Another quality page linked to Jim's Pen is Central!

This page is about half finished. I want to add some photos of the caller and finish the interview begun in Phoenix. Check back in a couple of weeks.

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Gotta Dance -- Gotta Call

Square dancers need callers -- it's the nature of the beast. If you want to square dance, you have to find a square dance caller to tell you what to do. And if you want to dance naked, you have to find callers who won't be too -- uh -- distracted by what they see bouncing around in front of them!

So when Richard conspired with Susan and Jennifer to set up the gay world's first nude square dance, they had to find at least 8 dancers and 1 caller. The caller who took up the challenge was a guy named Bill Eyler. Here's his side of the story.

'm here in Phoenix with Bill Eyler, who was the caller at the gay square dance world's very first "Moonshine tip" -- which also took place, as luck would have it, in Phoenix also. That was at a local fly-in, but when was the first annual convention Moonshine tip?

It was at the 1992 convention in Albuquerque. I had cleared it with the organizers but never discussed it with the convention center, so we announced (kind of surreptitiously) that this would go on. I had booked a small room, large enough to hold 4 squares. We didn't even tell the security guards outside the room what we were doing; we just told them it was a special private dance.

Are you familiar with the Honky-Tonk Queen contest? [This is a drag queen contest held every year at the gay square dance convention.] This was afterwards; that contest went on interminably, so we finally got started at midnight, and I started calling. And a few people trickled in, then a few more, and Jennifer and Susan were the gatekeepers. The number blossomed to 70 or 80, but at that stage I didn't know there was a whole line of people waiting to get into the he room to dance naked! So while I was calling, somebody told me we had to change rooms. And I said, "Why?"

Anyway, we decided to move to a larger space. The people who were waiting outside formed a human wall -- next to the real wall -- and all the naked dancers filed over into the next room with about 160 people, which boggled my mind. It was fun putting on music like the Tush Push and other line dances that people could do. We ended up with 4 callers for that night, and I was the only one who was TRULY naked because I had no body piercings -- we still joke about that!

Now the tradition has continued so that there are even all-nude fly-ins, and I'm still doing the Moonshine tips [with other callers, too].

Indeed you are!

remember how amazed I was when I heard that about 20 to 25% of the conventioners each year show up for the Moonshine tip. That's a much higher percentage than I would have thought were nudists. Why do you think the percentage is so high?

A dancer from Seattle came up to me after that first convention Moonshine and said that he wasn't sure that he had wanted to do it, but some friends had talked him into it. The reason was that he was uncomfortable about being naked with women around. But he was extremely glad that he did it, afterwards, because he became much less body conscious. I think most people do it as a lark, generally. There's always that hard-core group that drop pants for any reason, but generally speaking it's not a sexual activity, which is why I think a lot of people feel more comfortable doing it than otherwise.

So convention was the first time you called nude?

No, I had called a few other fly-ins before that nude -- Cleveland and maybe even San Diego -- before the 1992 convention.

So your second Moonshine tip was naked for you?

Oh, yes, definitely.

hy do you think the dance has succeeded as a co-ed activity?

Because in gay square dancing, most of the dancers are friends, and it's a very non-threatening environment. In Albuquerque, for instance, half of the gay square dancers are women, and there's probably something in that context which makes it more comfortable to do. I know some people won't do it if it's ONLY men because there's a definite sexuality involved that doesn't happen when there's women involved.

So by being co-ed, you LOSE some of the guys who are embarrassed by the women, but you GAIN others who like the non-sexual atmosphere it creates?

That's a pretty concise explanation. And YOU do it because...?

I'm a nudity nut! It's just so cool to see 200 naked people dancing together!

There's a lot of variety out there, especially when you're up on a stage watching it all.

hat strikes you about that variety?

I don't even know how to answer that! For a caller who calls extemporaneously, keying off of various people out there, it's very difficult to find attributes when all you see is a sea of flesh in front of you.

Really? You DON'T look at people's genitals, for example?

No, as a caller you don't normally look at genitals, because they're not often pointed in the direction that you're looking in, if you know what I mean. Unless something is REALLY outstanding.

[Here we need an explanation. Most square dance callers today call in a style called "hash" -- which means calling just about any dance pattern that comes into their heads. When they've spent a fair amount of time mixing the dancers up, they then "resolve" the square by getting everybody back home with their original partner. To do this, they have to remember who is partners with whom. By looking at a particular mixed-up arrangement and picking out the partner pairs, experienced callers can figure out how to bring everyone home. How do they remember who is partnered with whom? By their clothes, usually ("blue shirt with red dress", etc.). But no clothes means no easy way to remember who matches with whom!]

When you're on a stage, at convention, people are far enough away that their genitals are very small looking, so you can't use that as a basis to recognize people and remember their partners. So you look at their overall size or hair color or tattoo or something like that.

And if the tattoo is on the far side of the body when you look, or he's facing away from you and you can't see his crotch...

Exactly.

o you use hair color, tattoos, general body size, I guess height...

That would be mostly it. Hair or lack of hair. I've only seen one guy who got an erection while square dancing [which I was able to use to recognize him].

Tell me about that.

He's actually an Albuquerque dancer, and he's someone for whom being in the general proximity of other naked men gives him an erection -- always. He's been at parties and he's always like that.

At this point we had to go off to the next event, so we'll have to finish the interview by phone.

[At which point I'll ask questions like the following:]

hat's the most amazing thing that ever happened at a Moonshine tip?

[answer here]

What's the most dangerous thing?

[answer here]

f course, there are many people who say, oh no, you're not going to get me to dance nude! What is the most insightful thing you could tell someone like that to suggest to them that they really ought to try it? That is, what is the most important thing people discover from the experience that they didn't expect, or that's hard to explain to people who haven't experienced it?

[answer here]

o you think that Moonshine tips increase or decrease friendship between gay men and lesbians?

[answer here]