CAUTION: Lame and not-entirely-serious-yet-not-a-joke-thread rant ahead
So I go out to one of the local gay watering holes here in town last night as is my habit on Thursday nights. This bar has featured for quite some time male strip shows on Thursdays. Back in the day, there were three dancers per show. Recently it dropped down to two. The last two weeks it’s been one guy and the owner has started bringing in women strippers. It’s just wrong!
I was chatting with one of the drag queens about it last night and apparently there’s drama. The owner bought the bar within the last few months. One of the more unpopular moves he made was to start charging a cover for the strip shows. Apparently it didn’t occur to him that with another bar in town also having a strip show the same night with no cover, his clientele might migrate. After practically killing stripper night he rescinded the cover but the show is just now starting to bounce back in attendance. According to my source the owner looks upon the customer migration as something af a personal betrayal and is a bit miffed at the gay male community. Integrating female strippers into the show was motivated in part by revenge.
Anyway, much as I love a good drama, I still gotta say that after a hard 4/5 week at work, when I go out I want to spend my night cramming money down the thongs of hot sweaty men. The last thing I want to see is some woman, as lovely a human being as she undoubtedly is, shaking her fun bags.
Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes, lesbians need to have fun too. Far be it from me to begrudge my sisters in Sappho the chance to get jiggy, but there are other bars in town which feature female strippers on a daily basis. There aren’t other than the one other bar anyplace else featuring guys regularly. So why not have Ladies’ Night and do a full-on girlie show and leave Thursdays for the boys?
Also, gay women probably won’t have as good a time oogling the chicks in a gentlemen’s club. I would think it would be hard to let your hair down.
That said, bummer for you. Maybe you better start going to the other bar, because it looks like this guy might be changing format in a big way.
You’re up in Madison, aren’t you? Is there a big gay community up there? For some reason I thought it was kind of a dinky town with not much going on (except education).
It’s called free enterprise. Deal with it or go to the other bar that you clearly say has what you want. Hot sweaty men you can cram their thongs full of money.
I can see the headline: Gay men forced to watch women strip!
I’m not gay but I’ve been to drag shows and enjoyed them. If I can deal with that and have a good time then you can see some titties and quit yer bitchin’! It’s titties and a vagina. It won’t hurt you. Just enjoy the show.
And seriously, how much money can a woman make stripping at a gar bar? It seems to me the free market will take care of any woman with silly thoughts of making money stripping at a gay bar.
I’m not sure how it is in your area, Otto, but in Seattle many of the strip joints wouldn’t allow women in except on specific “Ladies Nights”. The reason being that it isn’t necessarily safe for a woman to patronise or even be in the parking lot of a man’s strip club - the women on stage are inaccessible and some men will look for a woman who IS accessible. (Yes, I realise not all men who watch strippers are like that, but there are some true whackos out there.) Even without the concern of being assaulted, there’s still a problem with female patrons potentially being ogled or verbally harassed, which is not a nice environment to enjoy oneself in. So if those bars you’re referring to are not specifically lesbian bars, it’s very likely women either aren’t allowed in, or don’t feel safe going in. I know the OP is only a half-serious pitting, but wanted to offer some food for thought anyway.
Well, speaking as a female dancer, here’s my take on it.
I’ve only ever worked in high-dollar gentlemen’s clubs, so safety of any of our customers, female or not, is generally not in question. FWIW, although we tend to get quite alot of couples, we don’t generally get many lesbian customers, and I believe most clubs have a rule about all female customers needing at least one male escort that came in with her for admittance. (It has been a problem in the past that prostitutes and escorts posing as customers would come in looking for clients, hence the rule).
I’d wager that between the fact they’d have to have a male escort them, plus what pigs men can be when they see one woman dancing for another, that it wouldn’t necessarily be a comfortable situation for most lesbians to come see female dancers.
I did do a once-a-week gig at a gay bar in Chicago for a couple weeks, pretty much as a favor to my bartender friend that worked there. It was primarily a male gay bar, but on Wednesdays, they proclaimed the night “Dyke Night”, and would have female dancers.
I’m mostly straight, but I always had a blast, personally. It really wasn’t much money…like I said, I was really only doing it as a favor for my friend who worked there, but I got 75 bucks plus tips, and all I wanted to drink for 2 stage shows, (in addition to which I didn’t have to take off anything, the dancers they had there were really just go-go dancers) which is maybe a half hour total of actual work. The rest of the night I pretty much just got to hang out and drink with my friends.
=)
It definitely sounds like this guy you’re talking about is doing it to piss you guys off though. Maybe you could compromise and have him consolidate it into a “Dyke Night” type event?
It’s mixed, with more men than women. The strip show attracts a lot of straight women.
What I and many others do is start at the downtown bar and then head to the other bar after the show to catch the end of that show. I like the guys who dance downtown better than the ones at the other bar, and not just from a physical standpoint. They’re nicer and I’ve gotten genuinely friendly with some of them, as opposed to the ones at the other bar who are often more interested in making the extra money from lap dances and some of whom are really just hookers using the dancing as a way to line up clients (which doesn’t bother me except that they ignore me once I make it clear I’m not going to rent them). So with fewer dancers downtown I see the guys I’m friendly with less frequently.
There’s a decent-sized community but it’s kind of insular.
Actually, my source told me the woman who danced last week made more than all the other performers combined. Which leads me to think that there’d be enough interest to sustain a Ladies’ Night like I suggested and leave Thursdays for the guys.
If so it’s because the guys I last went to a strip club weren’t there to finance their lap dances. Them dykes had a HIGH ol’ time!
There is but, being Wisconsin, the guys all dress like Red Green or the “befores” on Queer Eye. :rolleyes:
(Sorry, Otto, but I’m originally from Minnesota and Madison was sophisticated to us. His dissing Madison made me look like an even bigger hick than I am. )
Dunno if this is typical but the only time I’ve been to a strip club (The O’Farrell in SF) it felt incredibly controlled and safe - like a good casino, it was not in your face but it was 100% obvious that anyone who started any trouble would suddenly find that a half-dozen very large bouncers had magically appeared around them and said troublemaker would be headed out the door right quick. I saw a number of women there, either with their boyfriends, or a group of girls coming in for a giggle (we had to pay a $40 door fee, ladies got in free). Everyone was having a good time but you have never seen such a well-behaved bunch of people in your life.
There is no bigger deterrent to trying to mess with a dancer, than a 300+ sheer muscle-bound steroid-lookin guy in a tux saying “Sir, you WILL NOT touch the dancers…understand?”
Having been a chick at a man’s strip club, it isn’t that much fun. It can be very intimidating, though being with a lot of friends helps. Once you’re in and at a table, it’s OK, but getting through the parking lot of drunk guys and such is rather unpleasant.
Even then (and as a rather unattractive person, I might add) I still had guys coming up and bothering me. No, I do not want you whispering in my ear when I’m talking with a group of friends. Go away.
This being aside that I am straight and just went to appease my straight male friends, and ended up being a magnet for the strippers anyway…
