[Iamsailing]

Now it is Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars season on TV I thought I would share an evening I had 7 years ago.

My friend's sister was a rising ballroom star just about to turn pro and her male partner went on to become one of the male dancers on the tv show.

Anyhoo - she wanted to go and support her sister in an international competition and asked me to go along and keep her company at the event. I agreed although it wasn't really my kind of thing and we trotted off to the event which turned out to be much bigger and better than I had imagined.

We had watched a couple of dances and I was quite enjoying myself, the atmosphere was pretty rowdy with lots of cheering and drinking, not quite the sedate event I had imagined it to be and the latin costumes looked even more non-existent close-up than on the tv.

After the second round had finished she dragged me through the crowd saying she wanted to go and see her sister and give her some support, I had seen lots of people disappear after the first round but assumed they were heading to the bar for refills.

We got to the backstage area and just walked straight in, no security, no passes , no questions asked.

To my surprise it was just an open hall where each couple had a table and a few chairs for all of their costumes, mirrors etc with no privacy at all and the dancers were just basically
changing in front of anyone who happened to be there. As we stood there chatting to her sister I realised that a few of the dancers were just standing around topless or in some cases nude cooling down from the previous round completely oblivious to how many people there were around.

After we went back to the main hall I asked her about this and she said that the girls weren't that bothered as the majority of the male dancers were gay ( no offence intended and I have no way of verifying whether this is true or not ) and it was quite common to have lots of supporters around who they were used to seeing on the circuit as well.

We went to support her sister after each round and every time it was the same with lots of naked women and we even got chatting to some of the other dancers nearby in various states of undress, it seemed as long as you didn't get caught doing too much obvious leering no-one cared and I was having a great time especially as I recognised some of the dancers from the tv.

The last time we went back I was chatting to her sister who suddenly stood up and started taking her dress off right in front of me and out of courtesy I started to look away at which point she said "don't worry nobody else does" and dropped it onto the table. She then carried on chatting to me as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened but for me to see her naked when I had seen her clothed several times on social occasions was having quite an affect on me.

There is no punchline where everyone had a mass orgy later although the afterparty did go on long into the early hours. Sadly no pics as you could never have got away with it in such a crowded room but I have enjoyed watching the tv shows since then and recognising several of the women who were parading around naked that night.Her sister has also teased me since about the way I went to look away when she stripped off little knowing what was really going through my mind at the time!