The cowboys are back in town. So are the nurses, the schoolgirls, the traffic cops, and the perverts in long, black trench coats.

And Gauteng is happy to see them, judging by the large number of people who attended the opening morning of the Sexpo at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand on Thursday.

Sexpo isn't for the inhibited. You will be told you look suspicious, and that you need to face the wall and spread your legs as a man in hotpants feels up your legs. You will have an awkward conversation with a person of uncertain gender dressed entirely in latex, to resemble a rubber doll, and you will be accosted by a fetish expert demanding to tie you up.

Once you've oriented yourself using the giant, golden penis in the middle of the exhibition area as a compass, you will discover an array of lingerie and sex toys so vast that not even the pole dancer in a cage with jungle decor will hold your attention for long.

There are sexual wellbeing workshops with names like "Say yum - your guide to oral sex". Onstage, porn stars discuss the finer details of sex on camera, male lap dancers take it off, and Kim Kitty and the Kittens do things with ropes. Somewhere on the exhibition floor, the Sex Addicts Anonymous stand fights a losing battle. But for the best entertainment at Sexpo, my money is on the amateur strip competitions, taking place on Friday and Saturday at 9pm.

The evenings should be packed - last year the organisers were forced to stop admitting people when numbers reached 6 000 - so get there early.

Make sure you visit SA's Miss Nude, Bella Anderson, the 22-year-old pastor's daughter who used pole dancing and a hair straightener to transform herself from an overweight schoolgirl with braces into a sexual goddess. "I'm living my fantasy," she says.

Anderson won the title Miss Nude after entering a pole dance competition, and has been touring with Sexpo since then.

If you promise to behave, she'll take her top off and let you sit on the couch next to her as a photographer captures the moment and Anderson declares with a smile on her face: "I love my life!" Amen.
Tonight

By SAPA