A reader named Sarah recently wrote in about a conversation she had with her husband about strip clubs:
My husband today mentioned the time he took his younger brother to a strip club when the brother turned 21. I laughed a bit, and said, “wow! i never heard that story before!” A few more teasing words were said between the 3 of us, and Imentioned that if he ever took our (still non-existent) son to a strip club i’d be furious. I assumed no more needed to be said, as the whole idea of it was so ludicrous and that my husband wouldn’t do something so creepy and so anti-women with a son of ours.
My husband shocked me by saying that yes, he would take our kid to a strip club and he doesn’t see why it would matter to me if “our son is getting married, and we all go to a titty bar for the bachelor party. it’s not like i’d encourage him to cheat!” I was left sputtering and a little disturbed, and totally unsure on how to proceed with this conversation as my husband is a man who’s always respected women and agreed on these matters. (or I obviously wouldn’t have married him!)
I’m no fan of strip clubs for a host of reasons. But Sarah’s email isn’t really about strip clubs — it’s about the problem of homosociality, a topic I’ve written about many times before. (Homosociality is the notion that for American men in particular, the approval of other males is of paramount concern, even more sought after than validation from women.) One of the most odious features of homosociality is the way in which it employs women’s bodies as devices for bonding men together. For example, many women are perplexed (as well as infuriated) by the habit young (and not-so-young) men have of cat-calling female pedestrians from passing cars. “Why do they slow down and whistle at me, making those comments?” a young woman asks; “Do they really think I’m going to get in the car with them?” The answer, of course, is that the fellas in the car are far less interested in the woman they’re harassing than in bonding with each other. They demonstrate their heterosexual bona fides to each other, and in the process of humiliating women on the street, forge a closer homosocial relationship. (It’s more than anecdotal to point out that groups of men, having just harassed a woman sexually, will high-five each other; one of the most devastating depictions of this comes in the rape scene from “Boys Don’t Cry”.)
Going to a strip club, of course, isn’t necessarily analogous to participating in a gang rape. But fathers and older brothers have been taking their sons and younger brothers to “titty bars” and brothels for a long time; in parts of Latin America, the practice is particularly common. The stated purpose may be an “initation into manhood” for a teen boy, or a bacchanalian farewell to bachelorhood for a man about to be wed. But there’s invariably more to it than that. Wives and girlfriends, not unreasonably, suspect that the motive is sexual: fathers and brothers may claim to be doing it as a favor for a son or a sibling, but in reality they’re just looking for an opportunity for “justified infidelity” of one kind or another. That may be true, but there’s a deeper and more common reason: a longing for homosocial intimacy.
Going to a baseball game is the paradigmatic “father-son” bonding activity. But for many men, sporting events are less effective than strip clubs as homosocial strategies. Women haven’t been excluded as spectator from ball parks for generations; very few wives and mothers actively disapprove of sports. (They may find watching sports dull, but that’s hardly the same.) Men in our society, as countless scholars of gender have pointed out, are socialized to find particular delight and meaning in activities from which women are excluded, or which most women find repugnant and objectionable. American boys prove their manhood, after all, through their rejection of their mothers’ values; to care too deeply about what mom thinks is to be a sissy, a mama’s boy. And need I point out how many American men have relationships with wives and girlfriends that closely resemble the mother-son dynamic? Mama might not object to taking little brother to the Yankees game — but she’s likely to be less pleased with a sojourn to the titty bar down the block.
The effectiveness of strip clubs as a homosocial bonding strategy is thus linked to two things: the shared sense the male patrons have that their wives and mothers disapprove of their being there, and the opportunity to establish their credentials as “red-blooded, straight American guys” by sharing the experience of objectifying women’s bodies. A single man in a strip club, nursing a beer, is seen as a vaguely pathetic — or perhaps threatening — figure; a group of men on a “stag night” in that same club are anything but. What is unacceptable in solitude is admirable and manly when done in solidarity with other males.
For men who, perhaps like Sarah’s husband, who have not yet done the vital work of learning how to establish intimate relationships with other men which do not require the objectification of women as “bonding glue”, the homosocial appeal of the strip club experience is tremendous. But women aren’t cement to hold together that which can’t otherwise be joined. Emotionally competent adult males don’t use either women’s revulsion or women’s bodies in order to establish closeness and cameraderie with each other. And men’s universal capacity to become emotionally competent — at a relatively young age — is very real. The fact that so many choose not to exercise that capacity is not evidence that they lack it.
Let me boast about a past experience:
A number of years ago, I worked for a startup company with about 7 other men, and no women. It happened that we were able to expand and hire a few more people, including some women, at the same time as the company president’s birthday came around. Some of the guys thought it would be a fine thing if we hired a “strip-a-gram” to celebrate. I don’t know if this service is still available, but what happens is that a woman comes in on some pretext, and she starts up a music player, and takes off her clothes, all or some, according to what you’ve agreed to pay. So my co-workers came around all excited, asking if I’d chip in a few bucks to hire this poor wretch to come in and humiliate herself. I mumbled some words, but inside I was saying “No way, pal.” I resisted the impulse to suggest that if that’s the kind of thing they wanted, we could all take a day off and go to the nude beach.
But how to handle this? Give a moral lecture and get everyone ticked off at me, and ruin the party? I still don’t know if this was the right thing to do, but I kept quiet until the word was passed around that the performer had arrived, in the guise of someone from one of our client companies. At that point I quietly left by the back door, and went around the block to an academic facility which had a reading room, where I spent an hour reading technical journals. When people asked what happened to me, I muttered about “That stuff just isn’t my kind of thing”.
Although I didn’t say much to anyone, I was curious about how the guys’ wives had reacted, if the men had told them. I asked a couple of them about this. One said, “Oh, she said it sure must have shaken Matt [the company president] up a bit!” (For the record: yes, it did.) The other man was younger, and he said, “It was a real surprise. I told my wife and she went dead silent. I hardly got a word out of her the next day, either.” So, some women seem to react pretty strongly to this kind of thing. My own partner said, “I’m proud of you.” Preen, preen.
When this event was mentioned later (much later, years later) the way the vice-president talked about it was “John was a conscientious objector”, and that’s about right. By the way, this man was one of the ringleaders in hiring the stripper. At the time he sang in a church choir and was a Boy Scout leader. Sigh.
This speaks to a certain insecurity about masculinity that seems to be ascendant these days. Ties in nicely with this post at Feministing about an upcoming film descrying the decline in population testosterone and masculinity http://anemasculatingtruth.com/ .
I don’t know what to make of that.
It is not really objectifying if the people “objectified” are willing participants. If that were the case, then attending sporting events is far more objectifying, particularly given that the players put themselves at far greater physical risk purely for the audience’s entertainment.
That said, the disapproval of women does not appear to be a factor in men going to strip clubs. This is demonstrated by Sarah’s husband’s response. He does not think there is anything wrong with going to a strip club or taking his son there. The practice of visiting strip clubs with a group of friends appears to be more a bastardized version being initiated into sex. Women who visit male strip clubs engage in the same shared experience of “objectifying” men’s bodies and also view it as completely harmless.
However, I do agree that males using strip clubs as a method of male bonding is likely a symptom of a longing for homosocial bonding. A strip club is one of the few remaining activities which allows males to define the group dynamic themselves and has not so thoroughly vilified or mocked (such as male interest in sports or cars) that they lose face by participating in it. It also does not come with the same level of social baggage that gamers, techies or fanboys deal with. Likewise, it is not something women will demand participation in (even as women exclude males from female-oriented groups). Essentially, going to a strip club is “safe.” That women are offended when men visit female strip clubs (but not when women visit male strip clubs) is at best incidental.
I have to say, I find it a bit confusing that Hugo can sometimes be so on the nose and nail things so well, and other times leave me scratching my head and wondering whether he’s never met a man, or whether I’ve never.
This is more or less the latter. I don’t know how one is supposed to relate actual men, and actual men’s behaviours to this description. I don’t know where a group of men in strip club aren’t at least “vaguely pathetic” (though not as colossally so as someone flying solo). I can’t imagine anyone choosing to go to a stripclub with their father. (The inverse might be possible - certainly I’ve seen trips to stripclubs used to calm down men who were in the “Nice Guy” must never express any interest in a woman place; something a father might want to do to a son who’s extreme in their refusal to think of women on some relatively equal plane where one can legitimately/ethical express interest - which, contextually, might be “getting approval from other men” though I can’t imagine it’s preferable, it might win on being possible.)
I spent a fair amount of raucous time in my younger years in strip clubs in the Marines (at many posts, such spaces serve effectively as the primary off-base social commons for male servicemembers: women and liquor all for a price in one place). Years later, I participated in one more call to such a place on a weekend trip with friends to Vegas (I was 27, a civilian again, and married by then), and found myself rather disgusted, both at the cheapness and mercenary nature of the place and what went on there and personally at being there. So I suppose I’ve seen this sort of thing through both younger and (somewhat) older eyes.
My impressions are, first, that I think immaturity drives a lot of this, either immaturity and/or a distorted view of young manhood and the path forward. From what I remember, going out, while it was what we did as a group, was part of “holding your own” as a guy. You got the dancers to crawl and pole-dance for dollar bills, got a $20 lap dance, talked shit about the ones with stretch marks or who were “old” or had obvious drug habits, got as shitfaced as you could and still stand, etc. Sometimes it boiled over to a bit more than that: I have two scars on my face from fights that broke out in clubs, and saw a fair number of guys catch various kinds of legal or administrative beef over stuff that started there. Either way, it was part of “manning the f*ck up”, though I never saw or heard of any guy getting heat for avoiding that sort of scene altogether for personal or religious reasons (It seriously wasn’t worth needling someone because he was Mormon or something, or had kids at home who needed his paycheck).
I think a lot of this, particularly in light of the model discussed of the older (often married, settled) man taking a younger one there, is seeing it as sort of a twisted rite of passage, but also maybe something of trying to recapture one’s (imaginary) younger years, again in a rather twisted way. It’s sort of like being a stud again (if you ever were) “on the cheap”: you can have some girl gyrate on your hips and (especially after a few shots) pretend like she’s there for some reason other than the bills you stuck in her G-string and the possibility of roping you into the bottle-service room for a few hundred bucks.
Again, looking at things a few years later and in a different context, you see how nasty and pathetic strip clubs are. There’s a reason they don’t turn the lights up. The patrons are drunk and stupid, pretending that they’re Superman for a night. Everyone’s taking their cut off whatever the patrons are paying or charging on their card, from the cab drivers who get a cut off of dropping them off to the exorbitant fees on those ATMs that dispense ones to the overpriced drinks. The “talent” is often pretty obviously personally screwed up (that girl from Romania or wherever didn’t get implants and labial surgery and isn’t sticking around into the wee hours of the morning propositioning your drunk ass because she was pursuing the American dream).
“I’ve seen trips to stripclubs used to calm down men who were in the “Nice Guy” must never express any interest in a woman place; something a father might want to do to a son who’s extreme in their refusal to think of women on some relatively equal plane where one can legitimately/ethical express interest”
You think taking a young man to a strip club will get him to think of women on some “relatively equal plane?” That paying a woman to show interest in him will *increase* his confidence in sexual dealings with normal women who don’t writhe on the floor in hopes of getting a dollar shoved in her underwear?
Maybe the guy who refuses to think of women as an object of desire is gay, or asexual. Yeah, that will turn out well.
If the problem is just that the guy is afraid of women, then maybe they could, you know, talk about it. Presumably the older, wiser, helpful friend/brother/father has had successful relationships with women and can be a good role model just by talking realistically about his experiences.
Or they could watch any of a million non-porn movies where a woman shows interest in having sex with a man. I hear Judd Apatow has a few movies out that show that even flubsy clownish guys can get the attention of a pretty girl.
“A strip club is one of the few remaining activities which allows males to define the group dynamic themselves and has not so thoroughly vilified or mocked (such as male interest in sports or cars) that they lose face by participating in it.”
You think going to a strip club is considered more respectable, less worthy of mockery and vilification, than going to a baseball game or geeking out about cars? I have to ask — what color is the sky on your planet?
For the record, I have been in strip clubs. Even the nice ones are pretty gross. I even had the advantage of being female and therefore many of the women put up a lot less of a front with me, but some of them either gave me the creeps or just seemed incredibly pathetic. I’m not talking about assuming they’re pathetic because of what they do — it’s that they personally seemed pathetic. Drug addled or drunk, emotion and attention junkies, unclear on the concept of what the job was going to do for them.
Interacting with these women in hopes of making someone see how to interact with “civilian” women is laughable. Some might be able to help, but why take chances on someone whose profession is shaking her ass when there are actual professional counselors available?
From other males? Yes. In general? Yes, depending on the context. If the guy goes alone, it opens him up to condemnation. If he goes with friends, depending on the occasion and the club it will be considered benign. It is not the same with other activities where regardless of context a judgment call is made, not unlike when Hugo targeted male geekdom as inherently childish and immature in his Ayn Rand post, which was simply another way of calling male geeks “unmanly.” Going to a strip club with friends is at worst seen as desperate, not less manly.
That stuff only works in the movies. Any boy or man dumb enough to try that stuff, particularly from if it is from romantic comedies, would end up in jail for harassment or stalking.
Hugo,
Brandon Teena was not a woman.
That’s right, Bond — the rapists saw her as a woman, but Brandon was a guy, and I stand corrected on that. But the point stands as well.
“If the guy goes alone, it opens him up to condemnation. If he goes with friends, depending on the occasion and the club it will be considered benign. It is not the same with other activities where regardless of context a judgment call is made, not unlike when Hugo targeted male geekdom as inherently childish and immature in his Ayn Rand post, which was simply another way of calling male geeks “unmanly.” Going to a strip club with friends is at worst seen as desperate, not less manly.”
You’ve got selective memory. Hugo’s post actually made fun of both coded-male and coded-female adolescent fixations. And then he struck through the coded-male ones, leaving the coded-female one. Then cut it all out altogether.
Again, if you really think that going to a baseball game or being interested in cars is considered more of a loser activity in male circles than going to a strip club, I have to wonder who you hang with.
You also claim desperation isn’t unmanly. Manliness is generally portrayed at least in part as “getting the girl.”
On movies as a learning experience: “Any boy or man dumb enough to try that stuff, particularly from if it is from romantic comedies, would end up in jail for harassment or stalking.”
Well, then, any boy or man dumb enough to use what he learns at a strip club on women outside of a strip club is *definitely* courting jail, or a good ass-whupping. You can’t have it both ways.
“The effectiveness of strip clubs as a homosocial bonding strategy is thus linked to two things: the shared sense the male patrons have that their wives and mothers disapprove of their being there, and the opportunity to establish their credentials as “red-blooded, straight American guys” by sharing the experience of objectifying women’s bodies.”
So therefore, all women might need to do to defuse this dynamic is to (pretend to) wholeheartedly approve of their men going to strip bars, even encouraging them to go, so as to take the edge of delicious rebellion off the whole thing. Kind of like what happens when your parents start to like the music you listen to - that band/genre suddenly becomes uncool.
The only time I have ever heard of going to strip clubs being a loser activity is if the man or group of men do it continuously. An occasional visit is not frowned on and certainly not a one-time visit like Sarah mentioned. I have not met any men who frequently go to strip clubs, nor have I met any men who particularly spoke highly of them. It seems like most men agree that strip clubs are seedy places to be visited only for some special event.
No, I stated that going to a strip club is seen at worst as desperate, not less manly. This appears to be Hugo’s point as well, since he is asserting that going to a strip club reinforces masculine norms.
Hugo,
just thinking of Sex and the City and how men, boyfriends, etc, are regularly part of female homosociality. Thinking of the Chippendales and other male strip clubs, where there is certainly not female boding happening. Bachelorette Parties.
I don’t think occasional strip club visits do make one more or less manly, they’re just another form of entertainment.
This is a brilliant essay. Thanks for articulating an aspect of gender definition and reinforcement so clearly.
“So therefore, all women might need to do to defuse this dynamic is to (pretend to) wholeheartedly approve of their men going to strip bars, even encouraging them to go, so as to take the edge of delicious rebellion off the whole thing.”
Uh, no. Women don’t control the definition men assign to each other any more than we have been able to control the definition assigned to us by patriarchy. All a woman who “pretends” to be thrilled about a strip club would be doing is saving herself an argument.
I don’t know where to begin.
The company I work for has a location in Las Vegas. For a long time, business trips to Vegas also meant a trip to the strip club - including a significant number of lap dances courtesy of the boss. One of the advantages of being an out gay man at work was that my simple statement of “I’ll spend the night at the hotel” was always accepted without argument or debate - no straight man wanted a gay man with him at the strip club - in essence, the straight men were going into a sexually charged setting and wanted to make sure that I wasn’t part of that setting.
Other people weren’t so fortunate, including a several female employees who were pretty much stuck with lap dances - I’m not kidding. They were expected to be good sports about it and in fact found themselves getting lap-dances and being rewarded by being treated like one of the boys. One coworkers joked about having a woman’s ass stuck in her fact and commenting “Oh your skin is so smooth, do you exfoliate?” But it was clearly not a comfortable setting. (As a company we finally had to discontinue the process when several employees warehouse employees decided they could use company credit cards to spend almost $3000 in two days at a strip club.)
I can’t imagine a less comfortable setting to spend time with friends and coworkers. I have a difficult time imagining a bunch of men sitting around talking and watching naked women and feeling anything but awkward.
But I also wonder if there’s an aspect of thrill-seeking at work, of normal boundaries being crossed, of social decorum being obliterated. I suspect the disapproval of wives and girlfriends makes the experience more pleasurable - a sense of exhilaration in transgressing, in pushing the boundaries - almost all the men were in relationships and the married men seemed to enjoy it more than the single men (even the single men with girlfriends). I can’t help but feel as an outsider looking in that there’s an element of deliberate disrespect for wives in going to strip club - a sense of entitlement, maybe, but more clearly a sense that a wife won’t leave you over a stripper but a girlfriend will. The younger men were also far less comfortable with the experience at first than were the older men.
I don’t know that I have any conclusions, just observations.
Likewise, it is not something women will demand participation in (even as women exclude males from female-oriented groups). Essentially, going to a strip club is “safe.”
Sweet jesus on the cross, you actually think strippers don’t count as women. Excuse me, I mean, you’re actually willing to say out loud that strippers don’t count as women. Of course it was clear that you thought it.
I guess I could be misreading you, certainly gay strip clubs count as an opportunity for homosocial bonding that’s ’safe’ from women, as long as there’s a strict door policy. But don’t worry, I don’t seriously think you’re depending gay clubs from hetero female invasion. I think you mean exactly what you said, that you believe strippers are decor, not women.
“So therefore, all women might need to do to defuse this dynamic is to (pretend to) wholeheartedly approve of their men going to strip bars, even encouraging them to go, so as to take the edge of delicious rebellion off the whole thing. Kind of like what happens when your parents start to like the music you listen to - that band/genre suddenly becomes uncool.” - Treifalicious
Well, I’ve been a stripper myself, so I wanted to comment on this. What Treifalicious describes is happening now in a way. Younger women tend to be fairly open to strip clubs where I’m from, these days - sure, there are still plenty who turn up their noses at the thought of them, but even a generation ago I don’t think I’d have seen girls dropping in and gawking at the stage every single night in between bouts of clubbing in Hollywood. Groups of girls, sometimes not attached to even one guy. I did it myself, with female friends, before I started dancing. Actually, I suppose going to a strip club is now an activity for women to bond with each other, in some cases. Whether you think that’s a sad instance of female chauvinist pig culture or a shining if strange example of sex-positive feminism or something else completely - that’s up to you.
All the old-timers I’ve known in the industry agree that the work was easier and the money better before stripping just became so dang mainstream. Groups of girls don’t spend money when they come to a strip club. Groups of guys and girls don’t spend money - partly, I suspect, because a guy don’t see any point in paying to get to know the woman on stage when there’s one right next to him; partly, also, because it’s awkward hanging out with strippers when your female friends are there sizing up your interactions. And not only have “civilian” women poked their way through to the strip club, but the strip club has filtered into the world outside, to the point where you’ve got ordinary wives and girlfriends getting advice on how to titillate their man with a striptease or lapdance and taking pole dancing classes to get exercise AND get their freak on at the same time. Stripping has lost a lot of its mystery and strip clubs have lost some of their “secret society” appeal. Not as exciting, a secret society, if everyone can get in or at least knows what happens inside and no one in your life is particularly shocked when they find out you’ve been there.
Also, the declining money part is important. As it gets harder to make money, a lot of strip clubs get progressively nastier in what the girls offer and what management will allow. They’re catering to the people who want lots of physical contact, but in my opinion they’re simultaneously freaking out some of the guys who just wanted a night of male bonding over something adventurous and exciting.
On Hugo’s post - point taken about this type of bonding not promoting the healthiest relationships, homo- or heterosocial. I didn’t catch from the post whether you think that the strip club thing is just a manifestation of the way men use women’s bodies to bond with each other, or whether you think it really helps to keep the dynamic going. I’d say that it’s more the former. Strip clubs may prove less and less satisfying for male bonding for the reasons I described, but I don’t think they’ll fail because men have discovered more mature ways to be close with each other. I think that if they lose their charm, men who want to will find other ways of bonding over sex and women. To go back to Treifalicious’s post, I don’t see a mass movement away from that coming about because civilian women are getting involved, either. In fact, I see these women getting swept up in the same thing.
Regarding the comments - when it comes to white-gloved expressions of disdain for strip clubs and strippers, we pole-twirlers divide into two camps. Camp 1 gets pissed off and writes a letter to the editor. Camp 2 smiles and waits - for the next batch of young men to arrive all eager to initiate into this secret society that friends, family, and authority figures disapprove of. There’s a lot of concern flying around Camp 2 about how we are becoming less interesting and, therefore, our profession less lucrative. I think that reading through the above comments, laced as many of them are with sanctimony and strong adjectives, would reassure at least some people that their jobs will stick around.
And if they don’t, something else will pop up to help men bond around women’s bodies. The demand is still there. Taking away the strippers won’t change that; really, I don’t think anything will change that except a foundation-up rebuilding of the way men and women deal with each other.
@glendenb - I am absolutely shocked your company would provide this perk. Not because of the obvious inappropriateness of it, but to leave themselves open to a sexual harassment suit, well, it’s hard to imagine any group of executives would be that dumb. If I had been one of the female “boys,” you can be sure I’d be contacting the appropriate legal authorities.
@sophonisba:
I do not think you are misreading me. I think you are deliberately attributing something to my statement that clearly is not there. Female strippers are not present at the clubs as paying customers, ergo they are not participating in the bonding or socializing experience. In regards to gay strip clubs, I am well aware that many gay men are annoyed by heterosexual women coming into their spaces for “safe” sex-based female bonding and I am very much in agreement with those gay men on that issue, especially having witnessed how intoxicated heterosexual women treat gay men in such environments.
Marilyn - I know it sounds wild but the management here really felt that the invitation to the clubs was being made in such a way that people understood it was optional, there was no expectation to go etc. They also perceived that since I was saying I would not go, that no one else would feel pressured to go.
When someone pointed out that some people might feel pressured to go, they changed their behavior; so some of the execs still hit the strip clubs, but they arrange the visits in such a way that there is a clear break between work and the evening entertainment.
Aimes: “Regarding the comments - when it comes to white-gloved expressions of disdain for strip clubs and strippers, we pole-twirlers divide into two camps. Camp 1 gets pissed off and writes a letter to the editor. Camp 2 smiles and waits - for the next batch of young men to arrive all eager to initiate into this secret society that friends, family, and authority figures disapprove of. There’s a lot of concern flying around Camp 2 about how we are becoming less interesting and, therefore, our profession less lucrative. I think that reading through the above comments, laced as many of them are with sanctimony and strong adjectives, would reassure at least some people that their jobs will stick around.”
Oh, great, the old “you’re too repressed/prissy/jealous to understand.”
I don’t find sex disturbing, and I don’t find women’s bodies unattractive. I don’t know what it’s like in strip clubs where women come in routinely to gab and distract the guys and don’t tip — I sat at the front and tipped like everyone else.
I think the women who work in strip clubs are well worthy of respect. The problem is, I don’t see that they get much of it.
Like other forms of sex work, when they do manage to get respect, via legislation or social acceptance, it seems like an underground business in women the customer doesn’t have to respect springs up.
Maybe I should hope that religious and social pressure against enjoying sex will continue, because then at least the “secret society that friends, family, and authority figures disapprove of” will be at heart innocuous.
Otherwise, the “secret society that friends, family, and authority figures disapprove of” will be the society that finds it sexy to fuck up women. Because just seeing them naked and pretending to be horny won’t be enough.
And actually, if there’s still social opprobrium attached to stripping, then those who do it will be by definition diminished by it, “good girls” won’t do it, and that provides the excitement for those who go see it. So it’s kind of lose-lose.
There are some people trying to bring back burlesque, the kind of show that’s “adult” but both men and women used to go see back in my parents’ day. Could work.
The point is, just a naked body isn’t enough. It has to have shame, or humor, or athleticism, or something else associated with it for anyone to care about it enough to keep that body employed. “If you’re gonna bump it, bump it with a trumpet.”
I’m pretty sure that if the Better Half had “introduced” any of our three sons to strip clubs, the general air in our household would have been very ugly for a very long time.
This has left me with a lot to think about, thanks for writing.
Toysoldier, “It is not really objectifying if the people “objectified” are willing participants.”
Seriously? I strongly suggest you look up the word Objectify, not to mention the word Willing. Because if a woman accepts payment to be seen or used as an object because she is unwilling to starve herself or her family/children, I’m pretty sure it’s still, officially, objectification. Just sayin.
And before you start typing a scathing reply, rest assured I’m very aware that exploitation is also exploitation, even if it’s self-exploitation.
I’ve been a stripper for 13 of the past 24 years (yeah, one of the “older” ones - no stretch marks for the record so stop trying to picture the stereotype b/c you won’t even come close) and I can tell you that most strippers really are aimless, shallow, and have emotional & sexual issues. Also most customers are pathetic, self-centered, sexist and immature. So what? Because the same could be said for most retail workers, nurses, politicians, lawyers, and teachers.
Hugo’s really right on, by the way. I, and most my coworkers, prefer approaching solo customers to sitting with groups of them. They’re better behaved, have less attitude, and less to prove (at least outwardly).
I could go on and on replying to some of these comments but I’m exhausted from trying to earn enough income to support myself while I finish enough writing projects to get a writing career off the ground so I can spend the rest of my life hunched over a keyboard (fully clothed) for what will likely amount to barely enough income to feed myself.
FYI - most strippers do it for the money. Customers do it for many reasons and Hugo absolutely nailed one of them.