Ranking Vegas' 8 Naughtiest Shows

As podcast listeners knew, I spent the summer checking out topless shows on the Strip with Jamie, my Little Brother from Big Brothers Big Sisters. (He's 20 now and it's legal, so chill out.) The conceit of the piece was that he's straight and had never been to any topless shows before I took him to our first of eight, Fantasy. And I'm gay, so I had a different point of view that might be of use to women considering attending these shows on their own or with their straight male counterparts.

The piece is up as of yesterday on the Los Angeles Times' website. (In the end, the editors decided the subject matter was a little too risque for the print edition.) We did not include the new topless shows at Sahara and the Westin mainly because I don't believe the Westin one will be open for long and the Sahara one bowed after I had filed the story and Jamie didn't have time to go.

There's detail and discussion of each in the piece, but here's how Jamie ranked the shows:

1. Zumanity

2. Peepshow

3. Jubilee!

4. X Burlesque

5. Bite

6. Crazy Girls

7. Crazy Horse Paris

8. Fantasy

I did not attempt to sway Jamie, I swear. I wanted his ranking so that it would be useful to his peers, not mine. If I had to rank, my order might have been a little bit different. For my money, Jubilee! is just the coolest thing and Crazy Horse Paris the worst.

I also did a quick sidebar on the male stripper revues to go alongside this. You can find that here.

MGM Mirage: Online Smut Purveyor?

I can't decide if this is brilliant or low-brow. This being Vegas, both is always an option.


MGM Mirage has launched two online games tied into the Cirque adult production "Zumanity" at New York-New York and the burlesque "Fantasy" show at Luxor. In the "Zumanity" case (above), players must follow a yellow ball with their cursor as it traces each letter of the title, a woman in the background doing some sort of hoop tricks. If you succeed in keeping up with the letter you're on, she removes an article of clothing until, ostensibly, she's nude. It's not as easy as it sounds; I lost on the "m" and it seems that the only people who have made it through all the way were beta testers, at least from what I can tell from the Hall of Fame rankings and the fact that their date-time stamp was before the site went live.


The "Fantasy" game is more straightforward. They give you 50 spins with 100 credits for a slot (slut?) machine and if you line up symbols, you win different amounts. There's a "peep show" and the number of credits you've earned relates to how much of the writhing woman you see.

The obvious question is, why only women in these strip teases? What about amusing the women and the gays, both markets these companies are constantly pursuing. Where's the "Thunder From Down Under?" Or, better yet, Carrot Top!!!