An all-male nude strip club fills a void in adult entertainment for both sexes—so why isn't the gay community talking?

Nashville's all-male strip club The Arrow has the distinction of being the first legal effort like it in the entire state. But instead of a coming-out party and a parade, it finds itself straddling both the big-city thrills and small-town snags of our growing metropolis. If this were San Francisco, D.C. or Miami—cities with an out and well-courted gay community, the new club would be no big deal. But this is Nashville—the buckle of the Bible belt, the industry hub for Christian publishing. As such, when The Arrow—housed in the former Ken's Gold Club building at 505 5th Ave. S.—first opened in September, the trajectory of most news stories was that a club featuring men would be—in 2009—positively shocking to some folks here. It was all pretty predictable. Metro Council member Michael Craddock, staunchly and reflexively anti-gay, reacted with comic disgust. "I'm sick to my stomach—I'm just absolutely sick," Craddock told WTVF-Channel 5. "It's different for a man to show himself than a woman."

The news that some Nashvillians still cling to prejudice is nothing new. Just consider the resistance to the anti-discrimination bill that only recently—fully six years after the first such legislative effort has been introduced—passed the Metro Council. But the head-scratcher here is that virtually no leaders among the rainbow coalition, so to speak, are willing to speak on record about the club. Folks in publishing, commerce, real estate, politics and even gay and human rights activism won't touch The Arrow with a three-foot rule.

Their reasons are as diverse as the range of male physiques on display at the club. Some just say they want to steer clear of the subject. Others says they don't feel comfortable. Still others imply that they don't care to contribute to a problematic and persistent stereotype associated with male homosexuality—that gay men are all oversexed fiends plagued by wanton libidos. "The bottom line is they don't feel comfortable speaking on the subject when there are so many other important battles to be fought," one grassroots activist says on condition of anonymity.

H.G. Stovall, president of the gay-advocacy Tennessee Equality Project, is among the few who will even broach the topic. But Stovall—who says the anti-discrimination bill's defeat in 2003 didn't help Nashville's image as a gay-friendly city—chooses his words carefully when talking about The Arrow, which he says he's never visited.

"Nashville has a long way to go when it comes to being seen as an inclusive destination for the GLBT travel industry. But I think we're making good progress in light of the intense religious feelings we have in the area. But the opening of this establishment would hopefully be perceived to show that the gay community is indeed made up of the same kind of people the straight community is made up of," he says. "In its own unique way, a kind of equality has been reached."

Stovall notwithstanding, the general silence about The Arrow is a telling twist that raises some pesky implications for Nashville's progress report card. The Arrow's presence doesn't just provoke questions about the economic or political implications of men "showing themselves." Rather, it pokes at the unspoken hierarchy of who's doing the looking: Men looking at women? No problem—they've long enjoyed solo space at the top of the pyramid, with obstacle-free access to dozens of clubs in town featuring female flesh. Lust-filled women looking at naked men? It's rarely catered to, but with the occasional Chippendale's appearance, it's only somewhat problematic. Gay men looking at other men, straight or otherwise? Now that's a troubling proposition.

Clearly, gay community leaders feel they can't afford any association with a club that promotes the darker side of gay sexuality. "There's gay-friendly and there's sexuality-friendly," says Arrow owner Cole Wakefield, a former journalist who often wrote about tourism for gay publications. "Nashville is a cosmopolitan city, and we have community leaders who know gay people and people at top levels who are gay. But when it comes down to naked men dancing or anything that puts the sex in sexuality, we're still a stuffed shirt kind of city."

In other words, we like our gays a little on the straight side. Wakefield has spent the better part of this year preparing for his Labor Day opening, and while he knows Nashville is no New York or Miami, it certainly looks closer to it than anything in his rearview mirror (like his native Little Rock).

Wakefield's aim with The Arrow is much like local dance clubs Play and Tribe. He want to do for male strip clubs what Hustler Hollywood has done for adult bookstores: take the taboo out of stripping by presenting it in a way that seems fun, upbeat and everybody-friendly, instead of dark, sleazy and destructive.

So gone is the red-printed wallpaper and 1850s saloon interior, which included Southern belle-styled nude portraits and gaudy chandeliers. Instead are glossy white walls, clean-lined fixtures, brighter environs and a light box in place of the moat that once surrounded the stage to keep male customers at a distance.