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'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 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.