I planned to write a brilliant piece on Atlas Shrugged. I am currently ten pages in to the sixty page speech. You know, the big one? A is A and all that? I should finish it before I talk about it, but I thought this was an excellent sounding ground for my thoughts on objectivism. However, as I began to type it up and put all my (not so) brilliant thoughts into writing I realized that I haven't actually slept in thirty-six hours or some such silliness, and, finally, it is starting to catch up with me. I hate not to write, though, because I'm back in Illinois and there's nothing better to do.

Well, I guess I could sleep but whatever.

So many things to talk about, but this semester has seriously sucked my soul. It has been like a sixteen week bootcamp but instead of push ups we read Derrida. I've done push ups, and I've run sprints. I've even had to run a mile on occasion. I'm not going to say that Derrida is worse, but I will say it makes you hurt about as much.

But nobody reads this to hear about my day! You come here for life altering prose! Words of wisdom! Insights no one else will give you!

Yeah, I don't actually buy it either. And if that is actually why you come here, well, I'm sorry because tonight I'm just going to talk about hot Australian men that take their clothes off. That's right. They are the Thunder from Down Under. I finally say my first male strip show.

Before you begin to label me a hypocrite allow me to clarify a few things: there is no tipping at this show, it is no more (or less) than a burlesque. That means once you buy the ticket (in this case it was free) you are simply watching a show—yes it is a show that includes men who are attractive selling their sexiness, but there is no shoving money in wastebands or full nudity. There are g-strings, but I can't get on my high horse about that. I should also clarify that my problems with the female equivalents of these establishments has very little to do with women choosing to sell their body (though, in general, I think it is a negative thing they are brought to that since few really want to make the choice) and everything to do with the sexual objectification. That being said were the men I watched last night objectified? Absolutely. Probably even by me at different points, though, I had a really hard time falling into the fantasy exactly. But my point here is that I think there is a difference between selling sex as a concept and your body. Last night was selling sex as a concept—that's something we do all over the place. The places I take issue with are selling bodies...it's a fine line and no one need agree with me, but that's the difference. I won't go see Chippendales, at least I have no plans to. Take that for what it's worth.

Okay, that took a lot out of me and I really just wanted to remark on the surprising dance skills at this particular show. They were all good looking, but not exceptionally so. However, while their dancing in unison was often cheesy, the individual performances were at times truly impressive. And that's when they became really hot. And then I had the realization—here I am, at a male strip show, and I'm only see the dancers as attractive when they show genuine talent dancing; I am such a bad objectifier. I apologize to you all. I love 300 because they're brave. I love Thunder Down Under because some of them can actually dance. It's a sad state of affairs when I insist on seeing people as people, even in Vegas a strip show. I am, actually, ashamed of myself.

There was one other thing they did at this show, however, that I found incredibly sweet. At different parts of the show a lady is brought on stage for a pseudo-lap dance, but really all you do is sit there while they do interpretive dance moves around you (I'm so not joking). During one audience contest thing they pulled up a cute bachelorette, a beautifully large black woman, and a punk rocker chick. The black lady won and it was cool to see they didn't only pull up twiggy, blond girls. Later on in the show they pulled up a lady that was at least in her sixties, possibly in her seventies—she was a bachelorette too. It was one of the funniest, and coolest, things I have ever seen. But seeing them interact equally with all different types of women, not for tips but just because that was the show, made it a more enjoyable experience—hence the selling of sex as a concept. They were, for the hour those men danced around on stage, selling a fantasy. A twisted Flashdance fantasy I'll grant you, but something different from the norm.

Look at me—who theorizes on Thunder from Down Under? I apologize immediately to you all. There are only three important things to take away from this tale:
1)They were hot
2)They danced good
3)They wore itty-bitty teeny-weeny little leather panties.

Does anything else about this story matter? No. It really doesn't.

p.s. I started with the intention of writing about Atlas Shrugged and wrote about male dancers instead—my vegetative summer is off to a fantastic start.