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A
menu of rump and grind, by Suzanne Carbone - 13th
November 2004
(Credit:
The Age)
Why erotica attracts the VIPs.
Very
Important People use the back entrance, past the
green dumpster and up the grey wooden stairs.
They are captains of industry, heads of blue-chip
companies, media stars and multimillionaires with
plenty of cash to splash. Except they don't want
to be seen. That would be bad for business.
But
not the business of sex industry doyenne Maxine
Fensom. She does quite nicely upstairs at the
Central Club Hotel, in Richmond, where her Naughty
Lunches at Maxine's have been serving up a titillating
menu of prime rump for 18 years.
Once
ensconced in the dining room, best described as
a melange of dusty pink Franco Cozzo baroque,
faux antique store and fairy shop, the VIPs throw
their Collins Street decorum out of the windows
decorated with plastic flowers, and take off more
than their ties while reclining on the chesterfield.
Maxine's Little Black Book makes for interesting
reading.
Today,
there are no names from BRW's Rich List but 14
men have spent $88 a head, plus drinks, to celebrate
the grand occasion of Thank God it's Tuesday.
Any excuse for a strip show by a cowgirl in pink,
a French maid in red and Miss Dildorama in black
latex (it's amazing what she does with car keys,
mobile phones and carrots). Also being served
are dips, calamari, chicken Siciliana, veal or
tandoori fish.
The
sexy dessert, licking strawberries and cream off
a stripper, can be yours for $70. No takers today.
But a table of seven scraped together $100 so
waitress Steffanie could go topless and engage
in polite conversation while they got tanked.
The day's memento is a Polaroid photo - no negatives.
"I'm
too old for this," one chap told a stranger
in the toilet after having a stripper's Brazilian
wax thrust in his face. Too old, indeed, given
he and his cohorts could be enjoying bingo at
the senior citizen's club or reminiscing with
RSL colleagues. They could be your husband, father,
grandfather, uncle, brother . . .
Maxine,
at 46, is never too old to make millions from
an empire that requires five mobile phones: lunches,
strippers, escorts, Miss Erotica, a new restaurant
she is opening, and another for personal use.
Maxine,
the former psychiatric nurse and friend of Larry
"The Hustler" Flynt, is engaged to policeman
Michael Banks. She has a baby face and girlish
charm in her role as the naughty St Trinian's
schoolgirl who lets the boys loose in the lolly
shop - but the realities of the outside world
sometimes intrude.
"Raquel's
ready," a colleague yells to Maxine, who
is sitting at her corner desk with pink-feather
quill. "I think she needs to move her car,"
Maxine responds with the fussing of a mother hen.
Maxine is really a Bev at heart given her mother,
Marilyn, wanted to name her that. No point the
girls wasting their $1500 weekly stripping wage
on parking fines.
"Grab
your hooters, let's have a blow," Maxine
then instructs the men, as everyone blows their
party squawkers to herald that the fun is about
to begin.
The
shrewd self-promoter has bared all, so to speak,
in the book Maxine stripped naked: tales from
the sex industry, by Jeanette Leigh.
There
are accounts of footballers raping strippers,
KISS band members being naughty, police helping
strippers find a buck's-night venue and Spiro
the stalker buying a teaspoon of Beluga caviar
for $750.
Melbourne,
the grand dame that proudly displays a naked Chloe
in Young & Jackson, cannot claim to be prudish.
This is Sex Week, unofficially of course, because
it has yet to receive the imprimatur of Volunteers
Week and the like, but the Australian Adult Industry
Awards were held on Wednesday and Sexpo started
on Thursday - Remembrance Day - stopping for a
minute's silence at 11am and kindly giving free
entry to those in uniform.
In
the sex industry, all manner of uniforms are important
to service the client. Eros Association spokeswoman
Fiona Patten says the national brothel and escort
industry is worth $1.2 billion a year: 16,000
workers see 15 clients a week for an average fee
of $100. "It's one of those industries, excluding
McDonald's, that is worth similar to the take-away
food industry," Ms Patten says.
At
Maxine's, the food and the women are an appetising
package. Paul, 52, a Richmond accountant, has
been married for 29 years, says his wife knows
he is here and that he is faithful. He likes the
Naughty Lunches because he gets to feel "a
little bit special" and that is achieved
by having breasts, Brazilians and bottoms waved
at his face.
The
fact that men have been forking out for years
inspired Maxine to form a network for women in
the sex industry, Alpha Girls: Women on Top, so
she could "give something back" by raising
money for prostate cancer.
But
some things cannot be given back.
The
shenanigans upstairs at Maxine's are eventful
at the best of times, but none more memorable
than when a poor fellow died of a heart attack
(a pre-existing condition, we believe).
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