The project was photographed in the early 1990s, when Cammie Toloui was working as a stripper at the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco to fund her photojournalism degree at San Francisco State University.
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\nCustomers who paid to view her naked body and watch her perform sexual acts on herself were offered a reduced price if they consented to be photographed. The resulting series of black-and-white photographs, with their baroque and dramatic lighting, are devoid of any prejudice. Instead, they are imbued with a deep sense of curiosity and understanding, each photograph revealing a wide range of sexuality, fetishes, and often private aspects of masculinity.
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\nToday, the series retains a profoundly powerful urgency and importance because of the way in which Cammie Toloui took control of the male gaze and inverted it, turning it against itself, at a time when the male gaze was a dominant force in everyday life, both culturally and socially.
