I'll Always Be Pretending

I went to stripclubs for the same reason I bought gas station cigars; like every other American 18 year old I was acutely aware of the 3 more years I had before ‘legal’ adult became Real Adult. After I turned 21 I did it for the same reason; real adult didn’t feel very real if you didn’t have a real job. It was okay, I figured, to do a cliché rite of passage, repeatedly, so long as I did it with a snide wink to match their seductive ones. Maybe going with smug pseudo irony is still the best imitation a guy can do of a non-misogynist ‘they’re not exploiting me, I’m exploiting them’ mindset. This was just before hipsters became a thing, but my biggest excuse was, and still is, that I could be the guy who goes to strip clubs who isn’t like the guys who go to strip clubs. I could tell myself this because I had first hand experience that art, love and sex were all real and could all be real at the same time.
   
Trying to be a charming, sophisticated creep (I know I’m still a creep no matter how real my feminism actually is) hasn’t been a total failure. After a very long and lonely college loiter, I met the woman of my dreams. We rented a city apartment down the street from a strip club and I only went twice in four years. More than having it ‘out of my system’ by then, more than because I was getting sex at home, I didn’t want to hurt my partner’s feelings if I failed to omit where I’d gone.
     
Now we live in a suburb up the street from one. She is very serious when she says she would have been a stripper if she’d had the body for it. I have to be honest and admit the same. Even if that honesty is mostly me trying to be interesting. I also have to admit that I will probably visit the one down the street eventually. I’ll take the excuse as soon as it presents itself to tell myself that it’s research. I actually DO want to legalize brothels and popularize burlesque houses as a way to make strip clubs less a depressing lie for everyone. Even if I never go inside another one I’ll always be pretending I’m some kind of enlightened porn-cocoon butterfly rather than just another porn fly. That truth seems less depressing than a lie, and maybe a little more erotic.

I Got Together with 10 High School Friends

Last year I got together with 10 high school friends. We are all 42 years old. Most with degrees and married. 2 are "strip club guys". If there is an opportunity, they are dying to go; its in their dna. The rest of us are "sure, why not" types - strippers are sexier than the women we are usually with. In a group, its entertaining and fun and different and erotic. If only 2 guys go, it breaks up the monotony and is erotic. If you go alone, more likely that you have some type of problem.

I Never Went by Myself

I've been to a few strip clubs. A friend and I used to go in high school after skiing, because most of the strip clubs in town didn't ID very often, and we wanted a beer at midnight on Wednesday. I never went by myself, and quite frankly have always found the premise ridiculous. You go to the one place in town you are least likely to meet a woman you can have an interaction with, then get aroused by watching women dance naked, then leave with your men friends. The last time I went I recall very clearly. I went to a strip club for lunch with a guy that I went to University with. The excuse was they had a lunch and beer special. I left when my sister came on stage. My sister recently passed away at the ridiculously young age of 37.