It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a strip club. The co-workers of my first job, along with the president of the company, were the ones took me to my first. They made it a point to “initiate” me when they found out I had never been. I still look back on that memory fondly, because I was so young and green, and they wanted to get me over my inexperience.
But it was never something I did with any frequency. You always look at those guys, seating by themselves at the head of the table with a beer in hand, thinking, “Is this better than what you have at home?”
After all, strip clubs are never really about the girls. It’s about being out with your friends, when your parents think you’re at a movie1. They’re like concerts. You could sit at home and listen to a CD with studio quality sound, but there’s something different about the atmosphere of a live experience.
It’s easy to grow past the appeal of strippers though. There’s no personality there. Even Playboy models have likes and dislikes. The furthest a strip club goes is by saying, “Here’s Porsche, and she used to be an airplane attendant”.
Don’t get me wrong; I love the female figure. But there’s no appeal in a stripper.
Random cops
In the parking lot at one strip club, we were waiting for the rest of the group to arrive in their cars.
Suddenly, two people come out of the darkness, shining a flashlight in our faces and flashing a badge. Turns out they were plainclothes officers.
“You boys aren’t doing anything bad out here? No drug dealing? You want to pop the trunk there?” Only the last question wasn’t a question.
My friend popped the trunk. Aside from a car shade, it was completely empty.
“Look at that”, he said, in a mocking tone, as if we weren’t cool enough to be doing anything illegal.
I see a piece of tissue paper on the ground, and I want to pick it up and say, “See look, just garbage. We’ve got nothing”, but I decide to leave well enough alone, thinking of a lesson I learned when I was a kid…
One time in high school, my friend was smuggling magazines out of the school library without checking them out by hiding them in his binder. He would walk through the sensors and set them off, then open his bag and move each item in his bag piecemeal through the sensor in front of the librarian, only he’d do it slightly below the detection area and make her believe it was a false alarm. I was with him one time, and not being privy to his technique, I said, “Let me check your binder for you” to speed up the process. He ignored me, I dropped the point, and he got away, but I almost got him caught.
So the cops get into a van and drive off, and I see another friend biting his nails and shaking like a leaf. He’s a big guy, someone I didn’t think would be afraid of the police, so I ask him what’s wrong. It turns out he had a nickelbag in his pocket, and when the cops were distracted with the car trunk, he threw the weed onto the grass, and covered it up with a piece of old tissue paper so that he wouldn’t have anything drugs on him if they searched us.
And if it weren’t for that one childhood lesson I learned, I would have picked up that tissue paper and got us all in trouble.
Asian strippers
I would never, never seen more guys clamoring, racing up to the stage than when they would announce Asian girls. I never understood it. Perhaps it’s because they always seemed to be the most creative in grabbing bills off the clients.
Blind Caucasian bouncers
Being of a race that generally looks young for its age is a double-edged sword. It’s great when you’re older, but it also means that you may get carded well into your 30s for movies, bars, and strip clubs.
One time, we were four Chinese guys. The bouncer asks for ID. Someone pulls out his friend’s drivers license who’s a year older (and therefore, of age). The bouncer looks at it and lets him in, when he looks nothing like the picture on the card. Do we all look alike to white people?
Then I hand my drivers license to the same bouncer and he starts scrutinizing it. Looking at it from different angles. Scratching the surface. After what feels like five minutes, he eventually lets me in. And I was the only one with a valid ID.
Toothless washroom attendants
I could never figure this out, but some strip clubs have these toothless washroom attendants who would turn on the taps for you, hand you a fresh (I pray) towel, and open the door for you on the way out. You throw a couple extra bucks his way in a little dish loaded with change.
I always wondered if the attendants were a charity case. A homeless person they hired to add an extra service to the customers. After all, the real margins in strip clubs is in the alcohol. There’s no cover, just the understanding that you’ll buy a drink or two.
Foxy Boxing
To keep things interesting, along with the long held belief that women fighting is somewhat sexy, certain strip clubs would have two strippers fighting in their underwear, and brand it “foxy boxing”. Unfortunately, the boxers were often far from dainty. And as it was said in Seinfeld, there are a couple things the human body simply does not look good doing.
- Some of them had ringtones set for their home numbers, and just the ring would set off a round of teenage spite [↩]
Have always been horrified by those places.
I’m like that comic who said, well first you might look all interested, and then you start wondering, Does she make money???? Why’s she working here? Does she have a kid?.…??? and you’d just come right straight down.
I was about to say that most guys brains stop thinking at “BOOBIES”, but I think I’ve actually seen that comic before, and I believe he was a male too.
I think going to strip clubs once in a blue moon is fun times. It’s not a place to take too seriously, just let loose and enjoy the time with whoever you go there with.
Laugh at the creepy ones, the ugly ones you can’t believe are strippers, enjoy watching the ones that dance well. Sign up to dance for a free t‑shirt, whatever. Oh, the things I do for free t‑shirts. Oh! And DVD players.
But, I am known to be crazy that way. That’s just me.
Exactly…if you don’t take them seriously, it’s easy to get past the myriad of issues associated with strip clubs and enjoy yourself. Unfortunately, I don’t think they give free t‑shirts, let alone DVD players, when guys sign up to dance. They’re so sexist at strip clubs!
You would totally deserve more than T‑shirt!
One time I was in a strip club in Montreal, there were some strip dancers who were really professional in their dance, and they really gave it their best. They could have been professional dancers. And there were never any Asian strippers back in those days.
The way you wanted to talk back to the cops reminds me of the time you were caught driving with expired papers. You always sound so anti-establishment, which is not how I see you. You guys have something against cops or what :)
I find that a lot of people give credit to strippers (or the good ones, at least, who put on a show), because it can be quite an acrobatic and physical activity.
Perhaps it’s a part of my youth that still leaves me somewhat anti-establishment, or the fact that I feel like I shouldn’t be harassed, because I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s the implication that I’m a drug dealer, or whatnot, that I don’t like.
I enjoy going to strip clubs with my guy friends. I always have a good time and it seems often that the women tend to be more at ease when I’m around–they dance a little closer, stay on the stage a bit longer. Maybe they think I will reign the men at the table in if they get out of hand.…who knows? At our local club we have an amateur night every week where you can dance to win a prize of $250. No stripping is necessary…just get up there and strut your stuff! Audience participation determines the winner and I shout and cheer for everybody who gets up there! Even if they can’t dance you gotta give them props for having the guts to do it!
I would guess that strippers would feel less creeped out if a guy has a girl with him…it’s like an unspoken language between girls that says a guy is okay.
Hell, for $250, I’d dress up like a woman and get up there!