In the midst of San Francisco’s retail crisis, a man has a business idea that he thinks could be extremely lucrative: banned books sold by naked bodies.
That’s what George Davis, a self-described “body freedom” activist, posted on Craigslist when he was looking for a “fit and ambitious” female general manager to run his pop-up nudist bookstore in the mall. downtown, Union Square, August to December. The announcement was first reported by a Bay Area blog.
Why does Davis think the CEO should be a woman?
“It’s just that I’ve been doing this for a long time. That’s because it will work. I realize that needing a vulva instead of a penis is not what is right, but it is what will work,” he said in an interview Thursday.
As for booksellers, they will have to be balanced by genre.
“The booksellers will have to be sexually balanced, one by one, from one man to another, to suppress sexuality. All the women booksellers would be Hooters with books,” he told the Times.
Reduced to its bare minimum, his bookstore would only employ naked booksellers and would only sell banned books. Davis believes the store will largely cater to the LGBTQ+ community and attract crowds looking to ogle and (he hopes) buy.
“International tourists and Americans from the provinces will want to come. We will have tons of publicity. . . . If this space makes a lot of money, you can quickly and easily replicate this project in Chicago, New York and London,” he wrote in the announcement.
Davis, almost 80 years old, has been flaunting his nude figure in San Francisco for decades. He ran unsuccessfully twice for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and once for mayor (he won 0.45% of the vote and lost to Gavin Newsom) and was arrested in 2014 for flouting the new city’s anti-public nudity ordinance. He referred to himself as a “mini-celebrity” in the commercial.
“The banned bookstore would offer titles banned in the United States and around the world. Booksellers would be stripped naked to demonstrate that the human body and all parts of the body are normal and natural,” Davis wrote in his argument.
He added that the landlord of the Union Square location – “think Nordstrom” – had given the green light to the birthday suit concept.
But on Thursday, Davis said the lessor had pulled out of the deal. He is now looking for another 20,000 square foot space to house the bookstore.
“Our natural, unserved, underserved or willing to be served markets are Burning Man, leather, BDSM, fetish and LGBT+ related businesses with premium merchandise, crafts and art . Maybe an entertainment area. Think Burning Man theme camp. Remember, a million people attend SF Pride week, 300,000 attend Folsom Street Faire, and 100,000 attend Burning Man. This is our natural market and scene,” Davis wrote.
Here is the announcement, if you wish to contact it.
California Daily Newspapers
