Recap Naked Girls Reading Pulp! at Studio L'amour

Featuring an all-female cast of readers, totally nude save for hosiery or an accessory or two, the Naked Girls Reading [NSFW] series revolves around its titular ladies reading a selection of thematically connected material and facilitating larger discussions of the selections, authors, and readers' reactions. Yesterday at Studio L'amour (939 W. Randolph St., 312-243-6690) in the West Loop (tagline: “the dojo for your mojo”), the quintet offered up passages from high- and low-brow pulp and romance novels past, all served with brunch to a mimosa-sipping crowd of the nudie-curious and crime-fiction serious. "Welcome to pulp!" joked host Franky Vivid, giving a nod to the day's literature and the free-flowing orange juice. 

In a decor best described as “burlesque chic," Michelle L'Amour, Greta Layne, Dominique Trixx, Mimi First, and Mina Méchante—made a full stage entrance, each coyly disrobing behind a backlit white screen in a silhouetted nod to the art of the striptease. 

Delving into pulp's misunderstood and often unintentionally hilarious past, the group chose material ranging from the classic Red Wind by Raymond Chandler to the newly released The Corpse Wore Pasties by Jonny Porkpie and the downright silly in crime short Naked Diver, which includes rules for joining the “five fathoms club”—the deep sea counterpart to the mile-high club. And while the stories remained the focal point, the group went so far as to give miniature lessons on the history and technicalities of pulp fiction, a synopsis of sexual dynamics within the medium, and insight into the legendary charisma and romances of Dashiell Hammett. (It's true: Even dead, Hammett still has the ladies talking.)

But make no mistake: Intelligent discourse aside, this was not an academic event. The inherently sexual nature of the series' highly unorthodox presentation gave the afternoon a unifying comedic frame of reference, such as the well-timed pop of a diner's champagne cork as Mimi First read from Making Waves (part of Harlequin's Endless Summer compilation). And everyone reveled in the title's expectedly hack-level similes. (Sample passage: "She tasted like the ocean laced with sunshine.")

Where most literary events demand more listening than viewing, Naked Girls Reading runs counter to this, playfully daring the audience to look away. Conceptually, the event sounds gratuitous, but these five women instead turned what could have been weird bibliophilic fetishization into a good old-fashioned celebration of trash lit—as First read from The Corpse Wore Pasties, "The show must go on, and the clothes must come off."