Walk on the wild side
This past weekend there was only one place in Warsaw where you could get a suntan or a tattoo, buy a beer, natural cosmetics, a radar detector, candy and even the latest sex toys Eroticon 2001.
It's the second annual adults-only festival. Posters advertising the event some of which have been mysteriously defaced have been pasted up around town during the past few weeks.
Late Friday afternoon, a good-sized crowd of businessmen, couples and students waited patiently to pay zl. 30 to see the show. Several admitted that the posters had attracted them to the event. Others confessed that the slick Web site had drawn them in with promises of live sex shows and an attempt at a Guinness World sex record. One gentleman was adamant that if this one were not better than the last four sex fairs he had attended, he would not be back.
The sex fest inside had all the hallmarks of an ulica Marszalkowska sex shop, only bigger and with about as much imagination. But admittedly there are only so many ways you can display dildos and lubricants: after a while the "Jeff Stryker" looks much like the "Ryan Idol."
People seemed to be giving the clothing and leather-fetish booths a wide berth, either from fear of the unknown or because leather masks and chain mail on a plaster dummy look faintly ridiculous. The lounge area screening this year's nominees for best video of an "adult" nature was popular with a goodly segment of the punters. And libidinous lads from Pulawy, gawping to see how it's done, mobbed the live show. Unfortunately high ceilings and bright lights let us in on the exotic dancer's secret boredom she appeared to be making a mental grocery list as she swiveled and swayed in her oval cage.
A quick exit poll drew opinions from "pretty good" to "all right," though one gentleman used a slightly stronger Anglo-Saxon expletive to express his disappointment. Another said it was "OK" then innocently added, "I may come back tomorrow."
Also let's not forget those seemingly non-sex-related displays that included a massage chair demonstration just the thing after a weary day of shopping for that little souvenir to take home to the wife.
More puzzling was the old-fashioned candy booth. When asked why he was at a sex exhibition the vendor said, "I work all the events here and besides candy is sweet and tasty, like sex should be."
Perhaps for next year's festival the exhibitors could take note.
