How is the appeal of strip clubs difficult to understand? Having sex is better than not having sex. Looking at naked women is better than not looking at naked women. That’s a million years of evolution talking. From a genetic standpoint, sex is the only reason we exist - everything else we do is just to keep us alive so we can have more sex.
Well put. 
I am guessing I will not get laid more though.
Shit, at least if you’re kissing you’re kissing. If you’re getting a lap dance you’re probably just getting a knee ground into your balls. Not a fan, but at the same time, I understand. I went to a strip club recently and had a gay old time. But I didn’t get any dances - I’m not a fool, and I know how to get laid (for the cost of a lap dance or less, at that), so thats not my thing.
Peter Sagal’s of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me! wrote a book called Book of Vice. In it he talked about his visit to strip clubs.
He quickly discovered that there was very little strip tease done on the stage. A girl came out, quickly removed her top, then left. He found out that the girls were independent agents who had to pay to work at a club. The big money making was done mingling with the customers who paid for lap dances and drinks. There wasn’t any money actually performing on stage – just a required bit that the girls quickly disposed of in order to make the big bucks squirming on men’s laps.
Do you really need to ask? I would think the connotations are throbbingly obvious.
It’s just a term that happened to stick. Many strip bars don’t have poles.
The story I heard was that the poles were originally installed to help the girls keep their balance when on a raised platform while wearing high heels, and something they could hang on to if a drunk tried to pull them off the stage.
As far as I can tell, the only strip bars that consistently have poles are the ones on tv shows and in movies. In my area, I would guess that only one out of 10 strip bars have them.
Also, I would say I’d prefer a naked woman waving her talent in my face over porn, even though I don’t get to have sex with the woman (I mean, I don’t get to have sex with the porn either, so what’s the big difference?)
For one thing, naked chicks live in front of you are 3D, without needing special glasses. Hell, I’d generally rather watch a fully clothed girl walking around than a naked one on my computer screen doing much more. Also, depending on how close the girl gets (either you are tipping her or paying for a dance, whatever), you can feel the warmth from her skin and such.
That said, strip club visits for me are generally rare. Last one I went to was for my bachelor’s party. Generally, I prefer hooters. The girls tend to make better conversation, and they bring you food, too.
All right, I will accept the Harry Potter pole dance as Art.
But otherwise…
People have said that on the pole, ladies can get into positions that really show off their genitals. This is true. Are there clubs where they do this totally unclothed?
How is a vertical pole better for this than, say, parallel bars?
I haven’t seen that many people in this thread who have seen a pole in an actual strip club.
At the last strip club I went to, and it’s been awhile, the strippers were not so much dancing as remove their clothing rather quickly and then sort of posing. I’ll give them this, they were flexible. And very white–no tan lines. There were no poles, but I could easily picture the strippers as former gymnasts.
The strip club–the Diamond Cabaret, which considers itself one of the classier “gentleman’s clubs”–was about half full, and nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the strippers except for the other strippers. Also, the music was awful. The drinks weren’t great, either.
Been to 3 strip clubs, zero poles. If I remember right The Bush Company in Anchorage has a ballet type hand rail with a large mirror behind it at the back of the stage. Generally it was used for the girls to keep their balance during deep squats.
I agree with Argent Towers on this one. My analogy: if you’re starving to death, would you want to keep your mind off food? Or would it be better to watch a family eat a thanksgiving dinner?
In other words, why look when you cannot touch? What is the point in that?
Anyways, to each their own, have never been to a strip club, and have no plans to go.
Oops, wrong forum, and overstepped issue about “dancing” poles. Apologies to OP.
Apparently, yes, but not that many (most towns nowadays have an alcohol license = no full nudity rule). OTOH I do have 1st hand experience with the thong-only type of clubs where the dancers make use of this to show off their flexibility while doing mid-air splits. BUT usually that is considered a welcome plus, it IS true that modern club “stripping” is mostly just “not so much dancing as remove their clothing rather quickly and then sort of posing.”
Someone with a firehouse fetish opened a club before someone with an Olga Korbut fetish? Search me, I got nothin’ 
But, as someone else said, there’s the occassional ballet barre. Another alternative, chair-prop dancing, is apparently discouraged in strip clubs (as opposed to proper burlesque shows) due to liability issues (chair not being bolted to the floor). Pole and chair dances do appear in burlesque-type and buslesque-based acts, there is nothing intrinsecally skeevy about it, just the associations.
Music awful, drinks weak: Yep, that’s a strip club all right :D.
As for the ignoring the stage show, that’s an unfortunate artifact of the recent-generations trend towards the drinks hustle and 1-on-1 table-/lap-/“Champagne Room” dances as the primary revenue generators. Patrons’ attention gets monopolized by the lady sitting next to him pushing him to get Bottle Service (at $200 for a bottle of Captain) and hinting that Chris Rock may be wrong about the Champagne Room.
Pole “dancer” checking in.
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I am not a stripper. I have never worked as a stripper. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I take exception to putting “dance” in scare quotes because it is a form of dance. To me, it looks like ballet and gymnastics got married and had a baby=pole dancing! To the OP: I am working right now on choreographing some pole moves to a certain song. It may not look like it (or you haven’t seen much good pole dancing, which is highly likely), but pole dancers work hard at moving to the music.
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I started taking pole fitness classes at a local alternative dance studio about 8 months ago. The idea was to get stronger, leaner, harder, and more flexible. That plan has been a success. Cite. Pole fitness classes emphasize the athletic aspects moreso than the sexual aspects, yet I am the only person I know who goes to the gym in 6" hooker heels.
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Pole dancing started in Canadian strip clubs about 30 years ago. More on The History of Pole . [url=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_dance”]Obligatory Wiki link.
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Not all strippers have pole skills (most don’t from what I’ve observed). Not all pole dancers are strippers. Most pole I see on TV and in movies shows what you all apparently are telling me what actually happens in strip clubs: mostly lolling about the pole, using it for balance, as opposed to doing any actual tricks. There’s a movie about strippers called Dancing at the Blue Iguana that looks like it might be a fairly accurate representation of how pole dancing goes down in some strip clubs. Darryl Hannah does a really cool inversion right at the beginning, but I don’t see many of the other actresses doing much of anything on the pole. Marisa Tomei pulls a couple of beginner tricks in The Wrestler.
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It’s not just women. The Chinese and Indians have been pole dancing – looks more like pole gymnastics – for hundreds of years. See links to history of pole dancing.
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No, I don’t know why people will pay a lot of money to be teased and titillated and left with a lighter wallet and bluer balls.
Well, in at least some of those Champagne rooms, the arousal is not unrequited. YMMV. Shop carefully.
You’re assuming everyone has an actual woman at home.
Essentially accurate. Their is very little strip tease anymore. In Houston, the standard is two songs on main stage - first clothed, second bare (G-string in most). Then rotate to secondary stages. Depending upon the girl, the stage can be used to size up the audience and as a form of advertising - dance around on stage to get attention, and know which customers to bother first by how much attention they give you on stage. Or if they talk to you at the stage and request you visit when off stage.
Some dancers like the stage, some hate it. Some dancers are better at moving around in 6 in platform heels without falling over. The pole does make for a useful handle/balance aid, as well as prop for various moves.
Some women do actually know how to pole dance, i.e. do moves with the pole. Spinning, posing, etc. I did go to one club that was all nude then (now changed style) that did have one lady, first time I had seen real pole dancing action. She wore thigh-high white boots and would climb to the top of the pole, then gyrate and undulate her way down the pole upside down. That was impressive, and she made a ton of cash on stage - well, relatively speaking. That place there would be times they’d have to call for a box from the bar to collect all the ones.
But yes, usually there is more money in lap dances than stage dancing. The stage rotation commits the dancer to 2, 4, 6, maybe 8 songs they are taking tips by ones, rather than getting paid in twenties. Some dancers would definitely rather work the crowd, talk up the customers to get lap dances. One lap dance will usually be better than a full cycle through the stages - unless they get one of those guys who, for whatever reason, thinks it the height of studliness to stand at the stage with a stack of ones and throw them on the dancer - a “money shower”. I’ve seen guys give what looks like $20 to $30 in one song. Or have one of the other strippers take like $100 in ones and throw it on the one on stage for him. WTF?
They’re all over the place in Houston. Pretty much every stage has one. Of course, when the “stage” is a 4 ft diamter platform 3 ft off the ground, having a pole in the middle is a definite aid to the lady trying to balance in those 6 inch platform heels.
As for going to a strip club, there’s plenty of ability to enjoy the show without getting uncomfortable in the pants. Eyeing hot young things you otherwise wouldn’t have the option to see naked has it’s selling points.
Ergonomics? It’s better suited as a prop/dancing aid on a smaller stage? It’s better to have the bright, shiny phallic symbol/substitue vertical, which is to say erect, in a strip club? Just some thoughts. I haven’t been to one of those establishments in fifteen, twenty years.
Pretty much any woman who dances for the purpose of titillation, whether or not they actually remove clothing during the performance is called a ‘stripper’ just as a generic slang term. You could get technical and call them exotic dancers or nude performers or burlesque if they are particularly fancy. If they use a pole then they are pole dancers. But plenty will not use a pole, and you’d call them a stage/platform/catwalk dancer, or a gogo dancer if they are just on a pedestal, or a cage dancer if they are gyrating in a cage.
And there are non-erotic pole dancers of course, but outside of the realm of erotic dancing, there are a lot more styles to choose from. Artistic/entertainment dancers with that sort of skill set seem to be very fond of hanging from ropes or strips of cloth right now, as it gives them more to do.
So, there are a lot of non-pole dancers just gyrating in place, or doing gymnastic splits or whatever. But pole dancing gives someone a little more to do to avoid it getting boring or if you don’t have a lot of skills, and also adds the whole ‘phallic’ element of making love to the pole.