Listen, porn theaters aren't for everyone. I should just come out and say that right off the bat. Yeah, they're a little creepy. But hey – so is church. I think it's fair to say that both of them – porn theaters and churches, that is – serve as an important outlet for individuals of a particular taste. You might be one of those individuals and not even know it yet. You may even enjoy going to both. That's fine. Personally, I think masturbation and prayer can both be done just as well at home (not that I do much praying), but I also understand the appeal of doing them in an open forum where you're surrounded by like-minded people, where you can always depend on an encouraging word and a friendly, um... handshake.

Like many people my age, I first learned about porn theaters as a young child, when my favorite TV personality, Pee-Wee Herman, was arrested for masturbating in an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida. I remember seeing his mug shot in the newspaper and saying, “That's not Pee-Wee,” after which my mother gave me a pained look and told me that yes, yes it was Pee-Wee. The poor bastard.

Being under 30, I grew up as part of a generation that doesn't really understand the concept of porn theaters, because we've had access to porn on the internet since we were too young to be looking at it. When adult movie theaters first became popular in the 60's and 70's, they would have been the only reasonable way for most people to see pornographic movies. Then the 80's rolled around, and the VCR was invented, and they began shutting down. By the time the 90's hit there were very few adult movie theaters left. Two of them remained in Portland: The Oregon Theater and the Jefferson Theater, which has since been replaced by the Paris Theatre.

In order to understand the relevance of porn theaters in the modern world, you have to understand that a kind of erotic subculture has developed within these places. Now, you may be asking, “Doesn't masturbating with a bunch of dudes seem kinda gay?” Well there you've answered your own question. Not that all of the guys who go to porn theaters are gay – and don't fool yourself, the vast majority of the patrons are guys. But even if the movie playing on the screen is straight porn, all you have to do is look in any other direction to see a bunch of dicks and gay sex. Also, if you're masturbating in a porn theater, you automatically become part of the show, so no matter how straight you are, you're at the very least participating in another guy's gay fantasy.

But hey, it's not gay if you don't return the favor, right? The truth is many of the guys who go to these theaters are probably married or are otherwise stuck in a situation where they're desperate for release. When men become horny and desperate, labels like “gay” and “straight” become far less important than “penis” and “hole.”

Of course, every now and then a guy is able to convince/pressure his girlfriend or wife into coming to a porn theater with him. There are roped-off areas reserved for straight couples at both of the theaters in town, so the women are at least out of arm's reach of the general public. What happens when a couple enters the theater is every guy in the room crowds around the perimeter of the roped-off area and stares at them, masturbating openly while they eagerly watch the couple's every move. Gay men join in the crowd, as they've learned over the years that straight men are more likely to allow another guy to give them a hand job if they're looking at a woman while it happens. This is part of the subculture I mentioned earlier.

Most couples get freaked out and leave shortly after they arrive, either to go home and fuck or to have a raging argument in the car that will likely end in tears and heartbreak. Occasionally, though, a freaky swinger couple will whip off their clothes and go to town, possibly even inviting members of the crowd to join in. At this point, not a single person is watching the porn on the screen, because the theater has clearly crossed the line and become a sex club, which is essentially what it was to begin with.

Luckily, laws are different here than in other shitty states like Florida. There are no Pee-Wee Hermans getting arrested at adult movie theaters in Portland because, like our swingers clubs and bathhouses, our porn theaters provide a temporary membership to a private club where the patrons are free to express themselves sexually in any way they choose, as long as it's consensual.

This cuts to the heart of why porn theaters are still relevant in today's world. It's not about the porn at all. The porn is irrelevant. They could be showing old Star Trek episodes. These theaters simply provide a venue for adults to connect with each other. We go to porn theaters for the same reason we go to bars rather than drinking at home: We want the possibility of social contact with other human beings, even if it's simply a brief moment of eye contact or a nod of the head, because it sucks to feel alone in the world, filled with private shame while sinning in solitude.

I tilt my head back and let the sun warm my face as the water sprays my chest. I'm surrounded on all sides by men and women, all of them nude, their wet bodies shimmering in the summer sun. Kimbot is showering across from me, and I watch with delight as she soaps up her voluptuous breasts.

We're standing on an expansive wooden deck with dozens of posts lined up in rows, each equipped with a shower head on either side. Above us, a massive wooden carving arches across the open sky – a raven holding the sun in its beak.

This is paradise.

Entrance to the Ritz

My father's been telling me about this little utopia for years, claiming it's his favorite part of the Oregon Country Fair. This is my fourteenth year at the Fair, but I didn't make the effort to finally check out this luxurious bathhouse and sweat lodge - called “the Ritz” - until recently. It's the kind of relaxing environment I might not have been able to fully enjoy as a younger man, restless as I was, but at this point in my life I couldn't appreciate it more.

Earlier today I spent some time sitting in one of the beautiful wood-fired saunas, sweating out the toxins of last night's fun. I figure after this shower I'll return to the sauna once again, and after that I'll take another shower. This is my plan for the afternoon. All weekend I've been making a conscious effort to let go of my anxiety and allow myself to just enjoy the present moment. Don't worry about what happens next. Just be.

I grab a bar of soap and start lathering up my shoulders, and the tension in my spine drops away. In the corner of my eye something moves. I twist my neck and see that the woman showering behind me is bent over, her bulbous backside a mere fraction of an inch from my own derriere. If I'd only been leaning back slightly she would have butt-bumped me. I imagine the soft, wet skin of our asses pressing up against each other, the awkward apology afterward, and I'm overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of terror as I realize I'm starting to get an erection. Glancing down nervously, I can see that my penis has clearly entered the No Zone and is quickly preparing for blast-off.

The muscles in my neck and shoulders are immediately tense again. I desperately look around for something non-sexual to focus on, but all I can see in every direction are breasts and penises and vaginas. A gray-haired woman with a tight body and a neatly-trimmed bush saunters by. I squeeze my eyes shut, and some demon in the back of my brain is chanting, “G-MILF! G-MILF!” I push the evil thoughts aside and try to conjure up an unsexy image. At first I try to think of my grandma, but my memories of her are too hazy, and she keeps morphing into the G-MILF with the well-groomed pubes.

I feel my penis move. The situation is getting dire. I decide the only thing left to do is recall a memory I've been trying to erase from my mind for years: My 26th birthday, sitting with my mother during her final moments in a hospital death bed.

So I'm standing here in the most tranquil place I've ever known, bathing in the sun, surrounded by beauty, and I'm focusing all of my thoughts on the image of my mom riddled with cancer, her skeletal form barely able to clutch the prayer beads on her chest. I clearly remember sobbing openly as the nurse wiped a bit of vomit from her gaping mouth. Her face was so sunken-in I barely recognized her.

The memory is so vivid I find myself mumbling out loud, “Jeezus, that's horrible.”

It doesn't occur to me at that moment, but some of my mother's ashes are scattered in the fairgrounds nearby.

Suddenly I open my eyes and look down to see that my penis has shriveled down to its usual non-threatening state of rest. It worked! For the first time in my life, I'm actually thankful for having that final image of my mother stored in my mind. Awash with relief, I flash a broad grin at Kimbot, who smiles meekly back at me.

“I'm gonna hit the sauna again,” I say, and I stroll through the crowd of naked people, whistling happily, seeing faces now instead of just genitals.

Later on, after we've left the Ritz and are walking around the main part of the Fair, I enter a wooden bathroom stall to take a piss. Through the wall I hear a woman's voice in the adjacent stall. She's letting out quiet moans and whispering, “Fuck me! Yeah, fuck me harder!”

My penis leaps out of my underwear, practically screaming for attention, and this time, alone behind a locked door, I can think of only one good solution.

Thirty seconds later the situation is resolved.

Since I was starting to get comments about how www.erotisphere.com looked like a realtor website, I decided it was time for a change. Two good friends of mine worked with me to create a new logo, an illustration for the homepage, and icons for the business categories.

Marcella Joshlin volunteered to design the logo. I gave her many conflicting, cryptic instructions, and she came up with some awesome designs. The ideas culminated in our new company logo, which is now proudly displayed in the banner at the top of the site.

Stefan Saito was responsible for the new illustration on the homepage. I gave him a crudely drawn sketch from my notebook, and he turned it into a masterpiece. I then turned his image into a clickable map, so it can be used to quickly navigate to different categories in the Adult Business Directory.

Stefan then designed icons to represent the various business categories. Each business listing is now tagged with an image so that users can quickly identify what kind of business they're looking at.

I had a great time working with these two incredibly talented artists. They both did a phenomenal job. I believe they're available for hire as independent contractors, and I would highly recommend their services to anyone. To reach them, check out marcellajoshlin.com and stefansaito.com.

Also, here's a cool video by Stefan:

Everyone have a safe and fun weekend at the Pride Festival!

The last time I went to the Safari Showclub with Devo, a little stripper who calls herself "Bridget the Midget" was the main attraction. We were greeted at the door by the owner, who I think was fairly new at the time. When we went up to order drinks there were two dancers sitting at the bar. They told us they'd driven down from Seattle for the weekend to make some extra money in Portland, only to find that “this fucking midget” was drawing all of the attention, and none of the other dancers were getting much in the way of tips. I sympathized with them, although I had to confess we were mainly just there for the midget.

A thick crowd of people swarmed around the main stage when Bridget pulled her top off. I couldn't even get close enough to throw money at her. I had to stand on my tip-toes at the top of the stairs in order to catch a glimpse of her tiny body gyrating to the music. It was a rare spectacle and probably one of the more bizarre things I've witnessed in a strip club.

We returned to the Safari last Monday to meet up with my brother, Marko. It seems to me that this club has gotten a bad rap online over the past few years. The space is surprisingly clean, classy, and comfortable. They didn't go overboard with tacky decorations like other themed bars. Instead they spent their decoration budget on comfortable chairs and expensive fish tanks filled with piranhas. In my opinion, it works.

I try not to talk too much about the “quality” of women who dance at various clubs, not only because it's disrespectful to the performers, but also because different people are attracted to different types, and the dancers at every club tend to vary widely depending on which independent contractor decides to show up for her shift on any given day. That said, I don't think it's inappropriate to mention that the women who were performing at the Safari last Monday night (a dreadful shift, I'm sure) were all shockingly beautiful.

The crowd was sparse, which was expected for late night Memorial Day. The DJ had to yell at a table of meat heads because they weren't tipping. I don't know what the usual crowd is like here, but again, that's always going to be an uncontrollable variable. Anyone who's familiar with the general bar scene knows that the clientele and atmosphere of many establishments will be completely different depending on the day and the time. Personally, I most enjoy going to strip clubs early in the day when the dancers are still nursing hangovers and chain smoking. On the other hand, the more “happening” a club is, the more tippers there are, and the more active the dancers and bartenders will be.

A few things have changed in the past couple years since the new management took over the Safari. There's no longer a cover charge to get in, which is great. That's usually a deal breaker for the broke-ass motherfuckers I hang out with. They've got good deals on food. Also, customers are no longer allowed to feed the piranhas. According to the cute, friendly bartender who was on shift, the poor bastards were getting overfed. I've always wondered about that.

We left the Safari feeling good and stumbled up to Glimmers for a night cap. One of the nice things about the Safari is that it's close to other strip clubs. Lucky Devil or Rose City Strip would make for natural follow-ups, but I was in the mood for the darker, more laid-back atmosphere at Glimmers.

After closing the place down, we stood in the rain and sparked up a bowl in the middle of an empty side-street. I had to agree wholeheartedly with Devo: This was the best Memorial Day ever.

Into the Bushes with the Birds and the Bees.

by Brandon Keene

Everyone's story about the sex talk they received is different, if they got one at all.

Mine goes like this: I'm 15 years old and sitting in the cab of my father's pickup after an afternoon of travel. We're eating hamburgers and he's asking me if I have any girlfriends, and after a moment, he wistfully looks off into the distance and says, "You ever do it in the bushes? In the bushes is some of the best."

That's it. That's the whole story.

If not for the Idaho Public Education System's One-Day Puberty Course, and the information disseminated to me by friends who were sexually active much earlier than I, the only thing I would have known about sex would have been that whatever sex was or was for and however it was done, instances of it that occurred in the bushes were preferable.

Last week I got to revisit this issue in the most constructive fashion I think possible, and in doing so got to do something that none of my friends have yet had the opportunity to do.

Last week I got to deliver the sex talk to my half brothers.

16 years my junior, my half brothers have just reached the confusing pubescent age of twelve. When I received an email from one proudly telling me that they now have girlfriends, I found myself compelled to email back and ask the only question I felt was pertinent, "have you given her all the kisses?"
This was the answer I received: "no i haven't given any kisses......... yet."

Shortly thereafter I traveled back to my hometown to visit for Mother's Day, and as a present, I offered to my mother the option for me to give the boys the sex talk, particularly given that

1. It would probably be less uncomfortable and embarrassing for them if the talk was delivered by their "cool older brother," and

2. That it seemed extremely unlikely that their father was going to give them any sort of sex talk, much less a thoroughgoing one.

My mother took me up on the offer, and the next day while she was at work the boys and I went and got some Thai Iced Teas and returned to the house where we could sit in the warm afternoon air and discuss "dude things."

My brothers had already received a basic puberty course in school, and I built on that foundation to try and deliver the kind of sex talk that I wished I'd received when I was their age.

I led with the story of the sex talk I'd received, figuring that with that out of the way, their talk couldn't be worse than mine. From there we discussed the actual mechanics of sex and sexual organs, both male and female. Following that was the mechanics of impregnation and Sexually Transmitted Diseases and the subsequent necessity of safe sex. We talked about how to have safe sex, and the responsibilities and drawbacks of prophylactics and birth control. Since discussing STDs can be pretty fucking scary, we delved into why people have sex and its relationship to overall healthy self-esteem and self-identity. That led to a discussion of sexual orientation, with an emphasis on the idea that it is perfectly acceptable to be who you are, and to accept whatever orientation manifests for you. We ended by discussing "what is eroticism" and how sexual arousal can stem from a pantheon of potentially unexpected sources; sources which can be an important part of sexual identity, even if they have little to do with one's sexual orientation.

We were in the middle of discussing examples of fetishism when my mother returned home from work, and we decided to adjourn at that time. However, as we concluded, one of my brothers came over and put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Thanks for having this talk with us. I really appreciate it."

Having had a few days to ruminate on the event, I think I would advise parents who are facing the decision to have a sex talk with their children with the following:

I feel really good about the talk we had, and my only regret is that I wasn't able to conclude with a discussion of analingus because, after all, what better way to come to the end?

Brandon Keene is a Portland Poet and Writer who produces the weekly webcomic Darren Died Tonight and would be more than happy to tell your kids about sex.

The following story is fictional. Any relationship with actual events or people is purely coincidental.

Jersey Shore Reunion Meltdown (Part 1)

The guests sat nervously in their seats, not knowing what to expect. It had been several months since summer, when they'd been filmed living together in a beach house on Jersey Shore as part of an MTV reality show. Most of them hadn't seen each other since the show had ended, and this was the first time they'd all been together as a group.

When I first moved to Portland in 2006, I couch surfed for a few months and then finally settled into the house I still live in now. Initially my bedroom was in the basement, which was creepy, dark, and dirty. There were busted window screens covered in cat piss strewn around the bare cement floor and piles of garbage stacked against the faux wood panel walls. It took a lot of hard work getting everything cleaned up to the point where it was at least livable, but one thing I've always left untouched is the 1990's celebrity collage pasted directly onto the bare drywall next to the entrance of the laundry room. Kimbot has begged me to let her paint over it (she did a mural on the adjacent wall), but something in the back of my mind keeps telling me that this odd little piece of history needs to be preserved.

UPDATE: Carnaval is now a female strip club again. There are no longer any 18+ male strip clubs in Portland at this time.

I was taking pictures of businesses downtown one Friday night and I noticed a fairly large crowd of people on the 3rd Street block between Silverado and Cameron's Books. I wandered over and started taking pictures of Carnaval, which has long been an 18-and-over juice bar with female strippers, when a group of scantily-clad, effeminate young men walked out of the front door and lit up cigarettes.

I was wandering around downtown last Friday, and I came across two badass bucket drummers surrounded by sexy drunk people dancing in the street at the corner of 2nd and Ankeny. One of the women next to me said, "This is like New Orleans!"