Ben Bentley meets a man with an IQ of 153. But the women don’t follow Nick Malloy for his mind. 

He’s dressed in a fireman’s outfit but there’s no sign of a blaze.

You might say there is an air of mystery about Nick Molloy. But let’s just say that all is revealed, so to speak, during one of his regular performances in Shropshire.

Nick, you see, is a male stripper who goes under the provocative stage name Sexecute. And he is certainly grinning and baring it as he takes to the stage at one of his more regular county venues, The Three Furnaces in Tweedale, Telford.

You might think that, for a male stripper, size matters. Not for Nick. He’s performed in venues large and small all over the British Isles and abroad, ranging from crowds exceeding 2,000 people to private parties in living rooms. And, of course, pubs in Telford.

The job, Nick describes, as “Interesting – you get to meet lots of new people and encounter situations form the surreal to the bizarre.”

Many tales from are not for reproduction here but they are included in a new book he has written about the life and times of a male stripper. It’s called Road Warrior – The Confessions of a Male Stripper, which he describes as an uncompromising view of the world of blokes who take their kit off for a living.

To the outsider, perhaps more content to have their modesty concealed, the job itself sounds like a glamorous one. Well, how hard can it be to take your clothes off in front a room full of screaming people? We’ve all seen the Full Monty. Surely it beats being a steel worker on the dole?

Nick concurs but the job can be a lonely furrow to plough with days spent travelling and many venues he arrives at not being exactly paved with red carpet and luxury facilities.

“Getting changed in freezing cold toilets isn’t my idea of a good time,” he says. “Although, there is a perception of celebrity from the audience.

“But it beats working for a living. Seriously though, more goes into than you might think. I train like a professional athlete and then have to co-ordinate all my own work.

“No agents like these lazy footballers,” he jokes.

Nick, 35, says without a trace of irony or smut that what he likes about his job is “the freedom”. He is not what you might think of as stereotypical stripper material, in that behind that well-toned body there is actually a mind ticking away too.

It shows in the book which is intelligently written as “an anti-prejudicial project”.

Says Nick: “Male strippers are boxed and categorised in the extreme. For example, all strippers are gay, all strippers are prostitutes, all strippers have slept with thousands of women, all strippers are thick or mentally disturbed etc.

“I have an IQ of 153 and don’t fit any of the above boxes. I had a six figure salary in my early twenties with a FTSE 250 company.

“I gave it all up to be a ‘drop-out’ in many people’s eyes, yet I have never been happier. I wanted to write something that challenged so many people’s pre-conceived notions.”

Quite where his organ can be found in the aisles of Waterstones is anyone’s guess, but he expects it to sell well and says the main reason someone might be interested in reading it is out of natural curiosity.

“Nobody that I am aware of has written candidly about this off-shoot of the sex industry before,” he says.

“Here you have it, warts and all. Although far less so these days, strippers were once very minor celebrities generating tabloid coverage, for example The Chippendales.

“We now live in a celebrity-obsessed culture and this book documents life at the very bottom of the showbiz ladder. Also, sex sells and this book has plenty of it. Whilst it has a gossipy element to it, lots of thoughtful analysis is thrown into the mix the psyche of the male stripper.”

Proving his mental credentials measure up to his physical presence, Nick reveals that he has a strange hobby. And no, it’s nothing to do with taking your clothes off in front of paying strangers.

It’s called cyptozoology, or the study of unknown or hidden animals.

He explains: “In 2004 I travelled to Western Sumatra looking for the legendary Orang Pendek. Sumatra has the second largest expanse of unexplored jungle outside the Amazon. Despite having a local guide, we got lost without food or water for three days in thick jungle finally emerging in an area where the natives had never seen white people before.”

Let alone strippers.

But back to basics. What kind of people attend male strip shows?

“A wide array of people,” says Nick, “from girls to gay guys, from the young to the old.

“I once performed for a lady on her 100th birthday and was pictured holding the birthday card from the Queen.”

• Road Warrior is available at: www.Amazon.co.uk www.waterstones.co.uk  www.tesco.com and via various high street bookshops.