license for a hooters in the 90’s. Skywatcher’s Drive-in wasn’t more than a fifteen minute drive.
There was one specific lady who was ALWAYS carrying her dry cleaning up and down the main street. I often wondered what she did for a living. . .
My hometown is very suburban. There used to be a go-go joint in town but that burned down 40 years ago or so. One bar owner made noises about turning his bar into a go-go joint but that was shot down. In my state there can not be any nudity if alcohol is served so we are talking about women in bikinis.
Now almost all the liquor licenses are for chain restaurants.
Another story. I graduated from college in 1988 at a school where the big week-long spring festival was tied to student elections. It was also a big nerd school with a majority male population. One of the regular events during that week was called, simply, “The Movies”. And this was pornographic films that were shown on campus, in the same 500-seat lecture hall used during the week for the big freshman lectures and on Friday and Saturday nights for second-run Hollywood movies.
The first time I attended, I thought the movie I saw was awful so one year (I think my senior year) I volunteered for the selection committee. This meant sitting in a room in the library watching a pornographic movie on a TV and VCR borrowed from the library. Weirdly enough, that one movie seemed acceptable, so I only had to watch the one movie. But, I was told, most years many movies had to be screened before an acceptable one was found. Because this was a semi-sanctioned school event, there were rules about what sort of movie was acceptable. Nothing involving “sorority girls” and no BDSM. And those were just two of the rules. (I asked but never was able to get a complete list of the rules.) We screened the movies on VHS but in the theater, the movies were shown on actual film. Apparently when you rent movies, you can request custom edits, if something in particular is objectionable. And I was fortunate to be in an era when these movies were available on film (for public performance) and VHS (for prescreening). A few years before that they were only available on film, so prescreening them was more complicated.
I grew up in Towson, north of Baltimore. At the time, Baltimore’s area for this type of entertainment was The Block but I don’t recall they had anything like live sex shows (real or simulated). They certainly had strip joints, where Blaze Starr became famous. A friend and I went down for an adventure in the 70s. We stopped in a $0.25 peep show place, where I saw my first porn flick. Then we went into a strip club, where we were approached by a couple of scantily-clad women. One asked me if we were interested in the “back room action” which I suppose was prostitution although could have been something more like a private strip show or lap dance or something. We were only 16 but looked older (we didn’t get carded). She said, “Mind if I have a drink?” and I figured she could do whatever she wanted so I naively said, “Sure go ahead” and the bartender looked at me and said, “That’ll be six dollars.” Not wanting to get thrown out head first by a bouncer I paid it and we slinked out. BTW $6 was substantial in 1975.
Back in the 70s and 80s, several local movie theaters showed porn, including Proctor’s and the State Theater, old vaudeville houses (Proctor’s has been revived for stage shows, though the State is just derelict). There were also a couple of “Art” theaters that showed continuous shows. A drive-in also showed porn, which was a problem because the screen could clearly be seen from the road.
There were also a couple of large porn stores, that had booths for movies. One is still in business.
There was one nightclub that featured strippers. There are a couple right now just out of town.
Lots of newstands (which were probably bookie joints) that sold nudie magazines.
I would assume there were more, but I had little interest.
Thank you all for the comments, keep them coming please.
I’ve always been curious since as I stated, this wasn’t hidden in any way and I’ve always wondered if it was this way everywhere. They were advertised in the newspaper, like the movies with little 3x4 ads. One paper had them in the sports section, the other in the entertainment section, only separated by being on the page before or after the regular movie ads.
These clubs were on a block long section of the downtown business district (Hotel St). Up and down the street were regular businesses and turn left instead of right and you were in the heart of Chinatown and within walking distance were several movie theaters, some with kiddie matinees. Sometimes we’d purposely get off the bus early just so we would walk past the clubs (some of which were open during the day) on the way to the movies. It was like the movies, with doormen rushing us along if we moved too slowly in front of the open doorway.
I’ve been there only once at night during it’s heydey and that was to go to Club Hubba Hubba, an infamous strip club that was in business for 40 years, closing in 1993. Here’s an article (with a possibly NSFW photo on page 3) http://www.honolulumagazine.com/Honolulu-Magazine/November-2011/The-Last-Days-of-Club-Hubba-Hubba/index.php?cparticle=4&siarticle=3#artanc that shows one side of the gauntlet of clubs you had to walk past if you ventured down Hotel Street. My first and only visit put me off strip clubs forever (I’ve been to a handful, only because my friends forced me to go). There was a stunning platinum blonde billed as Miss Alaska. There was a deep sadness in her eyes as she walked the stage. We locked eyes for a moment and her eyes said “Get me out of here, why am I doing this?”. I’ve always wondered what happened to her.
There’s a huge (housed in a warehouse) adult video store that used to (haven’t been there in decades) have a “couples viewing booth” with a couch in addition to the regular single ones. Doesn’t take much to imagine that must have gone on there!
There was a theater called, I think, the Princess, here in town, that when I was young showed what would now be called XXX movies, although that was before the rating system. I saw ads in the paper for it, or I would never have known about it.
In the early 80’s there was a mile or two of bars, “gentleman’s clubs”, and massage parlors south of town. If you landed at the airport you’d have to pass them on the way into the city. When Reagan visited while he was President they all put up signs welcoming him. It was hilarious.
