I Am a Man

I’ve been to strip clubs twice in my life both in different circumstances but both for the same basic reason; to prove I could do it, sit in a testosterone filled room and pretend the women there wanted to dance for me because I am a man.

The memory of my first time has faded, fuzzy like memories of all 18th birthdays are, tainted by alcohol and regret but I think I liked it, I think I did feel like a man for the first time in my life. Having just finished school and moved out of home it felt like something only the truly free could do. Staring at breasts unapologetically is essentially screaming to the world “I am a masculine stereotype and proud”. As someone who had/does struggle with not being a typically masculine man I can remember that for sometime afterwards being to a strip club with a group of friends was like a vaccination against attacks on my manhood, though like all vaccinations my immunity to criticism weakened over time.

The memory of my second visit is far more vivid and, perhaps as a result, distressing. After drinks at a friend’s new house close to the clubbing district me and another friend, at his behest, headed to the closest strip club. For 3 hours we stared at women with sad eyes dance on a stage, some were middle-aged some young, some high, some pretty and some not – but all, in their own unique way, sad. While we watched waitresses in skimpy outfits brought us drinks and prostitutes propositioned us, the men around me willed themselves, no doubt with the aid of some strong drinks, into believing the fiction. One pretty but clearly high young girl danced to Coldplay’s “Paradise”, the grossly inappropriate lyrics still make me feel ill (“when she was just a girl/ she expected the world/ but it flew away from her reach…). She finished and dressed herself, sat at the bar by herself and stared vacantly into the distance.

Its unfair to say that all women in strip clubs are weak pawns in a male dominated world, some entries here suggest the opposite, but it was true of this place. I went to a strip club to prove to the world I was a man, maybe I did but as the brother to 3 sisters I don’t think I can justify it on the basis of my self esteem again. I’m pretty bad with women but I prefer rejection to guilt.

I'm Happier in Life

I’m married, in my 40’s and have been going to strip clubs for the past 8 months, never having gone to one prior to that. The first time I went I was lucky to have gone to one of the top clubs in the country. I had an amazing experience and was floating for days. I couldn’t believe it – all I did was sit there, and gorgeous girls would come sit on my lap, and talk to me for a bit, then try to sell me a dance. Oh my god, that was incredible just by itself!

Needless to say I bought a bunch of dances – and learned what a lap dance was. Some girls were better at it than others, but again I enjoyed it immensely. I knew that the girls really only had a relationship with my wallet, but that’s fine! In fact, that is part of the beauty of strip clubs, is that you can be there, observe beautiful women, tip, get dances, talk to them, and then when you leave, it’s done – over, no commitments, nothing.

I now go to a couple of different clubs in my hometown every now and then. I love to see beautiful women, scantily clad and then naked on stage. It’s just the truth. Sometimes I laugh at how amazing it is to be able to just show up and be in the company of almost naked women, and all I have to do is tip them.

There are a few girls who I see regularly, they are fun to talk to and they are genuinely interested in me. I think of them as friends, even though there won’t likely be any relationship outside of the club.

So why do I go to strip clubs? Beautiful girls who get naked. Talking to them. Getting dances from them. I’m happier in life. I love others more. It’s all good. I think of myself as a nice guy. I’m successful in my career. People like me. I like them. I love my wife and she loves me.

There’s a lot more I could expand upon here and how I ended up at this point in my life. I’ll just say that I’ve been through some major life experiences that ultimately resulted in breaking free from shackles imposed by self and others. A number of the other letters on this blog are quite sad. It doesn’t have to be that way. Decide what change you want in your life and then work hard towards achieving that. Easier said than done I know, but life is here to be experienced and enjoyed.

I Have a Fetish for Big Fake Boobs

In high school and beyond, I was extremely nerdy. I hardly had a date or a kiss until my mid-20s. At that point, I became reasonably successful with women, but some of the loneliness from those years remains with me. I am fortunate to have a wonderful fiancee, a great job, and an enviable life (I'm now in my mid-30s). But I still go to strip clubs from time to time on my own, and I have not been able to shake my compulsive porn viewing.

I have a fetish for big fake boobs. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. I don't know where it comes from. When I was a teenager and started finding porn, that's what I was drawn to. During my decade plus of enforced chastity, I disappeared farther into a fantasy life, and now it seems to be inextricably linked to my sexuality in some way. They don't have to be insanely huge - although I like that too - but fake in general is what I go for.

My fiancee is a knockout, and has a great body that I get plenty of enjoyment from, including a naturally fantastic chest on a slim figure. We have a healthy sex life. She considers herself more sexually adventurous than me, and in some ways that may be right. But of course I can't talk to her about the fake boobs thing. It's not that I would even want her to get them. And of course, that's not the type of fetish that she and I could enjoy in the privacy of our bedroom. It's an in your face kind of thing.

So, when the urge becomes uncontrollable, I go to strip clubs. I almost inevitably go for the girls who match that particular description (and there are plenty of them out there, so I know I'm not alone). At the club I go to most often (a few times a year), they are very liberal about the touching rules in the back room. So I play with them, talk to the girls about their implants, and generally indulge myself. I could care less about discussing my life or my problems. And I'm also not that interested in discussing their lives, although that depends on the girl and her personality. I'm there for one reason (well, two...haha), and the girls generally respect that. They see all kinds, and I'm definitely not the freakiest customer they'll come across.

There is a whole community online of people (mostly men, of course) who share this fetish. We share pictures and videos, and discuss porn stars' modifications the way sports fans discuss statistics. Unfortunately, this virtual experience isn't really enough, and sometimes I need the "real" thing. I have gotten better - a few years ago, when I was single, I was going to the clubs multiple nights a week - but I am doubtful if I'll ever get over it entirely. In some ways, I hope so, but in some ways, I don't. It's my little secret, I guess, and I can't really imagine myself without that side of me, sad as it sounds.

I Know They Don't Care About My Life

Every guy has their reason for going to a strip club. Poor guys who want to feel powerful. You see them sweat as their carefully hoarded dollar bills dwindle. Bald guys who can't get a date. Insecure types who never learned how to talk to a girl. Lonely guys who have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.

Why do I end up in a strip club every couple of months?

In a word; therapy. The girls there will listen. I know they don't care about my life. That's not the point. A girl is sitting next you totally naked. You don't worry if she is judging you. You can say anything.

Who else can you talk to?

Your business partner? Can't afford to show weakness.

A friend? His wife is friends with your wife so you have to be careful.

A therapist? I've been trained to walk off a heart attack. I never go to a doctor much less a therapist.

But the pressure builds and builds. You lose a big contract. Your foreman gets arrested for drug possession. Your wife keeps pointing out how all her friends went on a ski vacation. The roof decides to leak. Whatever. You have to unwind or you start punching holes in the drywall.

That's where a strip club helps. Of course it's all fake. The saccharine smiles. The fake boobs. Watered down scotch.

But on another level it's as honest as can be. You pay a fee. For this a naked girl sits on your lap and listens.

It's ludicrous. I'm forty, drive a Cadillac, have traveled the world and am fully clothed. The girl is half my age, drove her mothers Hyundai to work, hasn't been out of the state since a trip to Disney World when she was ten and is stark naked.

But she listens for a bit and all is right with the world. That's why I go.

I Like to Think This Is My Revenge

Oh, boy, do I ever like to go to strip clubs. I’ve been going for years, and now that I can afford it, I think it really gives value for the money – I go to an upscale club, where the girls are beautiful, and get five dances in a row from some pretty thing for $100. Here in Mike Bloomberg’s New York, they’re not really “dances” – you sit there and the girls more or less lie on top of you, grinding and bouncing. Typically I have to tell them to slow down and lean back a little so that I can look at their beautiful faces and bodies. When else do I get to do that? (Well, when I go to prostitutes, but you closed that blog.) I love their hair and their lips and their eyes and their smiles – they do like you, for that moment, for that dance. I wish they’d wear perfume, so it would fill my senses completely, but of course they don’t, because most men can’t go home smelling of tarts! I’m old in years – 61 – even though I’m an 18-year-old at heart, and I like to think this is my revenge for all the beautiful women in the world whom I can’t approach, whom I can’t get, this idea that I can have some young beauty dance and smile at me any time I want. I like to talk to them, get them to talk dirty, ask them about what kind of sex they have, and tell them about my own kinky desires. I try to keep it sexy, I don’t want to take the edge off by asking them any questions about their “real” life – and usually this erotic dialogue it ends up with me asking them to marry me. Then the music is over and I tell them to say, “I want to but I can’t,” and then they walk away – what a perfect relationship.

I Was and Am Far Too Serious

I frequented strip clubs for a brief period between 2007 and 2009. I quickly became tired of paying for nothing but attention.

My first foray in 2007 was quite pleasant. The music was loud, but not at a level you couldn't speak to the girls (and quiet enough that the girls could "game" you out of your cash). The drinks were expensive - $9 simply for a water, coke or beer and there was a 2 drink minimum.

The first girl to give me a lap dance was from central Virginia and well endowed in the rear; not so much in the chest (she was shy about taking off her shirt for some reason). Pleasant to speak to and fairly intelligent - I was and am far too serious for the empty headed "party girls" to gravitate towards. I gathered from talking with the dancers that shy fellows were the best tippers.

The times I returned after that I was typically "gamed" by short, busty Hispanic dancers (exotic and curvy is my type). However, lap dances quickly became more restricted - no touching or grinding unless you paid a ridiculous price ($100) for a "private" dance behind a curtain with 5 other men getting the same. I paid for one or two - admittedly entertaining, but pointless. Before I left this was raised for $200 for a private/topless dance which was even more ridiculous (I was never dumb enough to pay this).

The music level was also turned up to ear-damaging volume, which was fine for the screaming partiers, but not for the shyer folks like me (and the dancers good at getting tips and dance money out of them). One positive change- free buffett with decent food, at least on weekends.

A co-worker of mine dated one of the dancers briefly and attempted to set me up with the dancer's cousin. The final time I entered a strip club I met with the dancer (not the cousin). The music level was deafening. I barely said anything to her. The next day I was told I was "creepy" for not attempting to speak when I could not be heard.

I have not had the money to return since my loss of employment in 2009, and would not bother to return to that establishment even if they turned their music down. I enjoy the scantily clad dancing (pasties and thongs are required in VA) but the atmosphere got steadily worse. I also realized that the solitude is the nice thing about celibacy; the not-so-nice thing is...not getting laid.

I'm a 24-Year-Old Drone

I've gone to strip clubs because my life lacks intimacy.

There we go. Might as well just come out with it. Nobody talks to me, nobody cares what I say. I'm a 24-year-old drone who wastes his days sitting at a computer reviewing spreadsheets that don't really matter. Oh, I'm told to believe that they matter, sure. But they don't.

I get there at 8am. I leave at 6pm, and often times I find myself sitting in the parking lot wondering just where the hell to go. My family's far away, I have no friends to speak of; nothing awaits me at my apartment except Netflix and a couple of cold beers. Despite the overall pointlessness of my life, though, I do feel the basic human need to talk to someone. Not even necessarily to vent about how much I hate where I've ended up (especially compared to my childhood dreams of being an astronaut), but just to have someone who listens. Perhaps that's why I'm writing this e-mail, even.

I know the girls at the strip club don't truly listen, don't truly care. I know why they're nice to me, and they know I know it. But they pretend. Most of them pretend to care pretty damn well. When I think about it, that's enough to satisfy that basic human need. I'm sure they're not interested in hearing about my day, or my troubles, or my general dissatisfaction with the state of things, but they'll smile at me, giggle at my not-at-all-funny jokes, and give me some artificial sense of being cared for.

I'm probably the least common denominator; I bet most men go to strip clubs to look at asses, but I don't really talk to the men that much at these clubs. That's one thing I also find interesting about the strip-club scene. It's not at all like the bar scene. At the bar, you talk to the guy next to you; if he's a good guy, you buy him a drink. If he's not, you talk to the other guy. Rinse and repeat till you find someone who deserves a drink. At the strip club, it's not like that. If you didn't come in with a friend, you're not talking to anyone except the bartender and the dancers. It's not a social engagement, it's a spectacle.

I don't even really watch the girls when they're dancing. Sure, I'll tune in when they're pulling off something magnificently acrobatic or abnormally impressive, but most of the time I'm either watching whatever sporting event is being broadcast or pretending to care about whatever impending doom is being vehemently discussed on the news. It's when the girls come around to talk to you that gets me.

They almost always begin by asking why I'm all alone, or why I look "sad". I see what they're doing here; it's all part of their pitch. It's the used car salesman telling you that you look like a busy person who couldn't help but pull into their lot because you were so enticed by their spectacular deals. They know you came for a reason. Everyone's sad. Especially men at strip clubs. The patrons know it. The strippers know it. The guy out on the highway who couldn't afford the cover charge knows it. When you're a stripper, this knowledge of the target market can yield great profits. Appeal personally to the customer's emotions and you're sure to receive great return.

After feeding them whatever lie I come up with about how my friends are busy, or at a birthday party, or otherwise indisposed (to avoid the appearance of being friendless, of course. Who wants the 80%-naked lady to think they're a loser?) they either move on to the next customer or stay a while and talk. The reason I go to places like this is for those moments when they stay and talk. That's all I wanted. They don't have to be naked. They could be wearing a suit of armor for all I care; I just want to talk to someone who cares, and $1 every 3 minutes is a lot less than $250 an hour for a therapist.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I have some awful mental aberration that needs fixing from professional help. I just want to talk to someone. I'm fully aware that these dancing girls do not give half a care about my life or my situation, but they pretend. And they pretend very, very well. It's their job to pretend. That's why they all have fake names.

Strippers provide inauthentic care and concern in an authentic enough manner to satisfy my need to talk to someone, at a reasonable price.