I went to a few strip clubs with boyfriends several years back and used to frequent a bar (hostess-style) where one of the waitresses used to be a stripper. I never was approached by any of the women. Maybe I was just too interested in getting drunk!The beer is way too expensive though. I’d much rather go to a regular bar. Other than that, any one of the boyfriends I went with, it didn’t bother me if he was ogling them, since it would just mean some thunder for me later.
The one waitress that used to be a stripper, she told me she did it because she liked to “wield a sort of power” over the men that frequented the strip club.
I once went to a local bar here that was supposed to be a “hostess” type bar, but instead it was aimed at women. It didn’t stay in business very long and I didn’t get to grab any ass (probably because I wasn’t drunk enough).
Incredible differences exist between the biker run joints and the places that try to come off as some odd sort of country club.
While I’ve never sought out this entertainment on my own, my stock of pals has taken me to a few. One that a friend asked me to go to, where I learned the “never give 'em your credit card” lesson, was the Orehouse, here in Houston, where he managed to run up $600 worth of table dances in the one hour that we were there. On my credit card.
He couldn’t tell his wife, so that’s how I got my raquetball gear and my microwave. The microwave serves me well to this day; he’s a few wives down the line.
That’s also where I learned the protocol associated with questioning your credit card bill at a titty-bar. A bouncer “helped” me sign my name, and then I landed on my chin in the parking lot.
Gee, I’ve certainly had a lot of fun with life (only half-kidding).
I always assume that the women who work in those clubs hate men generally, and that they really hate the customers.
It seems they think the guys are disgusting but gullible mugs who deserve to have their wallets emptied as soon as possible and then be kicked aside. The whole deal seems to be based on lies - “what do I have to show, or say to get this bastard to give me twenty bucks”, “if I pretend to really like him will he pay for my boob job?”
I doesn’t surprise me that some of them are gay, it surprises me they’re not all gay. Let’s face it, they get the worst possible view of men on a daily basis. “Sniffers row”. Nice image. I’m sure I like looking at pretty women as much as the next guy, but paying a fortune to be secretly despised by strangers isn’t my idea of a good deal, so I tend to steer clear.
I’ve gone to a club once a year for the past 4 years with my bowling team after our bowling banquet (where we get our prize money in $1 bills). Things have changed a lot in since the early '80s when I went there a couple of times for bachelor parties.
In the old days, the women would do choreographed dances 1 at a time to 3-4 songs as they stripped down from a costume to nothing, picking up a few dollars along the way. It actually took some talent. Now the women come out 2 at a time wearing very little, gyrate a little to 2-3 songs while taking off their one piece of clothing besides their g-string and only seem interested in getting as much money as they can. The women are way to thin for my liking and I find the whole thing boring.
The last time we went I gave the waitress an extra tip on my way out and told her she was the most attractive woman I saw there that night, because she was.
everton, I can’t speak for Johnny, but I happen to think it can be very degrading to men. It all seems to be centered around illusion–the illusion of interest, the illusion of arousal, the illusion of being desired. Some men friends very close to me have found themselves nearly addicted to going to such clubs (although to the dancers they probably just appeared to be regulars) as they sought to escape the extreme loneliness and depression many of them felt.
But then again, there are plenty of men that go sheerly to objectify the women–the “creepy” guys the dancers told me about. There are the dancers who hate men and enjoy toturing them, there are men who are lonely and find themselves being tortured…and there are women who just love being sensual and dancing, and men who just enjoy watching them.
Most of the club I danced at you were only onstage for one song, and only one girl on stage at a time. Sometimes two songs, one clothed, the next not. I always thought that the bikini = full costume thing was lame. I usually wore a lot more. Full length dresses, jackets, half-shirts & torn jean shorts, etc so that I had something to take off to make it interesting.
I never hated the men (well, some of them on an individual basis) and actually made several friends among the customers.
Nope. Couldn’t. 'Course I don’t have any real experiences at these joints, either. I’ve only ever been to one a single time. My dad took me some years ago for my 21st birthday.
It was one of the few places around where I’m from, and it was a lousy BYO club.
I got trashed, of course, and didn’t enjoy much of the show. The music was too loud for us to just talk, so if we wanted to discuss anything we had to scream, and that just took more steam out of it.
There was one dancer, however, who’s show was really impressive. She moved much more fluidly and gracefully than the rest, had a huge smile on her face the whole time and really looked liek she was enjoying herself. It made it much more enjoyable to watch.
Afterward, we had the chance to talk to her for a few minutes and she said she was dancing simply because she enjoyed it. I told her it showed and hers was by far the best show of the night.
Current gossip in the adult circles in DFW has a small, predominantly African-American, club called Peep’n’Toms in Arlington as the “nastiest” place in town. If you’re looking for the most “bang for your buck” this is reportedly the place to go if you’re a guy. Not sure about the woman’s persepective though.
Most clubs in DFW tend to be pretty hands-off though. Spent some time talking with a dancer at one of DFWs few all-nude(rules in Texas is that you can be all nude if you don’t serve liquor, so the club was BYOB, they made money off selling cups and ice, something like six bucks for a tray of ice to chill your twelve-packs in. Was no end of amusing for a guy like me who doesn’t drink to see these guys get fleeced) establishments. Most of the dancers were college girls making ends meet, as is expected, but a few seemed to enjoy it more than the others and there were “stories” about some girls it seems. Haven’t seen/heard mention of drug abuse being prominent in the area, but that’s not exactly something a dancer would talk to a random customer about.
The few times I’ve been to strip clubs (generally some friend’s bachelor party), I’ve generally felt sorry for the dancers. Of course, I mostly saw clubs full of drunk, obnoxious rednecks.
I like women a lot, but I have no interest in teasing, fake passion, or hollow intimacy. I don’t care for lap dances. I spent most of my time making eye contact and smiling warmly, trying to make sure they knew that at least someone saw them as something more than an ambulatory set of tits. One of the ladies stopped on her way out (her shift was over) to say that I had the nicest smile she’d seen in days. It’s an OK smile, but it’s nothing stellar–it made me kind of sad that she hadn’t seen any better ones lately.
That’s cool Johnny - I just had to check, and thanks for the response Ruffian. In the end, of course, each person has to be answerable to their own conscience, and it’s not like I’d be happy to see the dancers starve. There’s been a rapid expansion of clubs in the UK recently (a major US chain apparently sees us as an ideal growth market) and inevitably when you work in the central business district of a big city as I do, you get roped in to a visit from time to time. There have also been numerous recent TV documentaries about clubs here and abroad, including the USA, and endless newspaper/magazine articles stimulated by the rising profile of pole dancing etc.
So I’m basing my opinions on a variety of first and second hand experiences, almost universally negative. Equally inevitably there have been campaigns to have the clubs banned by the predictable set of characters: The moral majority sex-afraid types who don’t see why anyone should enjoy the human body at all (their own or anyone else’s); people worried that customers will commit rapes on the way home; people worried that passing children will be corrupted by osmosis; and those who think that they perpetuate offensive and demeaning roles for women. The response from the dancers to that last point is usually “we’re not being exploited, we’re exploiting the men - it’s great”, as if that’s an improvement.
Personally, I don’t think the mercenary bitch fleecing the drooling pervert is a prettier picture than the arrogant pig blowing his kids’ shoe money on his Saturday night harem. I’d like to think that I’ve never exploited anyone in my life, but I’m not volunteering to be exploited either.
I suppose I should be reassured that OpalCat can contradict what I’ve found. Good for you if you genuinely made friends through dancing. It must be tough forming relationships? Apart from the unsocial working hours and the jealous partner syndrome, I’m afraid if I met a dancer socially I’d find it hard to blank out the idea that she pretends to like men for a living. I’m not going to be climbing aboard a soapbox over this (I surprised myself that I posted about it at all). But if strip bars and table dancing clubs just melted quietly away I wouldn’t miss them.
I totally agree with you Opal. From what I have seen the past couple of years there is far too little style and far too much greed on the part of the dancers. Greed isn’t sexy. They used to be called “strip teases” for a reason. I find that much more exciting. Now I guess they are just dances because there isn’t much stripping going on.
I’ll admit that the rare occasions I’ve visited such a place(I can count them on one hand and I’m not sure I can count the intervening years between my last visit on a single hand) I spent more time watching the dancers to try to figure out if any of them were genuinely enjoying themselves. I can honestly say I have doubts that any of them were really enjoying themselves.
This is mostly a function of the laws in the US, not the desires of it’s population. The vocal minority has imposed laws that dictate certain types of morality to the full extent they can. If the “clubs” were like the clubs in other nations where prosititution is legal and regulated then we might not see false intimacy like we see in American clubs. The dancers, a great many of them, are doing it for the money and have no real interest or even willingness to follow through with what their performance is promising. The clients, a great many of them, harbor a secret wish that they will be able to find satisfying intimacy through the dance. Both are simply performers either faking their interest or throttling their interest, because culmination of that interest is illegal. If there were the option, like there is in other countries, of paying extra and getting a private room with a dancer of your choice for sexual services and this was KNOWN to the dancers, then dancers who now consider it a perfectly “safe” way of making money(after all they’re only faking) would have to re-evaluate their willingness to pursue such a career choice. Some dancers would decide they are willing to accept that level of intimacy on the job and become providers of sexual services, some, the disinterested college girl stereotype, would find other work.
In either case, what’s missing from the American “red light district” is honesty. Both sides of the stage are faking something because of laws put in place by vocal minorities. Remove this, and you may begin to see the type of America Ruffian is looking for.
