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CALGARY - Sex and the Stampede go together like salt and pepper.

While the 10-day fair and rodeo has always been an excuse to party, every year the sexification of the Stampede seems to ramp up a notch. And every year, the reputation of "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth" seems to swell as a hot spot for spotting hotties, hooking up and generally misbehavin.'

Case in point: This year, Playboy magazine will host a model search on July 11 at Cowboys, Calgary's infamous downtown western bar. The venue is the perfect setting for the casting call, given the club's reputation for hiring the sexiest, young, hard-bodied women to sling drinks. Cowboys' annual Stampede tent, adjacent to the club, has long been party central, jam-packed with the most desirable cowfolk of both sexes and all ages.

Case in point, No. 2: Spurlesque, a new cowgirl burlesque show, officially debuts today and will run through Stampede at Quincy's, a downtown bar.

The show features 13 dancers in variety of short cowgirl-themed chicka-boom routines and something called a "wedgie rodeo." It's titillation and tease, all dressed up like Daisy Duke and Ellie May Clampett.

Co-producer Tim Tamashiro puts a finer point on it: It's the Pussy Cat Dolls meets Coyote Ugly meets Moulin Rouge, meshed with the modern cowgirl, he says. "It's campy, it's fun."

What it isn't is stripping, says Mr. Tamashiro, 40.

"These are young, respectable, professional dancers and they just want to bring a little sizzle to Stampede."

Case in point, No. 3: The Calgary Stampede Super Bootcamp -- a handful of how-to-pick-up courses for men and women offered by online company seductionboard.com. The three courses include seduction, wingman rules and tactics, and advanced and enlightened seduction, costing respectively, $125, $329 and $679.

The courses are taught by a 30-year-old Vancouver-based guy named Ronald, who wouldn't give his last name and has never been to Stampede, but says he has heard the clubs are full, people stream into the streets and everybody is really friendly -- ripe conditions for picking up.

"It's like a big party," says Ronald, who says he has three girlfriends. (And yes, they all know about each other, he claims.)

Even the Stampede's own advertising plays on this sexy image. In one TV commercial, a dusty, sweaty, rugged cowboy, hat tipped low on his face, strides across a beat-up wooden floor, spurs jingling. He pulls off his spurred boots, gets back up and struts on over in sock feet, still jingling. The message? He's a rodeo winner and his pockets are full of coin.

But the subtext is about winning on another level. The cowboy -- who is darn handsome and an actual cowboy -- comes across as gritty, alluring and more than a bit provocative.

On the one hand, the growing hedonism at Stampede seems a tad sleazy. The drinking, the carousing, the skin-tight satin shirts -- and that's just at family barbecues.

But on the other, why shouldn't we shed our conservative skins, let the cows out of the pen and cut loose for 10 days, because for the rest of the year, generally speaking, Calgary is a tight-lipped city full of extremely focused, ambitious careerists.

This is our Mardi Gras, our Carnival, our Carifest, our party at the Playboy mansion but without the silk jammies, the aging dude and the mansion.

It's Calgary's opportunity to act like co-eds on spring break in Miami, but without the beach.

"I'm all for changing the city's image, Stampede's image as a bunch of hillbillies and hay bales, but I think there's some boundaries being pushed," opines Jocelyn Flanagan, owner of E=Mc2, a party planning company in Calgary.

"We've gone from beef on a bun to leather chaps," Flanagan, whose company has planned five Stampede parties for clients this year.

Corporate parties have also become "edgier" as companies felt compelled to ramp it up in order to get clients to come to the shindigs, she says.

"All of these events are trying to one up each other."

I wonder if that was in the minds of the folks behind the TyteHole Rodeo, a party for Calgary's oil and gas community. The bash was held Thursday at Symons Valley Ranch in the city's northwest and featured a "Hotwell Hottie" competition, mud wrestling and something called a horizontal bungee competition. It also featured real rodeo events, it must be noted.

Flanagan sees the sexing up of Stampede as a function of the influx of new Calgarians, and the increasing metropolitanism of the city.

Yet, that doesn't explain why for the next 10 days, "there's this acceptance that anything goes," says the born-and-raised Calgarian.

"It's absolutely baffling," Flanagan says of the free-for-all.

Baffling, yes, but also awfully cathartic because, in 10 short days, it's back to business.

Calgary Herald