Guys usually go one of two ways: either they’ve never been and feel just a little uncomfortable with the situation (though they probably won’t admit it), or they’re in it whole hog. A woman’s behavior, by contrast, is the result of millions of complicated thought patterns, and therefore endlessly more interesting.
There’s a lot of weird stuff that goes into nakedness. We Americans especially seem to have our Spanks in a twist over our natural selves. I can watch a woman get stabbed on network TV, but for some reason a vulva is sinful. Well, the twisted American morality article will be reserved for a later date, and probably for someone more educated than me. The point is, our culture plays a big part in our feelings about nudity, especially a nude stranger being paid to entertain us. Talk about complications. It’s a wonder our little Puritan brains don’t explode from the concept.
Kristie and I have christened a few stripper virgins in our days, and we’ve witnessed a broad spectrum of emotional responses. I think a lot of it has to do with expectations, as with most of life’s situations. There’s a whole mythology surrounding the strip club. I believe mythology is a fitting word because, more often than not, the real experience is wholly anticlimactic after the fantasy. After all, that’s what these girls are selling: an imaginary companionship.
Within that imaginary companionship encapsulates the customer’s tailor-made, and often completely insane mind you, idea of what this stripper, and vicariously the customer’s “fantasy woman,” should be. Some people want a girl next door, some want a nasty ho, some want a fun party girl, and some literally want a shoulder on which to cry. No one I know has ever cried on a stripper (although one cried on me), but I have heard stories, and I believe them.
So it’s her job to size you up and figure out the type of fantasy you’re looking for, and then execute that fantasy. That’s like the Ph.D. of customer service. Prostitutes take the easy way out; any moron in makeup can grab a guy’s dick and get his attention. The guys in the strip club are shelling out dollars for a big tease.
So I admire these females, yes I do, for their skills of suggestion and captivation, and for their seemingly impenetrable self esteem. If they disappear behind the curtain and cry themselves to sleep every night, I’m sorry, but you fooled me. I’m talking about the good ones, of course; the Hidden Whores and Melanie Griffiths of the stripper world are a separate subject; I’m not a psychiatrist and I’m not here to fix anyone. To quote David Mamet, your excuses are your own.
For the uninitiated, I believe the strip club symbolizes a gateway of sorts, like how Republicans and stupid people think about marijuana. It’s the first stepping stone to debauchery. Everyone’s got their own sliding scale, I suppose: dressing up like a clown and whipping your husband with a bull penis behind closed doors is a fun marital activity, but watching a woman spin around a pole is morally questionable. This is a dangerous form of hypocrisy, because in reality the important variable in the clown flogging equation is the closed door. The strip club, while a bit of a self-contained universe, is open to the public. While these women are baring their bodies, the patrons, in turn, play with the possibility of baring a piece of their souls. The honest person, that is, the person who isn’t embarrassed of their appreciation of a naked body, is exposing his own vulnerabilities and sensitivity to the world. Those that hesitate to do so are either afraid or genuinely disinterested, and believe me, the latter are an extreme rarity compared to the former.
Kristie knew a girl, well she sort of knew her. We’ll call her Agatha. She is a family friend, or friend of a family friend, or something like that, who was single at the time and has since married and maybe even had a kid. The Powers That Be sort of schlubbed Agatha onto us in an uncomfortable Blind Date sort of scenario.
Y’know when someone of imaginary authority tells you, “Oh, you should meet so-and-so, you two would really get along,” and they’re never, ever right? But you can’t exactly say no, because then you would look like an uppity anti-social asshole?
Agatha was exceptionally plain and mediocre to the point of amnesia. She comes from that repressed OTP Baptist culture, and she drinks the Kool-Aid. Regularly. She pisses kiwi-strawberry, she loves the Kool-Aid so much. That’s why it came as such a surprise when she suggested the strip club.
Word travels fast in Buford, thanks to a few choice bored and comfortable housewives who homestead out in those parts. Suffice it to say that our after hours exploits are well known in some circles.
I guess we just bring the freak out in people. In no way is that bragging, and we are not drama-seekers, despite accusations. That being said, events that unfold around us tend to be very amusing, especially for Kristie and me. We don’t catalyze anything; we allow the ingredients to mix, as they so often enthusiastically do.
I think it’s partly because Kristie and I are very good at putting people at ease. As a result, they tend to open up and, gasp, actually be themselves. That’s why we’re often labeled “bad influences.” We’re bad because people do what they want to do when they’re around us.
Nevertheless, OTP Baptist Agatha was the last person we expected to suggest a den of iniquity as the venue for our inaugural bread breaking.
It should probably go without saying that the whole night was pretty awkward. We had nothing in common with this girl, and my roommate’s clumsy come ons were exhausting rather than entertaining. Kristie just got as drunk as she could. I, ever the DD, was not so lucky.
People, trust me, you can’t walk into the strip club doubting yourself. They’re like bees: they can smell fear. Next to telegraphing your terror, the worst thing you can do in the strip club is sit at a table with a pissy face and not tip any of the dancers.
Picture yourself in the situation: you’re at the strip club for the first time, and you won’t even walk up to the stage and give the lady a dollar? That’s like going to Six Flags for the rich cultural experience. She wouldn’t budge. It was a passive hate fest from the jump.
I know what happened to her. A little door had cracked in Agatha’s mind. The Strip Club. The first stepping stone to debauchery, corruption, the dark side of the psychological moon. The chocolate in the black and white cookie. For some reason, she chose Kristie and me to be the heroes to lead her into the Underworld. Once she glimpsed into the abyss, however, she realized that she couldn’t handle it. She shut down. Not exactly the most graceful way to the handle the situation.
She slept on our couch (not for lack of trying on my roommate’s behalf) and, like a bad dream, was gone when we awoke. We haven’t seen or talked to her since, and my memory of her continues to fade. Kristie remembers caked on makeup and fake nails. The kind of thing I wouldn’t really pay attention to anyway.
I wonder how she tells the story. Maybe instead of the heroes, we’re the devils that tempted her into the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After all, how can one possibly know Good without knowing the other? Something tells me not many people have heard the story from her. For us, she’s Reverse Beer Goggles Girl, the only girl that actually gets uglier the more you drink.
As a sort of epilogue, we found out a few days later that she’d spun a tiny, limp web of her own, implying an “inappropriate” relationship with Kristie and her father. Turns out, Kristie told Agatha a story that you’ve probably heard by now if you know Kristie.
As a five year old, she and her Dad were at the video store. When they got up to the counter, Kristie spotted an ad for a Helllraiser movie and blurted, “Look Daddy, it’s Pinhead!” Apparently, the ability for a five year old to recognize Pinhead disturbed the video store clerk quite a bit. The point of the story is Freddy raised Kristie on horror movies, an upraising very similar to mine (more like Bloodsport and Commando for me) and a characteristic that really helped bring us together early in our relationship. The fact that she can give her opinions on the Hellraiser movies is a rare attribute in a female, and one reason I love her so much. So watching Cenobites with Dad became an inappropriate relationship. Large order of Projection Soufflé, anyone?
What? My first time? That’s not much of a story.
Well, OK. I was 17. I won’t tell you which strip club I went to, but I will tell you a Motley Crue song is involved. I had the good fortune at the age of 17 to meet a mentor of sorts, or perhaps a devil depending on the perspective. I think he was about 35 at the time, with the maturity of roughly 14. The strip club was a whim on his part. We worked together, and we were trying to decide where to go to lunch.
Most people find, working in one place for an extended period of time, you tend to go to the same places a lot. It’s like, Subway, Chick-Fil-A, or you tear your own fucking foot off and roast it. You eat that same goddamn Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki until you’d rather commit seppuku than think of the word Teriyaki. So, we went with the logical choice: strip club. “I can get you in,” he says.
I was so fucking scared. Looking back now, I couldn’t imagine what I perceived might be the consequences of the strip club finding out my age. Embarrassment. I guess that was it. But I think I was in some stage of shock as my friend led me into the dark, noisy, flashing, smoke-filled room.
And the naked lady was right there. In my memory, she has the makeup and hair as though a 30’s pin up girl, black waves and death red lips. Her pubic hair is a perfect black triangle. I can’t really remember what she was wearing, but it reminds me of a picnic tablecloth. Older, adult, half naked girls everywhere looking at me and smiling. Overwhelming? Just a little.
My friend is the kind of guy that’ll say anything and everything, and will do anything and everything. Every day with him is Hurricane Katrina. When I was 17, it was the baddest good and the goodest bad, and I can’t think of a better way to put it.
One of the strippers sat down with us and rattled off with my friend for a few minutes, and I just sat trying to contain the active volcano inside of me, sure that I would somehow be found out at any moment. Then I’m hearing my friend’s voice over the music, “Do it to him, do it to him,” and his fat finger jabbing into my shoulder, and then the lady squirted milk into my eye, and my friend laughed his ass off. Yep, first timer. That was me. I think I ate a cheeseburger.
I’m into containment like that. I’ve always been a late bloomer, even on a small scale. The first time you meet me is Introductory Ben. Let me just apologize right now, because I know it isn’t fair. At least I can admit it though, right? There are a lot of people out there claiming to be “real,” when I often wonder if they’re even vaguely in control of their physical behavior, much less come to terms with who or what they actually are.
The truth is, whether or not you want to admit it, it’s experiences like these that test our boundaries; and the fact is, most people find themselves overwhelmed.
We had another first timer, a girl that was sorta kinda dating a friend of ours. We’ll call her Agatha. I have no physical evidence of this, but I’m pretty sure those two had some weird foursome plans for us. Maybe I’m just self absorbed, but I have my reasons for having this theory which will be reserved for DeleriumJ: After Hours, distributed by HBO, yet to be released.
Agatha’s the kind of girl who really wants to be the life of the party. She wants it so bad, she has to constantly tell everybody how fun she is and how much everyone likes her. When her soul frowns, her mouth smiles. If she was a stripper, fucking forget about behind the curtain, she’d burst into tears right there on stage.
So you can imagine the psychosomatic bells and whistles when our friend actually convinced Agatha to come out to the strip club for the first time.
Girls, let me just tell you right now: The Clermont Lounge doesn’t fucking count. OK? Get over it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve asked a girl if she’s been to a strip club, and she’s looked ever so slightly up and to the right and said, “Well, I’ve been to the Clermont.”
The Clermont is not a strip club. The Clermont is a freak show for frat boys and the dumb bitches they manage to lure there. The Clermont is a Circus Handjob Factory, and every performer is the Fat Bearded Lady, and the audience is an unwashed trucker named Big Bud.
Don’t get me wrong: I like freak shows too. Who doesn’t? I once spent six months watching nothing but Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, and the 700 Club. I believe I love freaks more than the average Joe, but be fair: don’t call the place a strip club just because the freak is shaking her flabby labia at you.
It’s a totally different dynamic because females remain unchallenged in this domain. Do you get it now? It all boils down to comparison. The Fat Bearded Lady will bounce off your girlfriend’s Esteem Shield like a potato bug. The Dollhouse, on the other hand, well: remember the bees?
I’ll just go ahead and tell you, because dammit, it’s important to the story. My friend was fucking this girl because he could. There were some small sweet feelings in there, but a relationship just wasn’t going to happen. Guys, you’ve probably done this before, and girls, you’ve probably had this happen to you at some point. Sorry. Single guys will fuck you if you give it to them. It’s a sad, simple fact, like the grease after a good bacon fry. Regardless:
She came. She even paid to get in. It was understandably awkward.
You may recall a certain lap dance involving a crazy, blond short stack and my girlfriend one night when I made a stripper cry. Well, Agatha walked in on that. The stripper hadn’t cried yet, and all was serene and awesome as this naked chick was busy climbing all over Kristie like a spider monkey. Agatha came in from a pool party looking like chlorine on a stick. Then we all got to meet for the first time! I think you see where I’m going here.
She wanted to impress him by showing him how cool of a girl she could be, and thereby somehow convince him that she was worth pursuing. Girls play this game a lot.
Agatha didn’t shut down like the first one. It was more of a screen saver. Her soul frowned, and she smiled, and the smile only left when she thought no one was looking. Then I bet she went home and cried.
I feel like in many ways I’m discouraging anyone curious in becoming a first timer. It isn’t always negative! In fact, sometimes, if you’re lucky, it can be quite the opposite.
We got to know this married couple through circumstances more complicated to explain here. We’ll call them Cindy and Blaine.
(he’s gonna hate me for giving him that name)
Blaine is kind of a quiet guy, neat and polite, but with a really loud laugh, cheerful and conscious of others. Cindy is a little bit younger and, having school and childbirth out of the way, was ready to have some fun.
I’ll never forget my conversation between Blaine and me, because we were discussing what to do, and I, believe it or not, wasn’t really feeling up for the strip club. He took me aside, squeezing my shoulder just a little harder than he should, and said, “Dude, I might not get another chance to do this.” So, charitable young gentleman that I am, I reluctantly obliged.
I’m glad we went. Gabby is Kristie’s current favorite (sorry, Faith), a tall, pretty black girl covered in tattoos and piercings. Gabby’s friend is Marilyn, and I think the figure on fire covering one side of her rib cage is indeed Marilyn Monroe. She is a short, cute white girl with varying hair colors and styles. Together, they really made sure Kristie had a great birthday party, but that was weeks later.
On the night out with Cindy and Blaine, I literally witnessed an awakening. Meeting Cindy, you might think she was shy, or even meek, appearing to second guess herself at every turn. She settled in slowly, asking every question that entered her head as she gobbled Bud Light like a fucking champion.
“So…when I get up to the stage, what am I supposed to say?”
Crazy stuff like that. There’s really only one piece of advice: relax and have a good time. Or is that two pieces?
Kristie led Cindy up to the stage, fluttering her dollar at Marilyn’s jiggling ass. She’d nested at the table for a while, surveying the others before settling on Marilyn. Cindy slipped the dollar under Marilyn’s garter, and it was over from there. It was like Tsunami had just smoked his first crack rock. She was hooked.
Gabby and Marilyn ended up sitting and hanging out with us most of the night, as they usually do, and Cindy had the time of her life. Blaine got to watch Marilyn bounce her ass all over his wife, and honestly, the rest of us were tickled to death to see this brand new side to both of them. Imagine: people doing what they want to do, and enjoying themselves.
I go to the bathroom, give the huge guy with the pipe a dollar for working the faucets and squirting soap in my hands, come back to the table, and Cindy is giving Marilyn a lap dance. That was an original sight for me, not to mention the rest at our table: a naked stripper in the chair, with a drunk, fully-clothed lady grinding on her.
And then we all got drunk and screamed along to the songs, and literally had to negotiate Cindy out of the place when it was time to close. Good fucking night.
In all honesty, I don’t think it’s fair to call you a pussy just because you aren’t interested in sitting in a smoke-filled room, drink expensive drinks, and watch strangers take their clothes off for dollar bills. But I still will. Pussy!
THE END.
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