GIVE US SOME SKIN DJ Micky Friedmann will
add to HustlaBall's sex appeal.

Sure, you’re probably feeling a bit fed up with the prudish state of gay nightlife in this city. But get ready to be supersated in one fell swoop this weekend—when not one, not two, but three sex- and fetish-themed main events (and plenty of accompanying soirees) will do their damnedest to shake up the scene.

At the center of the hard-core action—along with the Second Annual New York Leather Weekend and the HX Gay Erotic Expo—is HustlaBall New York, a party that began a decade ago at the infamously cruisey (and now-defunct) Stella’s in Times Square as a brazen celebration of hustlers and sexual freedom. Now, after years of traveling to cities around the globe, growing exponentially and morphing into a bona fide (but decidedly unique) circuit event, HustlaBall is coming home. And its tenth-anniversary blowout (a benefit for GMHC) promises to champion the same cause it did in its humble beginnings: honoring and destigmatizing escorts, porn stars and other sex workers, as well as their fans.

“It takes people out of the margins and makes them proud,” says Jeffrey Davids, founder of both HustlaBall and Rentboy.com, the company behind the bash. An online male escort site that Davids started in 1995 with ads for just 25 men, Rentboy.com has since grown into a worldwide clearinghouse of 78,000 available escorts. “It’s like people shooting off fireworks to celebrate being gay at Pride,” he adds about the ball. “This is a chance for sex workers to be open and proud of what they do.”

The very first party—then called Hustler Ball, a name it kept until 2001, when Larry Flynt sued for infringement on his magazine’s trademark name—drew about 75 tux-wearing johns and rent boys, Davids recalls. “I don’t think anything like it had been done before, to be honest,” he says. Since then, the event has hit cities including Los Angeles, Berlin, London and Las Vegas (where even Britney Spears showed up), becoming larger and more polished with each stop. It also now serves as a showcase for myriad porn stars who like doing live performances; this weekend’s incarnation will welcome favorites including Diesel Washington of Titan Media, Nick Capra of Lucas and Robert Van Damme of Big Blue, among others.

The extravaganza has also started to draw an impressively diverse crowd, luring lesbians, straight party girls, circuit boys, and a young and edgy gay-boy crowd all to the same dance floor. Davids attributes this phenomenon not only to each party’s well-mixed roster of DJs—this year brings in Micky Friedmann of Berlin, Leomeo of Madrid, and New York’s own Johnny Dynell, DeMarko and Rich King—but also to eclectic performers, like this weekend’s sex-cabaret MC Lady Fag, a cavalcade of polysexual fetish acts, and dance band the Ones, who will do a live set.

Another diverse draw this time around is sure to be VIP-room host Daniel Nardicio, the beloved downtown promoter known for his underwear parties, naked go-go boys and dlist.com web community. “Daniel Nardicio’s group is very young and open-minded, and we’d love to get that energy infused into what we do,” Davids says.

Though the event may not be as racy as it’s been in, say, Berlin, where nightlife isn’t constrained by zoning laws, it probably won’t be too safe, either. “We try to push the limits,” promises HustlaBall promoter Sean Van Sant. “We walk the thin line of what’s legal onstage.”

HustlaBall New York is Sun 12 at Rebel. See hustlaball.com