19 February 2024 , 11:59
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The boss of a strip show has hit out at critics after explicit videos of performers with audience members went viral.
The Pleasure Boys' XXL Tour's date in Belfast was met with criticism at the weekend, when clips surfaced of dancers in the buff. Other videos appeared to show some male performers simulating sex acts with women in the audience. The Belfast show at The Devenish Complex was priced at £15 and billed as a Valentine's Weekend Special, Belfast Live reports.
The Pleasure Boys have been described as "an unforgettable evening filled with seductive moves, mesmerising routines, and unrivalled charisma" perfect for a "girls' night out", involving men with honed physiques performing kinky dancing. But critics came down on the show, raising concerns some of the women in the audience may not have been fully aware of quite how risqué the spectacle would be.
One woman, named only as Erin, said: "The women who came to this show didn't know it was going to be fully naked men. The Devenish put out it would be like Magic Mike, not fully naked. My friends were shocked, but they all had a good night. Videos have surfaced from the end of the night and have been put on social media, people have been circled in the images, and rumours have been spread about these ladies, that's not fair."
Now the show's owner and director has hit out in defence, saying they make it no secret about what the performance entails. Speaking to the BBC's Nolan Show, John Woodward said: "I think this has been blown up a lot more over here because people are not quite used to what our show is. We are a fully nude male review show.
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"You're just getting those who turn up a bit of release, a bit of entertainment, something they don't get anywhere else. It's a special event, it's not something you'll see just walking down the street. You pay for a ticket for one of our shows and there's dancing, fire, acrobatics, and the nudity which is the ending."
Concerns were raised about how much audience members knew about The Pleasure Boys' show contents (Pleasure Boys UK)John said the videos circulating online show the end of the show which was unplanned. When the performers appeared on stage to take their final bow, a number of women stormed onto the stage. He added: "The videos are the ending where the girls stormed the stage, this wasn't planned, this just happened. The boys came out and took a bow and the girls stormed the stage, then they carried on dancing with the girls. They weren't just going to walk off at the stage at that point. There was absolutely no sexual contact during the show. Everything we do, it's crowd participation and everything is simulated, there's no sort of sexual acts going on during the show."
As for the legalities of the event, John said in the UK venues can apply for a special events license which covers such a performance, with venues able to apply for 12 of these licenses a year. "Providing there's no sexual activity I can't see anything in the law about it," he added. "If there's contact, we try to move away from that."