To really put the tease into a striptease, you can't beat
the strippers of gay Paree. What's the secret of these ungowned queens
of the strip? What is their "French Touch"?
"The Truth About Paris Strip Queens"
from
Glamor Parade
Vol. 2 No. 4, 1958
THE STRIPTEASE--American
burlesk version--is a comparative newcomer to Paris, but in the few years
since
the G-string art has come to the City of Lights, it has far surpassed in
sheer exposition of sex anything the United States has ever done or seen.
Anyone who has ever seen the gay Paree version of le striptease will tell
you--as he mops the perspiration from his brow in memory--that it is the
hottest thing this side of Hades.
What makes Paris strippers such torrid stuff?
It's really not much of a mystery. The French have always been famous--or
infamous, if you will--for their uninhibited, frank, philosophical views
on sex, and they simply carried their views right onto the nightclub stage.
French girls have a history of knowing how to make a man's blood pressure
rise, so when the striptease became popular in France after World War II,
they were ready, willing and more than able to provide pulse-stirring entertainment.
Basically, what French strippers have are
two things: Imagination, and the freedom to use it. Zippered gowns that
peel like an orange while a stripper prances along a burlesk stage are
not to be found in Paris. This is strictly from American style, which is
not meant as a knock against U.S. strippers. That's about as much as they
can get away with without being locked up. In Paris the gendarmes take
a more liberal view of things-and so the view is much more enticing.
For example, many Paris strippers wear everyday
street clothes, and instead of "stripping," they "undress," which is a
lot more subtle. Other gimmicks and novelties, such as amateur striptease
contests, audience participation strips, slave girl acts, apache dances--and
of course, the fact that French strippers bare everything add up to put
the whee-whee in gay Paree.
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