Confessions of a go-go boy: ever wondered what it's like to be one of the boys on the box? According to dancer David Perry, gyrating for dollars' ain't as glamorous as it looks.

The go-go boy. He's a gay icon and a close cousin to the porn star and the escort. Our world exists entirely within the flash of a strobe. There's no concept of the future, the past, or even consequences. Buoyed by the most addictive drug, adoration, the go-go boy is the presentation of the fantasy and the fantastic. And while daylight never shines on the magic, I assure you, it's all very real.

Our motivations for being go-go boys vary. I was unemployed; some are legitimate dancers between productions; others just love the attention. A few are as dumb as frogs and couldn't do anything else, while many use dancing to springboard into porn.

Naturally, the money is part of everyone's reasoning. On a good night (good DJ, good crowd, nothing on TV), I can pull in hundreds of dollars on top of the hundred the venue usually pays--all in cash and under the table. We would be rich if we worked every day, but none of us ever do.

Go-go dancing, like porn, is competitive, biased, and sometimes racist. In Manhattan tastes change by the block; if you don't fit the image of a particular place, you don't dance there, no matter how gorgeous you are. For instance, the Lower East Side favors white dancers; it's also twink territory--musclemen and the over-25 need not apply. The West Side goes for powerlifters and for the past two years has favored Puerto Ricans. An Argentine dancer lost work because ethnically he's German.

However, it remains that almost anybody can be a go-go boy. After all, Manhattan has many blocks. I've met dancers as young as 17 and as old as 50. I've seen them muscled and slender, butch and fem, hairy and nubile, econo-size and hung like a circus horse. You don't even have to dance well--one go-go boy moved like a toppling Coke can and still won "Go-go Boy of the Year" (yep, the title exists). All you have to be is available to everybody. And, of course, be gay.

Or so you'd think. I'm usually the only gay go-go boy wherever I dance. The straight boys are easy to spot: They almost never come down to the crowd and rarely play to it unless women are present. If there's a mirror, they dance with their reflections all night. Truth is, many dancers don't like you. They like the money you give them.

Typically, we dance three 30-minute sets. Breaks allow us to change wardrobe, apply a coat of oil for sheen, and perk up our boners. Cock rings and tourniquet-like leather ties hold those long-lasting erections, which turn a painful shade of purple by the end of the night.

There are other dangers too. We bump and grind on a space no more than two feet in width. That's why I love boxes--more square footage. Then there are drinks, pretzels, phones, candles, hands, purses, money, keys, the bartender, other go-go boys, or low ceilings and things hanging from them (think fans). There are polished surfaces, puddles, and wet napkins. And, of course, the patrons. One guy ripped the hair out of my leg to see what my 'limit" was.

Washington, D.C., allows full nudity but no touching. New York allows nudity with certain other restrictions. At private parties anything goes, but despite appearances, we're remarkably chaste. Our social lives are complicated. Everybody may want to have sex with a go-go boy, but few want to date them. We also get typecast quickly. God forbid we aren't scantily clad satyrs 24/7.

Nevertheless, I look forward to every night I work, though I realize this is not a permanent career. All go-go boys either age out of their target audience or become so familiar that the target audience grows blase Sometimes it's the go-go boys who become blase As for me, I'll enjoy this ride for as long as it lasts. When it's over I can at least say that at one time in my life, I was hot.