I Was 15

I was fifteen when I saw my first naked woman in the flesh.  It occurred at a strip club in [redacted] ON. called the [redacted].  I didn’t actually enter the club, of course, being underage at the time.  Instead, I approached it from behind.  The bar was attached to a motel and a lot of the dancers, if they were from out of town, stayed there. The windows in the bathrooms were usually kept open an inch or two in the summer, and if you were lucky you could catch a glimpse of a dancer rinsing off before or after her set.  That’s what I did. I peered through that 1 or 2 inch crack and spied on the dancers showering.  I’m not proud of my behavior, but there you have it.  It can’t be taken back.  Judgmental types will be happy to know I’ve had worse done to me in my life.

I didn’t enter a strip club through the front door until I was a nineteen-year-old student living in [redacted].  It was a big deal for me the first time I went because I was in a new city where I didn’t know anybody and I was lonely.  I thought so many naked women in one place would cheer me up. All I remember of the night now is that I got a bit drunk, became very maudlin and fell in love with a 22 year old Sophie B. Hawkins look-alike who finished each set by disrobing to “Damn, I wish I was Your Lover.” To this day, I’m still moved by that song.

I went to the club about twice a week, usually with my roommate, [redacted].  He was a good-looking catalogue model and very free with his money.  The strippers loved him.  They’d sit on his knee, run their hands through his hair and say things like, “Oh, [redacted], you’ve got such beautiful eyes.”  All while they were emptying his wallet.  It was amusing to watch but after a while it just made me depressed.  Strippers will talk to you but every conversation leads to… So do you want a dance?  Pretty soon you realize that they aren’t even listening; they’re just looking for an opening to ask their question.

One night [redacted] bought me a dance.  To my surprise, I hated the experience.  It wasn’t at all what I expected.  Often you will hear about strippers experiencing a sense of power when they strip; often you will dismiss this as a load of horseshit – you will always be wrong when you do so.  Really, there is nothing more uncomfortable, nothing more emasculating than to be sitting fully clothed in a bar while a naked woman undulates in your lap. You can’t do anything.  You can’t touch her and you can’t kiss her. If she gives you a hard-on, she has you right where she wants you. 

And mentally there was so much I couldn’t get my head around.  My big-hearted roommate bought me a dance to watch me get turned on.  I had watched him get turned on numerous times. I got turned on watching him get turned on. Fuck, the whole bar was full of rugged, hockey-loving, macho men from Northern Ontario, all of them watching one another get turned on by women.  Is it weird that I find this weird? I’ve tried my entire life to get comfortable with these sorts of situations and I’m still not there.

I live in Toronto now.  I love the city, but it isn’t the type of place where I could visit strip clubs regularly.  It’s cold here.  The women won’t even make conversation with you, won’t even pretend to be interested in what you have to say.  It’s all hustle, hustle, hustle and move on.  Some of the women, if they are older, harder, more desperate, can be very persuasive.  They might grab you by the balls and remind you that the menu in the V.I.P. area is much more open than the menu downstairs.  You’re best just to drink your beer and leave.  But….

It isn’t all bad.  I remember once, years ago, in a place long since closed, I had a memorable experience.  It was a second floor club on [redacted] Street called [redacted], or possibly [redacted], I can’t remember.  It was Toronto’s non-alcoholic strip club.  You paid ten dollars at the door and could spend all night drinking orange juice and watching the girls.  No one bothered you to buy a six-dollar beer, no one hustled you for a lap dance. If you didn’t want to drink, you didn’t have to drink. The crowd was a quirkier, lower testosterone collection of older guys than you would find elsewhere. When I walked in the door, I knew I’d found my place.

The women were different, too. They ranged from young students to older housewives and no one had fake tits or walnut tans. They danced to odder, less commercial music. Some of them put on performances more burlesque in nature and some of them performances more … gynecological.  I had a great time watching. I even picked out a girl for a private dance. 

She led me down a hallway lined with small booths.  There were no doors on the booths, just acrylic bead curtains, and I could see that some of the activity going on wasn’t quite above the board.  I was nervous and I even started to shake a bit; part of me wanted to run out.  We entered a booth containing two small stools; she sat against the wall and I sat almost in the doorway the booth was so small.  When a new song began she started to move herself against the wall and run her hands slowly up and down her body.  I knew she must have been acting but it seemed real.  I shifted on my stool and tried to hide the fact that I was getting aroused. I wanted to look unimpressed and leave after one song. 

“It’s okay if you want to make yourself a little more comfortable.”

I ended up staying for four songs.  Afterwards, she shook my hand and said her name was [redacted], told me to come back some time and choose her again. I’d never been so excited by a woman in my life and I wanted to ask her out. I didn’t have the nerve to do it, though. How do you ask such a question after you’ve just paid $60 to jerk off with someone?  Maybe you just ask.

I’m forty-one now and I don’t go to strip clubs anymore.  I find them dreary places. I think I still have some things to work out but I’ll do the work elsewhere.           

I Was Terrified of Women

My visits to strip clubs started out as aversion therapy. I was terrified of women and in my early thirties I was not only single, but had never even had a relationship. I think perhaps that this should be explained in more depth because it will make things clearer for you.  I think I first asked out a girl when I was about 20 and only after an immense amount of soul searching and terror. She turned me down and I have to say, so did the rest of the girls that I asked out subsequently. So after ten years of rejection I decided to try counseling, which didn't work, largely because I didn't want to admit to myself what the real root cause of the problem was. Dating agencies got me on dates, but I tended to freeze up and run out of things to talk about, so people tended not to want to see me again. I had a problem without a solution. 

As I said, I suffered a crippling fear of women and this was due to a schoolteacher I was unfortunate to have when I was about 6 years old. Always shy and a little afraid of things and with an abiding fear of being 'told off', the teacher had an unfortunate tendency to interpret lack of understanding on the part of her pupils as a disciplinary issue. I distinctly remember her trying to teach me to tell the time, but I could not grasp the hour-minute duality of the clock face. In the end she gave up and made me stand outside the classroom for the rest of the day. In my year with this person she physically assaulted me, screamed at me everyday and I was thrown around and out of classroom on a weekly basis. I can still see her face clearly today. 

All of this left me with an abiding fear of women and also asking questions, largely because I had learned to be afraid of the consequences. I developed self esteem issues as well and became socially isolated. Most of this I conquered, but getting a girlfriend was always the final thing to be overcome. But first I had to overcome my fear of women. I then had a brilliant idea. I reasoned that if I was too scared to even speak to a girl in a normal bar, if I could muster the courage to speak to a stripper in a club it would be like aversion therapy. Strippers were very frightening to me, but it was a controlled environment so nothing could go wrong. Also as attractive girls were there all of the time, I could try as many times as I liked....

It took me a year of visiting clubs on a weekly basis before I actually managed to strike up a conversation with a stripper. Slowly my fear started to recede. My first ever date was with a stripper, although it wasn't exactly a date, she said she was hungry and I blurted out that maybe we could get something to eat. She agreed and after carefully leaving the venue separately, I had my first time out in a restaurant with a women. 

If you are thinking that this is a happy ending story, it is and it isn't. You see, the issue was that I started to get a reputation as being a 'nice' person to talk to for the dancers, so soon I was never short of people to talk to and sometimes I even asked them out and by and large I was successful. I ended up living with a dancer for 18 months and despite breaking up, we are still friends. Later I tried to transfer my new found confidence and skill to the outside world and sadly I failed again and failed repeatedly. You see, I overcame my fear of women, but only if they are strippers. 

In recent years, now I am well into my 40s I have decided to be content as I am. I still visit clubs, but for different reasons now. They are a good place to be alone or have company when I want it. I could't really care less about private dances and most times don't even look at the stage. I know most of the male customers and it works for me. Its like 'Cheers' with tits. Its a community that I like to be part of. When things in the rest of my life are bad, I know that I can escape from the problems for a couple of hours in a club and its the best therapy ever (cheaper than a therapist as well).

So going to clubs turned me into a better person. I soon stopped harbouring thoughts of revenge on that awful school teacher. I remember her and at times I wonder who else she may have damaged, but that's the extent of it. The one thing I do know is that the respect I showed the dancers was mostly returned to me 10 times over and without the clubs, I dread to think what would have become of me. So my initial purpose  for going to clubs no longer exists and to some extent the whole thing is running on inertia.  One day I know I will stop and not return, but for the time being, that's always next year.

I found peace with myself and that is priceless.

I'm a Single Heterosexual Man with a Sex Drive

Why do I go to strip clubs? To be honest, and at the risk of coming off as pretentious, it’s a bit complicated.

I suppose the first and most straightforward honest answer to that is that I’m a single heterosexual man with a sex drive, I consequently enjoy seeing women naked, and strip clubs offer me a chance to do so. Ergo, I go to strip clubs to fulfill these urges. There are, of course, other ways to do this, some perhaps cheaper, or more satisfying, or perhaps more morally, socially and ethically justifiable. But I find strip clubs have an appeal that some of these lack.

A more complex answer is that I go to strip clubs to at least partly fill the void that is my completely non-existent sex life. The obvious question here is, of course, ‘why not get a girlfriend’? Unfortunately, in my case at least, that’s easier said than done. To be honest, I have self-esteem issues, and I’m rather shy and uncomfortable in social settings. While some of my closest ever friends have been women, I’m not very confident or assertive in bridging the friendship-romantic partner divide; I was actually in love with one of these women but found myself unable to express my feelings to her before she moved out of my life, something which I think is still affecting my ability to establish romantic and sexual relationships.

Outside of these friendships I find approaching women romantically or sexually difficult and embarrassing, to the point where I am on the point of entering my thirties and remain a virgin. I'm not automatically opposed to one-night stands, but I'm hardly a player and women don't seem to be that in to me. Strip clubs, then, offer an environment where this isn’t really a problem -- and where women, in fact, are approaching me, although I’m not naive enough to believe that this is for any other reason than me being a potential customer (although, while I'm hardly an Adonis, I do flatter myself that I'm not completely repulsive to these ladies, and do at least try to make an effort and be presentable for them).

Despite the above, however, I honestly wouldn’t say I was incredibly or painfully lonely, at least not to the degree that some have described on the blog; in fact, I’m naturally a quite solitary person and quite comfortable being on my own for long periods. But I still have needs. Besides the obvious lack of sex, I’m not very happy being single, and the lack of a girlfriend or partner in my life is a cause of some depression (particularly when I consider those around me and the fact that I’m getting older). I want to make a connection with someone and with a stripper I am at least able to temporarily do so, even if it is artificial and ultimately meaningless.

Furthermore, while I watch pornography to satisfy these urges more often than I go to a club -- I'm a bit of a homebug and it's cheaper and less hassle to load up a site rather than go out for the evening -- I much prefer the strip club experience over pornography. Porn is unrealistic and exaggerated, it puts you at a distance, whereas in a strip club it's all happening there, right in front of you. There's a tangibility and reality to the experience that is lacking in porn. Besides which, I often feel uncomfortable, depressed and unfulfilled after watching porn, while an evening at a strip club will, conversely, often cheer me up and boost my confidence and spirits for a while afterwards.

At the other end of the scale, prostitution does not really appeal -- in my most depressive or sexually frustrated moments I’ve considered it, but I’m concerned about issues regarding consent, exploitation, disease and legality which are conversely not part of the strip club experience, or at least not to what seems like the same degree. While it’s certainly not unproblematic, stripping and even lap-dancing seems less objectionable than prostitution; there are limits there. It might not be a complete sexual experience, but least after visiting a strip club I can look myself in the mirror afterwards, which I’m not sure I could do if I engaged the services of a prostitute.

Strip clubs offer me something of a half-way point between these; it might not be 'full' sex, but it is nevertheless a sexually-charged experience I find more-or-less satisfying. While I’m happy to just watch the main performances, I will usually get a lap-dance (sometimes more than one) if it’s offered. To be honest, I love them. I find them exhilarating; not just because of the obvious ‘tits and ass’ on offer (although I can’t honestly claim to be above those visceral pleasures), but it’s the little things I tend to enjoy and take most out of the experience; the weight of a woman sitting on my lap, her breath in my ear, the scent of her perfume in my nose or, in the case of one establishment which permitted contact between the dancer and the patron (within obvious limits), the feel of her skin under my hands.

After my first few experiences, once I’d gotten over the immediate embarrassment and awkwardness I found I enjoyed the company of the ladies; even if they were just viewing me as a customer, in the few establishments I’ve visited they have, at least for the most part, been pleasant, charming and friendly about it. I also find that strip clubs provide a ‘safe’ environment to practice my flirting techniques; I’m not very good, and after saying something I often feel embarrassed and sheepish and worry that I sound like an idiot, but I at least try not to be crude and the women at least tend to respond in good humour. I’ve never got the sense that I’ve upset or offended any of them, at least. So, another reason why I go to them; I find I enjoy the company.

All this said, I’m conscious that strip clubs are problematic. While I might enjoy the experience, I’m not proud of myself for visiting them, and afterwards tend to feel a bit guilty. I don’t go to clubs often -- a handful of times a year at most. I find I've gone years without going to a club, although since my main social circles have dissipated of late I’ve found I’ve recently started going to them more often. I’ve been doing this a few years, and even now I often have to build my courage up for even weeks at a time before I can work up the nerve to go out and I still get paranoid about bumping in to someone I know or something terrible happening that reveals my secret. Sometimes, I can’t even enter the door if there happens to be other people out on the street.

There’s a few reasons behind this; I was raised Catholic, but to be honest religion hasn’t been a bit part of my life since I was a teenager, and I find many religious teachings on sexuality absurd and outdated. I’d say it was more political; I was raised to respect women, and have studied and worked in environments which stress feminist values and women’s rights. Visiting strip clubs and getting lap-dances is, in many ways, contrary to what I have been taught about this, and I can’t help but feel that I’m doing something wrong, that I’m making these women’s lives worse and contributing to the oppression of women and such by doing so. I’m also a bit awkward and uncomfortable with my sexuality, and ‘repressed’ isn’t an entirely unfair word to describe me, which doesn’t make things easier. I can’t help but feel that I’m to a degree objectifying and judging the women involved, and then feel bad for doing so.

When I do go to a club, then, I at least try to be respectful and polite; these women might make their money taking their clothes off for men, but that’s no reason to treat them like objects or possessions. If I flirt with the ladies, I try to do so in a way that’s not offensive or crude, and I tend to let them take charge, make the first move and defer to them. I’m not great with alcohol, and I don’t drink much anyway, but I tend to strictly stick to water or soft-drinks. I make sure to strictly observe the rules and limits of the establishment and those the ladies set down on top of this. I also try to control my reactions to the women themselves; I’m pretty socially awkward anyway, and I’m self-conscious of not appearing like a creep or a lech. Nevertheless, I like to think the ladies I’ve encountered have gone away from the encounter considering me a gentleman -- or as much as is possible for me to be in an environment where a half-naked woman has her breasts right in my face, at least.

I Had Forgotten How Nice Natural Feels

Going to strip clubs in Las Vegas is fun. Women hit on you all night trying to get a big tip. Strippers are women that would not talk to you in the real world or spread rumors about you just because you said hello. One stripper got upset because I thought her natural breasts where the new silicone implants. I have felt so many saline implants that I had forgotten how nice natural feels.

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'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.

I Was a Teenager

My going to strip clubs had two distinct phases.

The first was when I was a teenager at an all boys boarding in England (we used to say: "Better to have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother at an English boarding school").  The motivation was curiosity, desire to find sex (for the first time) - basically general horniness.  Didn't do much to alliviate the problems, but sure spent a big part of my allowance.

As a grownup, I found myself at strip clubs in New Orleans and Las Vegas.  Went because that is where my buddies wanted to go.  Disappointing and expensive.  Found that my girlfriends were open to anything (and more) that the strippers provided, plus my girlfriends liked my jokes.  Bottom line, didn't get anything that I didn't get better at home.  Also, I like my intimacy in private.

The friends who wanted to go, were typically the ones who were not happily married, or who (as far as could be determined from conversations) had sexual needs that their partners were not willing/able to meet.

Bottom line, for me a strip club is far more interesting in concept than in reality.