Sniffer's Row

Ah, it's Tuesday so of course that means the Delightful Demystifying Divas and myself are handling yet another hard-hitting expose. Our topic today: strip clubs.

Ahhhhhh. Yeah, I know. everyone's favorite subject. Well, at least it is for some of the men in the audience. For the women? Well, that's another story entirely. In my experience, women, on the whole, do not like strip clubs. Nor, for the most part, do they like strippers---unless they happen to be one. Strippers are seen as a threat to a happy home. This is why men, wisely enough, tend not to advertise when they go to a club. When was the last time any man told his wife, "Yeah, honey, I'll be at such and such bar for a time, then we're planning on going over to the King of Diamonds after that. I don't know when I'll get home. But I'm going to need cash, and I'm going to need it in small denominations, so can you get me $100 in five dollar bills when you go to the bank?"

Yeah, like that's going to go over well.

If they divulge that information at all it's after the fact and not before. I know many a woman who simply does not want to know, so it's a "don't ask, don't tell" situation. One of the husband's friends, however, has a wife who would hit the roof if she found out where he'd been, so he has, on occasion, asked lil' ol' me to cover for him, should his wife call and wonder where he is. Fortunately, she's never called, so I've never had to cover for him.

I, on the other hand, have absolutely no illusions about the husband's activities. He's been. I know he's been. He knows I know because he's told me. I know that, sometime in the future, he'll go again. I see no reason to disillusion myself in regards to this, or demand that he not go: I wouldn't want to put him in a position where he has to lie to me, and I must say that I don't understand women who don't get this. Men are going to go to strip clubs. This is a fact of life: why not just deal with the facts as they are rather than trying to bend them to your particular whims? While you may think that your man's visits to a club means something about your relationship, you should probably know that, unless your man is going on a daily basis, those visits have absolutely nothing to do with your relationship. They do, however, have everything to do with looking at naked women.

Men go to look at naked ladies. They have reached the stage of their life when they have some brass in pocket, and they can pay to see a naked woman, rather than having to work for that particular payoff. I truly believe this activity is them trying to get in touch with the glories of sex and women as seen through the eyes of a teenager, when sex was new and any naked woman was gorgeous, even if she was, in reality, a hag. Nowadays, they just let their eyes wander in an unfocused sort of way to get back to that feeling. They just can't touch.

Now, I can understand how men can go to these places. No hassles there. What I don't understand is why women would want to go. And there are women who dig those places. If you're one of them, well, know this much: I don't get you. Those places are for men. They appeal to men. They smell like men. They are populated with men. This is their clubhouse. If you show up at one of these places, a muppet will pop up and will start singing "Which one of these things is not like the other?" Furthermore, I don't think men want you there. It ruins the illusion for them. How do I know this? Because I've been, and I was a less than enthusiastic visitor. If you want the rest of the story, take the jump.

And no, Mom, you're not allowed to take the jump.

For those of you who would like to skip the jump, you can go and read what the other Delicious Demystifying Divas have to say about this topic. Make sure to go over to Meanderings where one of our Red Hat divas, Michelle, has also thrown in her two cents. You can also go and read if Pete, Zonker, Puffy or Phin have confirmed or denied my suspicions.

UPDATE: Pammy also has chimed in.

You see, I'd lost a bet. The bet being that if I and my friend could win this particular game of darts, our boys would submit to whatever we wanted to do for an evening. If we lost, well, we had to submit to whatever they wanted to do.

Of course, after my friend and I laughed about taking them to the opera, the Law of "Learn How Not To Shoot Your Mouth Off Before The Deed Is Done, You Silly Wench," kicked in. The husband's friend promptly threw two triple bullseyes in a row and closed out that particular game of cricket without needing the third throw.

Their chosen activity? Of course, being the bright little things you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, are, you have guessed that their chosen activity was to head out to Clearwater Beach in far West Des Moines. For those of you who have never been to Des Moines, well, you should know that Clearwater Beach isn't a beach at all. I don't even believe there's a body of water nearby that would have even provided inspiration for said name. Clearwater Beach, however poorly named, is the street in the middle of nowhere where all the local strip clubs reside.

Now, I'm no welsher. When I make a bet, I make it with the full intent of paying up if I should lose, so I tried to hold my head up high when I walked into the club. I whined a bit, I will admit, but I sucked it up and prayed that this would be over with quickly. And it was over quickly, but I had to endure a bit of humilation in the meantime.

The husband, the friends, and myself, after paying seven bucks each for a can of Budweiser, gravitated toward the stage because the place was relatively unpopulated. It seemed silly, even to me---who didn't want to be anywhere near the stage---to hang out near the back. There were a few guys here or there, but it was apparently too early in the evening for the place to be packed. Not like you would have noticed the place was packed even if there happened to be a lot of customers because this bar was massive. It was easily a quarter of the size of a Costco, and it was, for a low budget strip club clean and decently decorated, with padded chairs (with vinyl seats, of course) and plenty of tables and booths. They had an above average sound system, the stage was lit up professionally and there were three poles, placed equidistant from each other along the thirty-foot runway.

Now, see, here's where I made a grave tactical error. If I'd been a solider in battle, instead of a girl in a very male place, you could have said I'd set myself up for an ambush. They would, forever, be teaching my mistake at West Point as a "what not to do" situation. What was this tactical mistake? you ask. Well, here it is: I sat down. Everyone else remained standing. The friends were off to my side, and the husband placed himself directly behind my chair, which I thought was, at a reasonable five feet, far enough away from the stage to avoid direct contact with the strippers. Well, it wasn't. Particularly when the husband whipped out a twenty dollar bill and held it over my head.

Yep. That's right. The husband bought me a dance.

Sigh.

Now, bottle blondes in red satin bikini bottoms with rhinestone accents placed strategically on the hips, four-inch stilleto heels, with feather boas snaking along the stage after them are not my thing. Never have been. Never will be. Sorry, guys. I'm just not one of those chicks whose ultimate fantasy is to be with another woman. Doesn't do a damn thing for me. Again, I'm sorry to shatter your illusions on this one. You can, however, find some consolation in the fact that if I don't dig women, well, I was as squirmy as a worm when I received something you'll never get when you go to a strip club: permission to touch.

This surprised me quite a bit. I didn't think anyone was allowed to touch, but she invited me to because, apparently, I wasn't that threatening. Go figure. {insert rolling of eyes here} But I didn't want to touch her. I really didn't. Watching was one thing. Touching was entirely another. It wasn't because I was afraid to touch, but rather because I didn't think that if, God Forbid, I found myself stripping for a living, that I would appreciate having a set price on allowing some stranger to feel me up. I felt like I was, in some small way, violating her and I didn't want any part of it. Yet, after much encouragement not only from those who had accompanied me, but from the stripper herself, I started touching her legs. And that was as far as I got...

...because she had the softest and smoothest legs I've ever felt. Mine aren't even that good and mine are pretty damn nice, if I don't say so myself. I wanted to know what the secret to those legs was, and so I asked, "What razor do you use?" And we got to talking about shaving. It was a topic she warmed to, and had a lot to say about in between twirls and shoving her cleavage in front of my nose. Just for the record, she used one of those little pink Bic razors and soap. She didn't even use fancy lotion. She had, apparently, been blessed by the gene fairy in the good skin department.

Shortly after that, thank Goodness, my time expired and she went offstage after kissing me on the cheek and telling me I was a good sport. She also went offstage with a five dollar tip from me tucked into the portion of her g-string that rode over her hip. (Yeah, I went there. It seemed the least I could do.)

And this is why I do not understand why women would want to go to one of these places. I wound up, front and center, for the main event and I ended up chatting with my dancer about shaving. I don't find sex offered up on a platter to be erotic. That's not what does it for me. I will make the grand statement and say that I don't think most hetero women find it erotic either. It's just not our bag. And to go someplace that offers it up for people---namely men---who do like it, well, it just doesn't ring true.

Posted by Kathy at May 10, 2005 12:46 PM