Sex Stories: Naked Girls Reading does it again

L'amour's exiting lines, while amusing, also hit what seems to be the crux of these events: These girls love their literature, and they are thrilled to bring it to a larger audience; even if we, the audience, weren't there, they'd still be reading--possibly without any clothes.

I was admittedly rather nervous before my first visit to the series last month. I'm not sure why: I love reading, and I love naked women, so what was my problem?  I think I was worried that I would come away feeling let down, that the night wouldn't live up to my expectations and I would end up at home in bed thinking about how I had wasted an evening hearing bad erotic poetry, the only saving grace being that I'd also seen some nipples. Nothing ruins an experience faster than hoping for greatness and being handed mediocrity.

But the Naked Girls proved to be anything but mediocre.  That first evening, I was treated to readings and discussions of interconnected poems by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath as well as works by Sharon Olds and Frank O'Hara; the only obvious evidence of erotica was a few dirty limericks played for laughs. I was impressed by the level of literary acumen (how often does the average audience in any venue get a lecture on poetic analysis?) and by how excited each reader was to take her turn.  As each girl read, she leaned forward and her body reflected the tense arch of her chosen poem.  I couldn't take my eyes off of them, and it wasn't just because they were naked.

I've always loved words.  When I was five years old I briefly refused to learn to read, but that's only because I adored being read aloud to and I sensed that that part of my life would gradually fade when I began carrying the load of translation on my own.  Once I began, though, it was love at first stuttered run-through of Patrick's Dinosaurs (my first solo read), and it's all been downhill since. I appreciate the feeling of holding a heavy book between my hands as well as the lightness of a slim volume of poetry, the dusty communal smell of libraries along with the tang of a newly printed text, the glow that a perfectly articulated sentence leaves in my mind after I read it.  I'm a sucker for a beautiful turn of phrase.

I won't deny, however, that the "reading" aspect of Naked Girls Reading was only part of what initially drew me in.  And because I, a fairly literary-minded and selectively voyeuristic audience member, was so intrigued by the nudity factor of the evening I immediately questioned it.  Was this a ploy, a hook to get people into a show that really had very little to do with nudity?  Were the Naked Girls and the Reading two separate parts of the same event?  And why exactly was I there?  I couldn't decide whether I was a rubbernecker, there to ogle the exposed female flesh in front of me, or a literary snob, turning up my nose at the possibly gratuitous nudity so that I could hear passionate readings of poetry and prose.  Was I possibly some complicated amalgamation of these two extremes, a person who could appreciate both the physical and literary aesthetics of gorgeous naked women reading great works of literature?

Um, yes.  The latter, please.

Ammie Brod, Mina Mechante, Anna Pulley and Ellie Kaufman at NGR's Poetry Night

At the first Naked Girls Reading five months ago, I was told by numerous performers, the nudity wasn't the issue--after all, these are professional burlesque dancers. But they all agreed that they were terrified to read aloud to an audience.  "It made us way more naked and vulnerable," L'amour said.

They've apparently gotten over it.  By last Friday's event, the readers seemed not only comfortable with their literary choices but also truly excited by what they were doing.  In sets of two or three, the girls would disappear behind the screen at the front of the room, removing the lingerie they wear between acts before emerging naked and settling on the couch to reveal their literary choices.  The works ranged from poetry to history to prose, but the overarching theme that emerged proved to be one of vulnerability and truth and the catharsis that comes from the revealing of these personal emotions.  This was made explicit in one of Greta Layne's choices, Paolo Coelho's Eleven Minutes, a reading that explored the relationship of pain and sacrifice to love.  "We seek out pain and sacrifice and then feel pure," she read, focusing on the renunciation of all that is important in order to gain clarity and truth.  Stripping yourself bare, getting onstage and reading works that are close to your heart and opening yourself to criticism and judgment, can become a way to share a deeper purity of thought and self, to learn and teach of new and different ways to be.

I sympathize.  While I've long been a die-hard fan of the written word when others were the ones producing it, I'm relatively new to the craft of writing; it nearly always feels precarious, if not dangerous, to let my words out into the world for others to see and, quite possibly, dislike.  When I write a sentence with the intent of showing it to friends, acquaintances, strangers, it feels all too often as though I'm baring my heart and waiting for someone to rip it from my chest.  But even as I wait for the axe to fall, it's become clear that the risk is infinitely worth any harm that might come from the struggle.  For what could feel better, purer, more honest than creating something and sharing it to others?  We survive by the thoughts we share and the connections that form from our own honesty, and a life lived otherwise would be truly empty.

With this particular connection, it finally became clear to me why the nudity is not only important but perhaps necessary to this event.  In one of L'amour's readings, a text about strip clubs and burlesque from a 1950 copy of Chicago Confidential, she highlighted the distinction between two very different forms of revealing the body: the difference between being nude and naked is the difference between having nothing on and taking everything off.  The girls are not just nude; they are naked, exposed, revealing their intellectual and emotional selves to an audience of friends and family and complete strangers.  It is one thing to read from Lolita (as Mina Mèchante did, wearing only those classic heart-shaped sunglasses made famous in Kubrick's film), and entirely another to read from the introduction to the annotated edition, analyzing Nabokov's magnificent work for an audience that may or may not have read the original text.  To take such a risk requires belief in words, in exposure and its relationship to truth.

Mimi First and Mina Mechante

Mèchante herself had this to say:

"This is really what Naked Girls Reading is about; showing people that women can be both fiercely intelligent as well as proud of their sexuality.  When people believe that the mind and body are binaries, they have a tendency to think that all high art is confined to the realm of the intellect and don't see the role that sexuality plays in all great art. These people may think that the nudity in our shows is just a gimmick and only used to get people in the door, and while it may do that as well what keeps people enthralled is the mixture of mind and body, sex and intellect, and the fact that they do work together."

And it does work.  Kim Schultz, a first-time attendee (she surprised her male partner with tickets to the event, not telling him what was in store until they arrived that evening) told me that she never attended artistic or literary events like this, but that she would most likely be coming next month and bringing friends.  Another audience member, in the closing question and answer session, said simply "It's so heartening to know that people still read."  The message is making it through.  In the final reading of the evening, a piece not only read but written by Greta Layne, she told us this: "The revolution began in nakedness."  And indeed, perhaps it has.

Related:

• Sex stories: Naked Girls Reading Poetry

• Burlesque at its best: Don't miss Belles and Whistles

• Sextra Sextra: So you wanna be a burlesque dancer?