My First Strip Club Experience*

who makes this stuff up?

And that's even given that 1/3 of my "limited experience" took place in a Canadian strip club where everything was remarkably clean and the strippers were strangely polite and wholesome-looking.

http://www.marysclub.com/outsidehorizontal.jpg

ihttp://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v622/dysign/ilx/?action=view¤t=BabyDolls.jpg

plus they gave me pot!

Do your parents know you're gay?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/dysign/ilx/BabyDolls.jpg

FAG

Lurker, you sound like someone who is so desperate to show his Sensitive New Age Man credentials to the world that he's completely forgotten how to have fun. There's a tendency among the young & overeducated to wilfully overlook the fact that a) many women like sex too (SHOCKA) and b) not everyone who does sex work is abused, drug-addled, or self-hating.

You still haven't hung out with that "closet slut", have you???

one of my friends said it was basically a pantomime of courtship at its most traditional: the men bring the money, the women shake their tits and asses, everybody smiles nervously.

O T F M!!!

Back in my hometown, I actually knew a handful of dancers who did like sex and who were not crazy or a junky. However I had never seen them preform and I think that there is the key. I saw them as people seperate from their jobs and I never paid what they did for a living any mind. But now having actually seen what they do, I can't help coming out thinking that their profession is highly degrading. In a job where one is reduced to a pair of tits, an ass, and a g-string, it's kinda hard to believe that a girl could be perfectly normal to do it time after time. Andf I know it sounds fucked up and woman hating but it's my opinion and although I wish I could think otherwise, it's what i believe.

It's also kinda funny that Gypsy Mothra brought the connection between strip clubs and the nature of courtship to light beacuse (and perhaps it's just me) everyone there seemed to be into the role playing. And I thought that was tragic for 2 reasons: a) In theory, anyone should attract the gender of their choice. But strip clubs are living proof that it's not so and there are people who will exploit a guy's loneliness and desperation for a money and b)and that there are people on this planet so delusional that will buy into a fantasy no matter how transparent, how fleeting just because they are waving a couple bucks around.

I can not see how that is in anyway 'fun'.

Speaking of stripclubs and Morrissey...I was cleaning out my mailbox
and came across an old message I sent to a friend. Here's an excerpt
about going to a strip club in Portland, OR during the tour last
summer...(names deleted to protect the guilty)
================
So, here's the story...after the fantastic show in Portland (the best
on the tour so far) I ended up with hanging out at the bar (with my
head on the bar) of MOrrissey's hotel. I don't stalk Morrissey at his
hotels, but I'm in the rental car with others who do.
xxx's cousin who lives in Portland is drinking with us, and since
he's Irish, he wants to take us to more nightclubs in Portland to
drink. bbbb and I beg off, preferring to sleep in the car. But
somehow we are persuaded to go to a club nearby that is playing loud,
horrible techno. Fortunately, for some reason we don't go in. I don't
know why, but we go to a place called Mary's Club, which is across the
street.

The strains of the Verve's Bittersweet Symphony usher us inside. Hmmm,
surprisingly good music for a strip club. But they are progressive in
Portland. For example, they allow full nudity in clubs that serve
alcohol. This club is no exception. After I commented about the
music, the owner of the club (presumably Mary) proudly informed me that
the dancers get to choose their own music. They do so by picking
selections from the wall-mounted jukebox to the left of the small
rectangular stage.

I half-expected to see Gary Day in the joint because he's been spotted
at titty bars before. Instead, we encounter bbb and --- at a table
in the second row away from the stage. The first row is a bar right up
in front of the stage. It is reserved for the serious tippers who gaze
up dumbly at the undulating dancers.

This is actually the first time I've ever been in a strip club, I mean
one that caters to straight men. It's not as sad and sleazy as I
thought it would be. There's the smoke, but it's not too bad. The
drinks are watered down, but the dancers are pretty and not scary like
the pornlets I'm used to.

Except there's one dancer whom I did not like. She wouldn't dance to
Morrissey/Smiffs even though I'd tip $20 for it. She knew who they
were (one of the dancers claimed ignorance), but she said the only
SMiths song they had was a cover of How Soon Is Now by Snake River
Conspiracy. It is a foul cover by a vile band. Anyway, she already
played a SRC song, so she refused to play another. That's okay because
I thought she looked like a skank. She looked like a biker
chick with her tattoos. She also had blonde hair but a shaved pussy,
which makes me think she's another repulsive blonde-in-a-bottle type.
Big turn off. But ----- was attracted to her. The dancer had large,
firm boobs. She was a chunky girl, so the big boobs looked believable
on her frame. But when she hung upside-down on the pole, I noticed
that her firm breasts were too firm -- they didn't move naturally.
That's a damn good boob job! But ----- didn't like hearing that. She
protested that maybe this girl was 18 so she could have naturally firm
and high breasts and all. I said, no, if they're that big (and
natural) there's no way they'd stay up like that. I've seen more tits
than a dairy farmer, so I ought to know! ------ further argued that
her own sizable breasts don't move. I disagreed and told her that I've
seen her breasts move (and due to gravity hers are also a lot lower
than the trollope's on stage). She seemed shocked that I'd scoped out
her breasts and said she felt cheap and used. Well, I retorted, would
you feel better about it if I had paid you for the privilege? She said
that was a low blow. Well, of course I look! Don't try to tell me you
don't look, either!

I tipped one dancer for playing Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart
and also for "keepin' it real" because she didn't alter her lovely
breasts with horrible plastic surgery. But she didn't dance to the
Smiths cover.

Since we were heckling every dancer to dance to Morrissey or the
Smiffs, one of the patrons at the bar in front of the stage asked me if
I had been to the Morrissey show that night. Of course! He pointed
out a pretty, slim woman wearing the black tour "wifebeater" shirt with
"Morrissey" in olde English script standing in the back. SHe had a
cascade of gorgeous, brown corkscrew curls. She was his co-worker at a
posh restaurant called Pastis (sp?) where Morrissey had dinner that
night. The unfortunate girl asked for the night off to go see
Morrissey. But if she had worked that night, she could've served him
his meal! I asked the guy what Morrissey ate. He said Morrissey had
angel hair pasta with basil and tomatoes. Sounds right.

When a seat in front of the stage became available, this lovely fan
grabbed it and spent the rest of the evening gazing up at all the
dancers. I thought it was odd that she should stare at the women on
stage when she seemed to be way better-looking than them.

The guy who told me about his co-worker was kind of odd in that he
seemed too good-looking to be here, too. I thought he looked so pretty
that he was gay. But he was one of the most ardent admirers of the
dancers and tipped copiously. Later on, I saw him hugging on the
pretty lesbian Mozfan co-worker of his. They were kind of swaying in a
slow dance. I could tell that he was in love with her. But she had
eyes only for the strippers. Seeing her gaze longingly at the peelers
on the stage while she was being hugged by this man was too poignant a
scene for the end of the night. It was such the illustration of "I
Want the One I Can't Have." I thought of the lyrics "Sad-veiled bride,
please be happy. Handsome groom, give her room. Loud, loutish lover,
treat her kindly, though she needs you more than she loves you..."

We stayed until closing... Then I drove to the airport because I had an
early morning flight to Salt Lake City.

Oh yeah, I met Maf (Matthew), the subject of Momus's patron-pop Stars
Forever song, in Portland that night. He seemed charmingly flustered
when I told him that reading MOmus's online tourdiary entry about
illegal sexual practices in Salt Lake City tempted me to engage in the
outlawed practices while in SLC. When I saw him again in Santa
Barbara, he asked if I had found oral sex in SLC. That is another
story for later...

So a) why'd you tell us? and b) if you had to tell us, why not just say you read "a book", and c) wtf is a booksack?

And as for the Sylvia Plath nonsense a) it's funny story b) the detail makes it funnier (i.e. getting into a fistfight while listening to the Cocteau Twins) and c) a sack of books.

Oh and another thing about Strip Clubs: The freaking music! I've never expected to hear a note of Kid Rock ever again!

the only strip clubs i've ever been to were in edmonton, canada, when myself and a photographer and PR got stranded there after our flight to LA on 9/11 got diverted due to the closed american airspace. it was a weird time to be stranded thousands of miles from your loved ones with no idea when you'll be able to go home again, so our heads were all a little fucked up to begin with, but it was a weird night.

we went to one place that our waiter had reccommended, but when we got there, the owner told us that as they do lapdances there they couldn't legally serve teh booze, and the PR - a girl whose idea the whole strip club trawl had been - said we weren't nearly drunk enough yet, so we went to this abysmal place called the pink pussycat, which was like a huge aircraft hangar with chairs and a stage, where disinterested boobless, pubeless, buttless girls cavorted while drunks cheered em on. there was one dancer who didn't dance to Kid Rock, but to some insane penumatic R'n'B track, who was *awesome, and the photog and I got to chat to her later and she gave us autographed posters of her (nekkid, natch) mostly because the photog (6' 4") had dispatched a punter who was hassling her.
we then went on to the original place, chez pierre (i think), an old skool darkened room where the stones had appara once visited. as i'd already raised PC objections to our trip, i was bought the first lapdance - a bump and grind from a mostly naked eastern euorpean girl who whispered filth in my ear while putting her hands all over me. i was at first kind of disturbed by it, then found it insanely erotic for a minute or so, and then everything seemed grubby again when i realised this was only happening because the PR had put her credit card behind the bar. the proprietor later told us that the soundtrack for the dancing was one of a series of mixtapes he'd made for the club from his favourite tunes, each edited to a strict two and a half minutes to maximise profit from the dances. mostly they were cool rock tunes, though i had the misfortune to receive my dance to the lilting tones of chris de burgh's lady in red.
i dunno. i was pretty skeeved out by the whole thing, and wouldn't wanna do it again. but its not like i object to it.

This is a really, really shitty and destructive thing to say.

but hey, what's a man to do in a world full of people who are so evil as to exploit a guy's loneliness and desperation for money?

I think you're inadvertently betraying your sociocultural roots here, S. Clover. However foregrounded the haha-"ironic" dimension may be in NYC, Portland, et al., in most cases strip clubs are very much about "exploiting guys' loneliness and desperation for money" (not to mention women's desperation-for-money). I mean, dude, try talking to an actual real-life stripper, or failing that, at least reading some articles -- this one maybe, though there was a terrific one I saw a while back that really nailed the mutual-exploitation angle, but can't find now...

But, you know, I wouldn't want to interfere with your turning McLurkerstein into the straw man you clearly need him to be! Do continue calling people names when they don't say their shibboleths in the proper order, instead of engaging with them as human beings; it's a truly noble, admirable trait, and definitely makes the world a better place.

I guess its not so tough for strippers seeing as how they generally have Yale degrees to "fall back on" too.

just another exploited guy trapped in the life, i guess.

xpost Ah, the privileged disapproving of the privileged. Good show!

CODY: You know, I think a lot of people assumed going into stripping that I would start to think of men as, you know, chauvinist pigs who wanted to objectify women. But in fact, I developed a lot of sympathy for men after stripping, because when they are in the club, when they are in that situation, they're kind of powerless, and they're there because they are looking for companionship and they're looking for intimacy. And it was up to us to provide that.

HAMMER: So you kind of felt sorry for them?

CODY: Yes, a little bit.

HAMMER: You weren't just there to take their money and their dollar bills.

CODY: No.

HAMMER: You were actually providing a service of putting a smile on their face?

CODY: Exactly. Which made it all the easier to be condescending.

(P.S. I don't find this point of view, or interview, to be entirely unproblematic...not to mention that it's a CNN interview, and all that that entails...but I'm a hell of a lot more inclined to defer to a stripper's judgment on whether it's appropriate for mutual exploitation to be a part of the dialogue about stripping than I am to defer to Sterling Clover's judgment about said topic.)

"There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips."

With porn, it's like "sure: visual stimulus for masturbatory purposes, makes sense to me!"; with stripclubs, it's more like "here's a whole bizarre roleplaying universe where one gets to feign a sort of Bizarro-world courtship (with little or none of the fun, subtle intricacies that make courtship both delightful and daunting/scary) and roleplay in a way that doesn't seem especially rewarding or worthwhile." Obviously, others' mileage varies on this question, and as a married guy I can only really imagine being at a point where I was like "if I do not see a Live Nude Girl I am gonna die of starvation here pretty quick."

I am very puzzled by how reactionary people get over men claiming they don't enjoy strip clubs; "don't go to them then!" seems like an oblique way of saying "let's not discuss this matter, some people enjoy them, THAT'S ALL!" which resembles the odious "discussing music DESTROYS THE MAGIC" folderol

though finally, yes, the Plath line is priceless, I'd assumed it was a joke - the lighting's much better at the bus stop, if you're so bored in a strip club that you'd rather read you oughta go home and read

I still can't decide whether I think that's utter bullshit or a quite reasonable take on the idea.

There's definitely some truth there. Your friend is also right in that any sexual arousal gets dialed down a lot, especially if you're with a group.

ahem. or I'm a huge geek.

I like Tracer's phrasing, though, because it suggests another way of framing this male fantasy: "we are impersonally excited by and drawn to YOUR bodies, so why can't you openly do the same for us?" As if we're actually burdened by the attraction/need and would like that to go both ways.

heh. what I dig about you is how you don't dismiss my totally rigorous Buffy-episode example out of hand.

"we are impersonally excited by and drawn to YOUR bodies, so why can't you openly do the same for us?" As if we're actually burdened by the attraction/need and would like that to go both ways.

the times when I've been in mixed company and women have openly expressed impersonal attraction to, ahem, the male form, it seems to make the dudes present kind of uncomfortable. but maybe that's insecurity, because the women aren't talking about them?

Anyway I feel like despite all this talk it's not really anywhere near that black/white for men/women, so maybe the whole conversation is a bit aimless. Plenty of guys managed to turn heads, and plenty of women don't, and in the end I'm not convinced the experience of the hetero sexes in this arena is nearly as different as it starts to seem when we've spent a while picking it apart.

evidently not, but as I say, it's not an opinion I pulled out of my ass (block that metaphor) - I first heard the take from an MFCC with 30+ years' experience who was one of the most respected (and non-radical) voices in the entire Californian therapeutic community - and it's not a "tiny box called 'gay'" - it's an enormous box called "sexuality," which for every man includes heteroerotic & homoerotic urges, but these latter ones are generally frowned upon by society. I'd still argue that the experiencing of sexual feelings in a public space around a shared object (I use the word "object" a little pointedly here) is a largely homoerotic experience, but it's not like I wanna go to war about it with you - you say tomato, I say penis, 'sall good

hetero men are "gay" together when there are no women present, like sports, etc. a woman present enforces the heterosexual norms.

Titty bars are breasts-as-decorations. That isn't gay. It's objectification of women.

(I thought this was a good thread, and from what I can tell many other people here did too -- so, um...)

I have only been to strip clubs in connection with bachelor parties, but none of my experiences made me reach for the Sylvia Plath. Are the strippers only talking to you because you have money? Of course. Are lapdances weird? Yup. But in my mind strippers are not greatly different from the aggressive bartenders and waitresses at legitmate establishments who will flirt with you for a bigger tip.

It comes down to this, if you don't like strip clubs, don't go. If it's a bachelor party, tell your friend the groom that you'll catch up with him before and/or after the stripper part of the evening. I'm not sure who you think you might be impressing with the smug world weariness.

Yes; they have extensive education & experience in human behavior and its meanings. I know I'm kinda outta step in advocating (or at least subscribing to) this kind of orthodoxy, but yes: the opinion of a person whose schooling & career involves the description and explanation of human behavior carries a lot more weight for me than the opinion of somebody who's just sorta comin' up with stuff on the fly. Similarly, I would rather have somebody who went to Julliard explain Mozart to me than somebody who never studied music.

also where's the evidence that there's much more about "seeing boobies with other guys" than "seeing boobies" going on?

also to what degree is it that the "other guys" (to the extent this is a group expedition) make it feel more comfortable to see the boobies rather than vice versa, a sort of safety in numbers game?

The desire would be to somehow gaze without consequences -- without intimacy, responsibility, or anything. And it seems like it's hard for plenty of men to fully understand why that gazing would seem invasive or threatening or an issue of power and control, because men have pretty much zero experience of anyone just wanting some removed sexual gratification from their bodies.

...and the other about women's attitude to being the object of the male gaze.

Well I think there's some severe cognitive dissonance in most women concerning the idea of being found sexually attractive: on the one hand it can be inconvenient, invasive, even degrading, but then on the other hand most women in some way revel in it, court it, expect it, even demand it, or base some bit of their self-worth on it. There's a constant push and pull surrounding that, and some nuanced distinctions being made about the way they want men to be (or not to be) physically attracted to them. And I think the upshot is that women are mostly trying to harness that sexual attention and redirect it into something slightly different.

i didn't mean that anyone on the thread was having trouble getting their point across.

That's right, all behavior is based in attempting to impress others. That's the only way to interpret what happened in that story.

hey on a tangent i'd like to ask sterl what he means by this - do you mean liberal in a legislative sense or in a social? i ask because the nz government has legalised prostitution, which i think is more pertinent to your example than homosexuality (and nz has civil unions as well), but i don't think either strip clubs or homosexuality are exactly socially accepted.

one aspect is even i think that gay culture as such (i.e. expressly gay things) has a large camp and sexually libertine element (that isn't the same as the simple fact of homosexuality, but is sort of homosexuality and then) that extends to strip clubs (if partially as camp/fetish objects) etc.

ingrates

This does not really bring to mind "courtship at its most traditional"!

wow, I went to a strip club last night for the first time (in Toronto, so wholesome and polite, as above) and we ended up at the House of Lancaster/Paradise but we were actually looking for this place:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v622/dysign/ilx/?action=view¤t=BabyDolls.jpg

plus they gave me pot!

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Sunday, April 23, 2006 12:28 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

We couldn't find the place though, we drove up and down Ossington. :(

i'd be shocked if that place were still open!

i had some friends that went on a sunday morning/afternoon (after a night of partying) and said it was both amazing a horrifying.

we found it listed under La Mirage and Baby Doll Club when we were googling trying to find places.. but Paradise ended up pretty fun. Four girls in a nudie bar is still a bit of a novelty I guess, everyone seemed to like us (but no lap dances.. too shy)

ha ha - so what inspired the ladies night out?

One co-worker broke up with her girlfriend this week and needed to go out and stare at some fresh boobies I think! Just one of those suggestions that turned into a "yeah, let's do it!"