Exotic Magazine : Jefferson Theater : January 2005

The Jefferson is one of only a handful of porn theaters that remain nationwide, and one of two in Oregon. Even more unique is the Jeff's EXOTIC TUESDAYS event, which was begun to attract a more diverse clientele to the theater to have fun.

Exotic Tuesdays has been running for over two years now and is going stronger than ever. One part volunteer impromptu cabaret and the other part professional erotic dance, the show is well worth the price of admission ($6). It is the brainchild and labor of love of the theater's manager, Steve, who formerly managed the Clinton Street Theater. Steve also manages the Oregon Theater on Division St., has done public relations work for Movie Madness and other clients and is an expert on Troma flicks. His goal for Exotic Tuesdays (as well as Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, etc.) is to create a safe environment for the mixed customer base to play in wicked and wonderful ways.

Steve kicks off the evening with an MC style honed over the past two years to put newcomers and regulars at ease and get things rockin'. He styles himself as a kind of losers' cheerleader similar to the brilliant MC in the first Cafe Flesh movie.

After his intro the dancers take over and things get real crazy real fast. On the night of my visit, the first dancer on stage was twenty-four year old KK (who also appears at Dante's and Dancing Bare), a slender, lovely woman with great natural tits and the hottest ass I'd seen in a long time.

Throughout the whole event, stage presence, costumes and dancing were very high caliber and extremely erotic. The stage consumes half of the front of the theater. The girls roll up onto it from the floor and rock back and spread their legs for the guys in the front row.

The horny medium-sized theater audience gets it up within minutes. The room is so sexually charged it's reminiscent of the burning blue smoke feeling of a humid summer night. Real horny. Everyone feels it. The guys show their appreciation with applause, by dropping a dollar on the stage, or by keeping their hands to themselves, so to speak. It's hard not to get caught up in the spirit of things. And why wouldn't you? This is the type of place where Charles Bukowski would have been a regular.

Steve takes great pride in the event as well as the scene at the theater. For him the Jefferson was a place where as a late bloomer (post 20s) he could come into his full sexual potential. He is almost fanatical when he talks about how porn theaters and their sexual scene are becoming a lost art in our country. He makes the point that even before porn theaters there were cabaret entertainments where audience participation was as

much a part of the show as the performances on stage. The art of the Greeks and Romans shows the importance that semi-private, semi-public sex clubs have had from ancient civilizations on up to the present. Such scenes are fondly remembered in Federico Fellini's Satyricon and in Casanova.

As far as the Jefferson Theater goes, anyone over twenty-one can come in, but you're coming in as a club member. As long as you respect the rules of the club, anything goes, and there hasn't been a problem of any kind in the theater in eight years.

The layout of the theater is unique. To the immediate left of the snack bar is a small theater which shows gay porn continuously. As you exit this theater out the back you enter the straight theater with its cabaret stage and sectioned-off area for couples in the back. When couples get horny enough they venture out into the open area (which is filled mainly with single guys) and whatever happens after that depends on the vibe of the night. Steve says it's amazing how many husbands really want to see their wives make it with other guys.

The club/theater has been frequented by such local luminaries as Chuck Palahniuk, who devoted four pages to Exotic Tuesdays in his recent book, Fugitives and Refugees. Nationally recognized animator Bill Plympton has been known to lurk in the shadows and sketch the anatomy in action on the stage. He even designed a trailer for Steve which runs weekly before Exotic Tuesdays. The theater acts as a hub and meeting place for swingers group recruiters, too.

The second girl to come up on stage does a special dance for each of the guys at their seats. First she works the left half of the space and then the right. Looking sideways at the aisle along the wall and seeing a dancer dance for guy after guy is somehow very arousing. This dancer is styled as a teacher with glasses and black vinyl boots with clear plastic soles and heels.

The last dancer appears in a devil outfit with what appears to be a light sabre. She also spends more than half her stage time in the audience.

But the audience favorite for the night is KK and they bring her back for two encores before they let her go home. As Steve says about KK's ass, "Watch out for that ass, it's the stuff dreams are made of." Watch out for Exotic Tuesdays at the Jefferson Theater. It's an erotic wet dream come true.