In the interest of fighting ignorance, I am embarrassed to admit that I did once visit one of there establishments (purely for the purposes of research, don’t you know :dubious:), on a visit to NYC about 20 years ago. It was indeed just off Times Square, on 42nd Street I think.
Anyway, the point I want to make is that, contrary to what the OP and other respondents seem to think, the purpose of these places (or at least of the one I went into) was not to enable men to see naked women. Indeed, one could see the naked women, albeit behind glass and at some distance (and not, I think, dancing, just standing around), just by walking into the place. IIRC, one could walk in, take in a panorama of naked flesh and boobs, and walk out again, all without paying a penny. They didn’t strip, they were already naked. The point, however, and what you had to pay for, was to touch naked women. If you put your money in the slot, a little, shutterlike door would open, you could beckon one of the already-naked women to come over to it, and you could reach your arm through and have a grope of her boobs or perhaps even her pubic area for a few seconds, until the little shutter automatically closed and forced your arm back out again.
I am pretty sure nobody was jerking off. My memory is a bit hazy, but although I think there might have been side walls around each shutter position, something like a urinal stall, there was no rear door to close behind you, so you did not really have any privacy, and the place was quite busy, with lots of customers and bouncers wandering around. Also, you would have one arm through the shutter, which was quite high up so that nothing but an arm could reach through it.
Yes it was all very sleazy and pathetic, but what it provided is not now available on the internet for free (although what is available there is probably a lot more sexually gratifying in practice).
o:o