They all do the same basic slow dance/prance because you’d look like an idiot dancing fast with unrestrained knockers, you could put an eye out.
Not only that, but most of them can barely walk, let alone dance, given the height of their heels. Add in the rampant drinking (and drugs), sweat, glitter lotion and babyoil and you have a heck of a dangerous situation up on them there stages.
[story]The place I worked once had a wet t-shirt contest. Why they’d have a wet t-shirt contest in a topless bar is beyond me, but they set up a kiddie pool on stage and auctioned off supersoakers. I was the last person to go up. The stage was wet so the pool was sorta sliding around on the stage. I got hit with a blast of water to the eye (at the time I was wearing contacts) as I turned around. When I recoiled, the pool, it’s two inches of water and I slid off the stage drenching four guys in the front row. I sprained my wrist bouncing from stage to lap to floor. [/story]
As for cat fights…suprisingly few. In the three places I worked, it was a kind of sisterly atmosphere, complete with makeovers, clothes borrowing and occasional sleepovers. YMMV, of course.
Chicken Scratch,
In my experience, the quality, atmosphere, customs, etc. of strip clubs vary widely across the country. In a given area, there is some similarity, but go across a state line and you could have a whole 'nother experience.
I overheard the front clerk of the Crazy Horse talking to a bouncer about how $20 is sort of a 'cut off point" in terms of admission. That is, the place had a lot more customers when the price was = to or less than 20 dollars. Now that it is 25, the place is pretty sparesly populated.
One thing I learned is some places charge less on Sundays. Unfortunately, they tend to have quite a few less dancers as well, but oftentimes being one of only 6 guys in the whole place is very worth it.
The one thing I wish I’d known was how the Kit Kat does lap dances. What I’m used to, at other clubs, is having a dancer come by, offer a lap dance, and I get the dance then pay her directly. However, at the Kit Kat, you go to a window, pay $15 or so and ask for a dancer. When she’s available, she shows up, you tip her and she dances. I tipped a few bucks, thinking “Hey, I already paid her $15.” Turns out none of the $15 goes to her, it all goes to the house. Since I only tipped a few bucks, I got a 10 second lap dance and that was that. D’oh!
I went to one club where a stripper grabbed me by the hand and dragged me to the bar. She asked me to buy her a drink. I’d bought a drink for myself already, it was $5. Buying a drink for a stripper? $25. I started to decline, and she disappeared before I even finished the sentence. Heh.
The one thing I wish I’d known was how the Kit Kat does lap dances. What I’m used to, at other clubs, is having a dancer come by, offer a lap dance, and I get the dance then pay her directly. However, at the Kit Kat, you go to a window, pay $15 or so and ask for a dancer. When she’s available, she shows up, you tip her and she dances. I tipped a few bucks, thinking “Hey, I already paid her $15.” Turns out none of the $15 goes to her, it all goes to the house. Since I only tipped a few bucks, I got a 10 second lap dance and that was that. D’oh!
I went to one club where a stripper grabbed me by the hand and dragged me to the bar. She asked me to buy her a drink. I’d bought a drink for myself already, it was $5. Buying a drink for a stripper? $25. I started to decline, and she disappeared before I even finished the sentence. Heh.
Something I wonder about: I heard about women in Europe called “B-girls” (I think). The deal is, men come in to the club, order champagne, and the women sit with them, clothed but doing stuff like letting the guys stroke their legs, chatting and not-drinking the champagne (they’re not allowed to consume alcohol, so they pour it out). Just something about it seems off. If you want an artificial dating situation, you go to a taxi-dance hall. If you want to be stimulated without intercourse, you go to a strip club, and if you want intercourse, you hire a call girl. But spending $25 to throw champagne away?
When I was a dancer [topless only] in Arizona, it was extremely illegal to drink while working. You weren’t even allowed to have a Coke at a table with a customer. By law you had to keep an 18" distance between yourself and the customer, but no one did that. As long as you didn’t actually touch them you were fine. (You could get fired for even resting your hand on their shoulder.) I should mention that I worked at the top club in the city, though. Known for having the best girls and the strictest enforcement of rules. If you wanted to get handjobs under the table, you could go to Elmer’s by the truckstop and find what you needed. Ick.
I toured in Texas for a month once, and found the rules very different. You were encouraged to sit on customers’ laps – as long as you had fabric covering your butt. Once you were down to a thong you couldn’t anymore. I was actually told by the manager that if a customer offered to buy me a drink [same prices, btw, as for themselves] that I HAD to order something. It didn’t matter if I drank it but I had to let him spend the money. I usually got juice. Many of the girls…er…well let’s just say that I saw the house mother dressing passed out girls at the end of the night and hefting them into cabs on a number of occassions. It was pretty sad, actually
One thing that a lot of customers don’t realize is that at most clubs, the girls aren’t paid. At most clubs, it actually costs the dancers to work there. In Tucson, for example, I had to pay $2.50/hr to work. In Texas, it was often $20/shift [up to 6 hours]. You are also required to “tip out” at the end of your shift. usually something like 10% of what you make to the DJ and 5% of what you make to the bartender. Some places also expect you to tip out to the management. And it’s mandatory. You can get fired if you don’t or if you short tip them.
So say I made $200 in a shift. $20 to the club, $40 to the DJ and $20 to the bartender leaves me with $120. If I took a cab to work, that probably costs me another $15 each way at least, taking me down to $90.
Some clubs offer fake money for customers who want to use credit cards. The club I worked at in Tucson had $5 tokens that the customers could buy in bags of 5. They paid something like $28 for it and it was worth $25. At the end of the night the girls could hand in their tokens for $5 each. This is a good system. The club in Texas where I encountered this had a different system. It had fake paper money in varying denomenations. Customers could pay $50 for 5 $10 fake bills. At the end of the night, the girls could turn them in for 80cents to the dollar. So if you had $100 in fake bills, the customer is out $100, the club gets $20 and you are left with only $80. Lousy system.
The stage can be lonely and frustrating if no one tips. If a girl is up there and no one is tipping her, go give her a dollar. It makes a difference emotionally.
Because I’m a married 31 year old mother now. I was a dancer for only 1.5 years, it doesn’t define who I am now.
Opal is correct though. Dancing varies from state to state, even county to county and city to city. Where I danced, mostly in Detroit, I needed to be licensed by the city. That meant fingerprints, a clear felony record, and even a clear driving record. Licensing was renewed yearly.
I also worked in Dearborn, MI (right next to Detroit) where you didn’t need to be licensed. There, you had more women who had drug possessions on their records and the like. In both places, you had to pay (per shift) to work and you made all your money from stage tips and lap dances. Men could only touch your legs (w/i reason), waist and back. Dancers went down to g-strings.
Then I lived in Cincinnati, where I didn’t dance, but occassionally went to places with my (future) husband. The places we went to were all in Covington, KY and dancers went to g-strings and pasties. They were paid hourly to work and made money from stage tips and “drinks”. They encouraged men to buy them champagne and they got a kick-back for every drink.
I’ve been to many other bars in many different states and they’ve all got their own rules. Your best bet is to ask how it works, always.
Ask the bouncers first, they’ll be happy to explain and will likely be really cool with you if they think that you’re worried about rules. Ask the dancers too because they will give you a better run-down on how THEY make money, bouncers are generally more concerned with the bar’s fiscal position.
You can never go wrong if you are polite and follow the house rules.
I was a dancer for only 1.5 years, it doesn’t define who I am now.