Strip clubs
So last night I had the - I'm not sure what to call it, not exactly pleasure, maybe occasion? - to visit a strip club for the first time in my life. It was a day of firsts, since it was part of my first - and most likely last, since I don't have any other single guy friends at this point that I can imagine inviting me to one - bachelor's party ever.
Anyhow, I really had no idea what to expect, but I have a philosophy of "try anything once", so I went along with it. We started along with Gokarting, which was tremendous, as I hadn't done it in 10 years and forgot just how much fun it is. I worked hard to secure the pole position, because I knew I would be able to keep it once the race started. And so I did. Until lap 21 out of 23, when a guy I just finished lapping the second time decided to T-bone me on the next corner instead of simply taking the racing line, allowing the guy in second to slip through and win. Ghastly.
We went to Stinking Rose next, which I've always appreciated, and then we went a-lookin' for a club. Chris, the bachelor, was ankle-chained to a 10-pound bowling ball the whole night, a trick one of this friends played on him. I thought it was a terrible joke, and almost went and bought a bolt-cutter to release him, but was dissuaded eventually, even if I had some misgivings.
I have no idea what the name of the club was that we ended in, it was across the street and on the corner away from Showgirls (this is San Francisco). Supposedly new. In any case, walking in the first thing that assaulted my sense was the noise. It wasn't as noisy as a dance club, of course, but the way the noise was distributed seemed engineered - lots of it in the passageways, a little less on the main. The second thing was the absolute oddity of having scantily clad, topless and completely naked women walking around. In fact, I think the best way to summarize this experience is "strange".
I followed the group over to some back room where the lead instigator negotiated a private show and the room for an hour afterwards. I then went down to the main floor to get a sense of what was going on. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, a sense that had not left me for the entire night. It wasn't embarrassment per-se, or at least not in the sense you might thing; it was the same kind of feeling I would get from entering the shower by mistake with some girl I didn't know already in it in a stranger's house, or walking into the women's locker room. I'm comfortable in my own skin, but it just didn't feel right.
Like I said, strange. It is a strip club after all.
Anyhow, I said no to two or three of the girls who came by to see if I would be interested in a lap dance, but then Lexi came by and had eyes that had an intelligent sparkle and this time I said yes, admitting that I had no idea what to do or expect. We went to a secluded area with rooms with blinds, and the sense of strangeness became palpable. I mean, I just couldn't shake it. She was a beautiful woman, she was intelligent, she didn't even seem numb like some of the other girls, and yet as soon as the blind closed she took off all her clothes as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Again, I fully understand that's what they do in these places, but it was still strange. I asked if I could take my shoes off, sat down on the couch, and waited, but the announcer was just announcing a new round of songs and such we had several minutes to chat first.
I learned a few things which may be made up or not - I think the "paying my way through college" and her name were fake, but the after-a-pause "I couldn't have a relationship for quite a while after I started doing this" and "it's tough to separate the job from real life" were not - and then the dance started.
Strange.
It wasn't sexy, it wasn't even erotic. It was beautiful in its way, and Lexi was beautiful in her way, but it was like an art piece, not a live woman trying to get me excited for a few minutes. My admiration for her grew; this has got to be one of the toughest jobs on the planet, period, because it is all suggestion; a prostitute, at the very least, has a very tangible way to tell if her client is happy. Not so the stripper, and I was simply unresponsive in, well, "that" way. I couldn't connect sexuality to it.
The whole thing took about 20 minutes, but I spent most of them looking at her face and searching her eyes, at some point it must have made her a bit uncomfortable because she stopped looking at me. In fact, about 5 minutes to the end I asked if we could stop and just talk instead, and she seemed quizzical, then relieved once I explained my problem connecting sex to this fascinating art-form. I have to say, she composed herself well, but I got a sense of doubt there, and I wonder how many of these women have body image issues.
We ended up talking for a little while longer, into the next song, and parted ways.
There was a shower show later - one of those things that we apparently negotiated for - which was another oddity, and a few other girls who approached (how do they do that? that has got to be the toughest part of the whole thing), and towards the end I sat at the tip rail where I finally felt more or less comfortable. When it comes down to it, the pole dances are pretty impressive in their way, and at least there I could comfortably maintain the disconnect between my admiration of the act and sex or sexuality.
Otherwise, for some reason I became a marked man, and a couple of the other girls asked me what was going on, and one of them mistook my intentions and said "don't feel sad for us", but I said I didn't, that was not the point. I'm not sad for them - heck, they aren't "them", they are each different. I may feel sad for one of them after I learned who she was, because some of us do have sad histories, but I can't be sad for them collectively, I don't know them, and this isn't some sort of catastrophe. But I just could not think of them as sexual objects. Which is stranger, because had I seen any of them on the street, I could easily imagine them in a sexual manner.
It's just that in this setting, it all seemed mechanical, forced, unnatural... and completely unreal. I guess that's the main point in all this. I am a sucker for real. I love people - not their bodies or any of their other facets, but they, themselves, their essence and their being. I tend to dive really deep, and what happens in strip clubs is geared at being shallow. You can't get deep in a lapdance except if you ignore the supposed fantasy and really look at the dancer, which makes it very intriguing but certainly not arousing. I found Lexi very intriguing, and I would love to know more about her and who she really is, but not in that setting. Enough, as they say, is enough.
Like I said, strange.
With that said, I ended up cutting things considerably short when I figured I could not extract anything further from the experience. I can't say I won't be doing it again, because it is quite possible that business will require it; but I certainly won't be pursuing this on my own accord.
Strike down one more for experience.
Anyhow, I really had no idea what to expect, but I have a philosophy of "try anything once", so I went along with it. We started along with Gokarting, which was tremendous, as I hadn't done it in 10 years and forgot just how much fun it is. I worked hard to secure the pole position, because I knew I would be able to keep it once the race started. And so I did. Until lap 21 out of 23, when a guy I just finished lapping the second time decided to T-bone me on the next corner instead of simply taking the racing line, allowing the guy in second to slip through and win. Ghastly.
We went to Stinking Rose next, which I've always appreciated, and then we went a-lookin' for a club. Chris, the bachelor, was ankle-chained to a 10-pound bowling ball the whole night, a trick one of this friends played on him. I thought it was a terrible joke, and almost went and bought a bolt-cutter to release him, but was dissuaded eventually, even if I had some misgivings.
I have no idea what the name of the club was that we ended in, it was across the street and on the corner away from Showgirls (this is San Francisco). Supposedly new. In any case, walking in the first thing that assaulted my sense was the noise. It wasn't as noisy as a dance club, of course, but the way the noise was distributed seemed engineered - lots of it in the passageways, a little less on the main. The second thing was the absolute oddity of having scantily clad, topless and completely naked women walking around. In fact, I think the best way to summarize this experience is "strange".
I followed the group over to some back room where the lead instigator negotiated a private show and the room for an hour afterwards. I then went down to the main floor to get a sense of what was going on. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, a sense that had not left me for the entire night. It wasn't embarrassment per-se, or at least not in the sense you might thing; it was the same kind of feeling I would get from entering the shower by mistake with some girl I didn't know already in it in a stranger's house, or walking into the women's locker room. I'm comfortable in my own skin, but it just didn't feel right.
Like I said, strange. It is a strip club after all.
Anyhow, I said no to two or three of the girls who came by to see if I would be interested in a lap dance, but then Lexi came by and had eyes that had an intelligent sparkle and this time I said yes, admitting that I had no idea what to do or expect. We went to a secluded area with rooms with blinds, and the sense of strangeness became palpable. I mean, I just couldn't shake it. She was a beautiful woman, she was intelligent, she didn't even seem numb like some of the other girls, and yet as soon as the blind closed she took off all her clothes as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Again, I fully understand that's what they do in these places, but it was still strange. I asked if I could take my shoes off, sat down on the couch, and waited, but the announcer was just announcing a new round of songs and such we had several minutes to chat first.
I learned a few things which may be made up or not - I think the "paying my way through college" and her name were fake, but the after-a-pause "I couldn't have a relationship for quite a while after I started doing this" and "it's tough to separate the job from real life" were not - and then the dance started.
Strange.
It wasn't sexy, it wasn't even erotic. It was beautiful in its way, and Lexi was beautiful in her way, but it was like an art piece, not a live woman trying to get me excited for a few minutes. My admiration for her grew; this has got to be one of the toughest jobs on the planet, period, because it is all suggestion; a prostitute, at the very least, has a very tangible way to tell if her client is happy. Not so the stripper, and I was simply unresponsive in, well, "that" way. I couldn't connect sexuality to it.
The whole thing took about 20 minutes, but I spent most of them looking at her face and searching her eyes, at some point it must have made her a bit uncomfortable because she stopped looking at me. In fact, about 5 minutes to the end I asked if we could stop and just talk instead, and she seemed quizzical, then relieved once I explained my problem connecting sex to this fascinating art-form. I have to say, she composed herself well, but I got a sense of doubt there, and I wonder how many of these women have body image issues.
We ended up talking for a little while longer, into the next song, and parted ways.
There was a shower show later - one of those things that we apparently negotiated for - which was another oddity, and a few other girls who approached (how do they do that? that has got to be the toughest part of the whole thing), and towards the end I sat at the tip rail where I finally felt more or less comfortable. When it comes down to it, the pole dances are pretty impressive in their way, and at least there I could comfortably maintain the disconnect between my admiration of the act and sex or sexuality.
Otherwise, for some reason I became a marked man, and a couple of the other girls asked me what was going on, and one of them mistook my intentions and said "don't feel sad for us", but I said I didn't, that was not the point. I'm not sad for them - heck, they aren't "them", they are each different. I may feel sad for one of them after I learned who she was, because some of us do have sad histories, but I can't be sad for them collectively, I don't know them, and this isn't some sort of catastrophe. But I just could not think of them as sexual objects. Which is stranger, because had I seen any of them on the street, I could easily imagine them in a sexual manner.
It's just that in this setting, it all seemed mechanical, forced, unnatural... and completely unreal. I guess that's the main point in all this. I am a sucker for real. I love people - not their bodies or any of their other facets, but they, themselves, their essence and their being. I tend to dive really deep, and what happens in strip clubs is geared at being shallow. You can't get deep in a lapdance except if you ignore the supposed fantasy and really look at the dancer, which makes it very intriguing but certainly not arousing. I found Lexi very intriguing, and I would love to know more about her and who she really is, but not in that setting. Enough, as they say, is enough.
Like I said, strange.
With that said, I ended up cutting things considerably short when I figured I could not extract anything further from the experience. I can't say I won't be doing it again, because it is quite possible that business will require it; but I certainly won't be pursuing this on my own accord.
Strike down one more for experience.
posted by Blinkered at 7:55 AM
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