So, what exactly happens at a typical strip club? Do they serve alcohol? How high are the prices? Is it common to charge a high cover charge? How long can you stay? What exactly do the strippers do? What are the private and lap dances like?
I’m male, but I’d be interested in any experiences from either female or male strip clubs.
Depends on where you are - laws vary across the country. I have been to a couple in SF and Las Vegas.
SF the dancers could get fully nude but IIRC there was no alcohol served on the premises (it may be that a topless club can serve alcohol but a fully nude club cannot). This was the O’Farrell theatre and there were a variety of entertainments available including:
In Las Vegas it was a topless club but the “bottom” was typically the skimpiest tiny g-string you can imagine. They did serve alcohol at outrageous prices. They also had an ATM in there with something like a $20 fee on it.
The main area was like a lounge surrounding a stage - there were girls dancing a few at a time onstage for tips and you and your buddies would be seated in plush chairs, girls would come over and sit with you and do lapdances. There were also private areas where you basically had a small room alone with the girl(s) but they’d really really try and get you to buy more drinks - it’s a big profit for the place and I’m sure the drunker you are the more you’ll shell out to the girls.
Both places had a cover charge, something around $30-$40. Lap dances were about $20 for a song although as the night wore on we could negotiate if the place wasn’t busy. Some of the negotiations were pretty damn funny - “$10 for a song? OK, but only one titty!” A lap dance is basically a scantilly clad woman right up against you dancing, rubbing on your lap and so on. Touching pretty much anything but an orifice was fine. One girl took my glasses off and buffed them with her pubic hair. We were both laughing a lot.
The “private rooms” had dim lights and generally no other guys nearby and the girls would “do more” which I think means they’d stay longer, really be on your lap and nuzzling your neck furiously, etc. To quote Chris Rock, “There is no sex in the champagne room”. While I’m sure it can happen the girls aren’t hookers. Those private rooms were more expensive; one of my friends paid a few hundred dollars for one remarkable blond girl to spend an hour or so with him.
In those clubs women got in for free - some were there with their boyfriends, some were there for the girls just like we were.
If you’ve ever heard the words “hard sell” they will take on a new meaning in a strip club; no not that…well OK, there is that, but the ladies are dancers and they make all their money off those lap/private dances, so they will agressively pursue you.
You can stay as long as you like and the more you spend the more they’ll encourage you to stick around. If you aren’t spending any money be prepared to be ignored. However a lot of the dancers in LV were very friendly, could tell if guys were shy and they’d come over, sit and talk and just kind of hang out for a bit (for free) to get you loosened up.
All of the women I met were at least good looking and many were knockouts. I only met one lady who was a turnoff and it wasn’t because of her looks, she was just cold and overly-businesslike.
Both times were a lot of fun. If you approach this as enjoyable adult entertainment, remember that nothing is really going to happen (it’s fantasy only, a lot of looking and limited touching) and act like an adult (obey the dancers - you can ask what is allowed - don’t disrespect them) you can have a great time and spend a shocking amount of money if it’s your thing. If you don’t have the good fortune to either (a) reek of money or (b) be famous, dress sharp - it goes over well with the dancers. Act like a gentleman and it’s appreciated (one friend’s bachelor party was a private show at his home and the dancer, escort and DJ all complimented us on our behavior; if they’re happy everyone is happy).
No matter how dimly lit any room is and no matter that the only people around seem to be dancers and patrons, know that every inch of the place is being monitored and there are a lot of nicely-dressed, polite but very LARGE gentlemen who will appear as if by magic if someone gets out of hand.
IIRC there are one or two dancers who post here so they may chime in as well.
Laws are very different on every state and city, some can serve alcohol, some can’t, some can have full nudity/contact, some are strictly bikinis and always three feet away, i hear in Texas girls can get arrested for prostitution for taking their shoes off during private dances. So, it really depends on where you are. Typically girls get naked on stage then come around room trying to get people to buy private dances. Prices etc very wildly, most places will kick you out if you aren’t spending any money.
I’ve been to maybe 20 clubs in a dozen North American cities over the past 25 years (although never the same place twice) and all I can say is no two are exactly alike, even in the same town on the same night. Variables:
Cover charge? Usually, not always
Drink minimum? If no cover charge, definitely.
Alcohol? Sometimes. A couple of places you were supposed to bring your own.
Food? Some serve it. Can’t say I’ve ever ordered any.
Nudity? Ranges from tape over the nipples to full-monty legs akimbo.
Pretty girls? Ranges from Mira Sorvino to Paul Sorvino.
Good dancers? (yeah, it matters.) Usually some girls are putting forth some effort, others are just going through the motions.
Atmosphere? A lot of places are really depressing. I’ve left after 15 minutes more than once. Once in a while you find a place where people seem to geniuinely be having a good time. This is a function of the clientele as much as the staff.
Friendly girls? If you engage a girl in conversation and she sits down, the meter might be running. One guy I was with talked to a Russian girl in Montreal for about 40 minutes (annoying me mightily) and then found out he owed nearly $100.
Front for prostitution? There was one place where every girl in the place wanted to know if we wanted to go on a “date”. It was the first place I went to, which kind of put me off the whole experience for several years, especially since the girls were more Paul than Mira.
Lap dance? Not my cuppa, but if you do, find out how much for how long and make sure to ask exactly how much touching is allowed. Another friend (actually it was the same guy) was pissed because he followed the usual 'no touch" policy and then noticed another guy was, um, getting a much different deal.
Peter Sagal’s “Book of Vice” has an entertaining discussion of strip clubs - you can read that chapter on Amazon by searching for “stripper” here: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Vice-Very-Naughty-Things/dp/0060843829.
For myself - I’ve gone to strip clubs twice, but very briefly on both occasions. The problem is that, against all reason, I find it hard convince myself that it isn’t rude to stare at people. 
Which makes it hard to enjoy a club where the chief attraction is, well, staring at people. (Albeit really, really hot and scantily clad female people.)
Excellent summary by Vanguard. I worked at a few in the Seattle area many years ago.
In Washington (then and maybe now), alcohol is prohibited, but the strip clubs stayed open until about 3:30 AM, so many guys would drink at bars until they closed, then go to a strip club.
The cover fee varies by club and is basically whatever the market will bear; low or no cover can be a marketing technique, or a high cover can add cachet. Dance prices are indeed negotiable, but the clubs where I worked posted sort of suggested minimums for table and lap dances. At one point, they doubled those, and business quickly got crappy.
An interesting thing to understand is that (at least back then where I was, though I think it’s normal in other places too), dancers are not actually employees of the club; they are legally considered private contractors and actually pay the club “rent” for the privilege of working there. They also tip the bartender and the DJ. It is entirely possible to lose money working as a stripper, on a bad night.
I always worked at the same time as my best friend; we look very different and earned our money differently. She looked (still does, come to think of it) like a five-foot-tall Pamela Anderson; I’m a pale brunette of average height. She often made twice what I did. Guys would see her from across the room and want her to dance for them, and then keep shelling out for hours. I made a high proportion of my money talking to guys: the way that works is the customer “buys a drink” for a dancer. The drink is not alcoholic, of course, but it’s expensive; the bartender keeps track and gives the dancer money back at the end of the night, and meanwhile the dancer has a) an excuse to sit and chat with a customer for a few songs, and b) a handy straw to play with suggestively. I would actually listen to guys rather than keep up the hard sell, and they would keep buying me drinks, 'til I was fit to bust a bladder, but could go home with money. I think my record take in one night was $600 or so in 1993 dollars, whereas my friend broke $1000 a few times.
You can stay from open to close if you pay the cover fee and don’t piss anyone off, and never *have *to buy anything. Aggressive dancers may try to tell you otherwise. A depressingly high proportion of aggressive dancers are addicts of one kind or another and will tell you ANYTHING to get your money. Some of them try being hookers, too, but they tend not to last long, as the cops – for some reason 
– seem to just love doing undercover stings at the strip clubs. There is the occasional dancer who figures out a scheme to be a hooker – more like an escort, really – without setting off the cops’ radar, but I don’t think it’s common.
Exactly what the strippers do is tightly regulated and changes from one city to the next. There was technically no touching “intended to cause arousal” allowed where I worked; that was usually interpreted as it being OK to steady yourself by hanging onto a guy’s shoulder during a dance, but no full-on sitting on laps. Though repeat customers usually got sat on or at least brushed up against.
We had to have tops and bottoms at all times other than when on stage; when dancers are onstage and nekkid, no customer may come within 24" of any part of the dancer. You use your stage-time as a kind of advertisement. My friend and I usually worked only Fridays and Saturdays, when there were so many dancers we didn’t get our turn more than once or twice. You could get in trouble for “simulating a sex act” (i.e., touching your girly parts) on stage.
One of the clubs I worked had a “shower room” with a working shower surrounded by padded benches in a frosted-class enclosure; guys who really wanted to empty their wallets could pay to watch a stripper strip nude and take a shower (cans of shaving cream being helpfully provided in lieu of soap), then get dressed again and have a private lap dance afterward. We tried not to let our heads get wet, this being the tail end of the big hair era.
Strip clubs have a distinctive smell: way too much cheap perfume, especially in fruity scents; sweat; and carpet mildewing from repeated soft drink spills.
I work in Washington DC, and on occassion several of the fellows and I will get together for a “gentleman’s lunch.” In DC, the deal is this:
–full nudity
–alcohol is served
–no cover charge
–you tip by putting the dollar in the g-string. you can get a slight leg caress out of it but I imagine if you tried any further contact, you’d get tossed out
There are one or more stages, where the girl will come out and do her thing. We sit at the tables and eat lunch and have drinks. The food prices are about the same as a TGIFriday’s or something. You want a Beam and coke? $6.00. You want just a Diet Coke? $6.00. So might as well go for the booze. (I don’t know about the beer prices, as I don’t drink beer).
The girls I’ve seen are for the most part young and attractive. No visible scars, cigarette burs, snagged out teeth, etc.
So anyway, we sit and eat and drink and shoot the breeze and check out the dancers. Each one of us will go up to give a tip, oh, 4 or 5 times during lunch. Maybe more if one is particularly enamored of a particular girl. After a girl finishes her set, she’ll make the rounds of the tables and smile and say “hi.” This gives a guy a chance to give her another dollar.
Maybe it’s just the lunch crowd experience, but I’ve never been offered a table dance, nor have I seen any table dancing. Maybe you have to go to the VIP room or something.
Anyway, its a nice way to spend lunch.
And I should emphasize that these girls are as naked as naked gets, and spread eagle pole and mirror and bend over action. When you go up to give a tip you generally get an up close viewing experience for about 30 seconds. She’ll let her hair fall down around you and put her boobies within an inch of your face. You get some really nice bend-over action right up clise and personal. Well worth the dollar, I would say.
They’re pretty wimpy compared with the full-hands-on experience we have over here. In some places, Caligula would feel right at home.
Think of it as a bar with a small runway in the middle, the girls dance in the runway and the patrons watch them, the ones sitting at the bar that runs the length of the runway tip the dancer as she dances.
Yes, it’s basically a bar.
They vary depending on the quality of the place. The one’s where I’m from (guess where) charge around 1.5 - 5 dollars per drink. The dancers charge from 20 - 50 dollars per private dance, those last as long as the song lasts.
From no cover to 20 dollars per person, no cover is common on weekends for every place.
As long as you want. You’d think you would stay all night if you could but it gets very boring after you run out of money.
They strip. From some skimpy dress down to usually a thong but sometimes nothing. Afterwards, they walk the floor of the bar and offer private dances. In Tijuana, you are allowed to touch them during the dance, this is not the case in the US however. In some places they will have sex with you. I must stress that the last part is very uncommon even here and unheard of to illegal in the US.
Very nice, even when you can’t touch them. But frankly you have one and you’ve had them all.
and of course I misspoke. Garter, not g-string.
I am reminded of a certain strip club in West Texas in the 1970s. In that place, you did tip a dollar in the G-string, but on the side in the elastic band. This one old guy – apparently not trying to be a clown, the old codger was sincere – got up to tip a quarter! In the front of the G-string. The girl told him she was not a slot machine. 
I’ve been to a few, but after I went to Vegas, everything else was “ruined” for me.
I went to the Palomino, not sure if it’s still there or not. This was by recommendation of the cabbie.
The girls were 9’s at worst, and I swear there were at least two 11’s . There was a 2 drink minimum, and they were butt nekkid, neither of which I had a problem with.
I splurged on a “lap dance” and I tell you what, it was pure joy. The girl looked like she was straight out of Playboy (those L.A. chicks that go to Vegas to make bank). The “dancing” was as good as it could get, and after a short while I was erm… excited. She took notice of that and proceeded to nibble on my “bulge” through my jeans! Now I feel like I’m writing to Penthouse or something.
No matter what though, the maxim “nothing gets screwed in a strip club except your wallet” always remains true. Sometimes it’s worth it, but often it’s not. Boobies are always good though so YMMV. Boobies. There, I said it again.
I’m reminded of the comedians routine about how strip clubs are for folks who arent content to be frustrated by just looking at naked girly pics…they have to take it to the next level 
So, what exactly happens at a typical strip club?
You walk inside, grab a seat. There are usually 3 types of seating arrangements:
Booth seating, standard seating, and front row seating.
Booths are usually along the walls and contain a table. The height of the chair cushion may or may not provide complete privacy for your group. It depends.
Standard seating is usually a table in an open space.
Front row seating would be chairs placed around the edges of the stage where the girls dance.
Sitting at a booth you may get private dancers… often times your booth may have it’s own stripper pole or mini-stage (about 4ft by 4ft) or a horizontal poll hanging afixed to the ceiling. To get private dancers at a booth you’ll want to tip nicely… your tipping will influence the girl’s performance, just how it would on the regular stages. Note that a private dancer at a booth is not a lap dance…
Sitting at a standard table is similar to the booth except you won’t have private dancers there. You will often be approached by girls wanting to give you a private lap dance… If you sit in these seats just keep that in mind.
Front row seating is a place to sit if you want to see the girls close up. If you want these girls to dance in front of you you’ll want to have a bunch of $ingle’s ready. You can sit in the front without money but you won’t get any special attention.
Should the joint serve alcohol, and most do, cocktails (server) will come and offer drinks. As hot as some of these female cocktails will be it’s unlikely you’ll ever get a private dance from one of them since their on shift to serve, and not dance.
**Do they serve alcohol? How high are the prices?
**Typical club price… usually 4 bucks for a domestic and 5 for imported… around 7 for shot and 8 for a mixed drink. Keep in mind you’ll always want to tip when buying a beverage. A buck a drink is my rule.
Is it common to charge a high cover charge?
For locals you can expect a discount at some, but not all clubs. A discounted rate might be about $5-$10 and a standard rate might be $15-$25. At least, that’s the highest cover charges I’ve come across even for nice clubs.
How long can you stay?
There is no time limit to how long you can stay.
What exactly do the strippers do?
On stage, the strippers will dance. The girls will work in a rotation. The amount of time they dance will depend on the song itself. Most times a girl will have 2-3 songs before she goes on break again which will usually just be time for them to walk around looking for private dances.
What are the private and lap dances like?
This may very greatly depending on the club, the girl, and the amount of money you’re throwing down…
A common rule would be no touching and you basically just sit back and let the girl do the work for you.
Certain strip clubs may or may not attract a rough crowd… just like a night club. Stick to the better clubs and you’ll not only be surrounded by more attractive women but the service and atmosphere will be more enjoyable.
Make friends with the bouncers/workers (not necessarily the dancers) if possible… that way you may get into the club at no cover charge should you come for a drink often. Night clubs work like this as well. Getting free cover saves you heaps in the long run if you become a regular to any clubs.
Don’t be an idiot. Don’t get carried away (drunk and stupid). Don’t start shit with the girls or anyone for that matter… unless of course you like the taste of pavement or fist. I know quite a few not-so-friendly bouncers that don’t think twice about literally throwing you people across the street.
In conclusion… bring enough money to handle the expenses for the night (if you bring a card expect about a $4-$5 ATM charge per transaction), keep a good attitude, tip your servers, and enjoy yourself.
Maybe you’ve never been to one during a recession. I was at deja vus in Tampa a couple weeks ago with a group of friends and a few of the more affluent ones paid for vip dances (150 for 30 mins, 300 for an hour) and they all got either happy endings or straight up sex. One particular girl wanted to hang out with us the rest of the night after we left the club, she eventually offered to screw each of us for 500 a pop, by 5am she was down to asking 50 bucks a pop. It was really rather depressing, half the girls where very pregnant and the rest weren’t all THAT good looking. This was supposed to be a high end club.
I was in a strip club once (in Miami Beach) a long long time ago. To me, it was like being a vegetarian in a meat market (look but don’t touch). Never again.
The certainly served drinks (although overpriced). Probably had a cover charge besides.
Ugh I’ve only been to a strip club once and it was a highly uncomfortable experience. It was in like a theater setting and dark and gloomy. There were the required flashing lights and loud music but…yuck. And slightly overweight (not usually a problem with me, it just added to the yuck factor for some reason) completely naked men walking around in sneakers, waving their junk and asking if you want a lap dance. Umm no thanks…
Don’t fail to tip the dancer. [post=5770518]Trust me on this.[/post]
Stranger
It’s like watching a soft core porn movie with a bunch of other guys, only the porn can see you.