Description of a strip club
October 30th 2006 13:52
Background
The group was two guys and a girl, and this was the first club any of us had been to. Our plan was to walk up and down Darlinghurst Road, and maybe get free previews. But at the first place we dropped by, the bouncer emphasized: (a) that his was the only licensed joint (got to be false, come on); (b) that his was the most female-friendly joint (surely a subjective claim); and (c) that his joint had more girls (twelve) than anywhere else (I wouldn't know).
When we replied we were going to look around elsewhere, he added (d) that though the normal entry was $25 a person, he'd let us ALL in for $25. And this last offer sold it, and we still haven't seen what any other strip club is like.
From the bouncer's point of view, he wasn't losing anything, because: (a) $25 in the hand is better than nothing; (b) we made the place look more full; (c) females make the place friendlier; and (d) there was the strong possibility that we'd spend on tips and overpriced drinks, though, being poor and cheap bastards, we didn't.
So we go inside, and we find thumping beats, garish red lighting, and television sets with music video clips. It's a small and low-ceilinged room, with a bar, and with chairs and tables and lounge chairs and coffee tables.
Curtained alcoves at one dark end, and a corridor drenched in blue light at the other.
And a simple raised platform, about two metres by three metres by one metre high -- backed against a wall -- with two poles and a mirror -- on which girls take turns to dance.
The dancers are on a half-hour rotation. Announcements are made of their names and of their availability for private sessions.
Money
We're immediately offered drinks. We sit down, in the front row. We're soon offered more drinks, and the purchase of black cardboard cards for tipping, each equivalent to $5.
The dancers are littered around the room -- smoking and drinking at the bar, greeting entrants, working the audience, making conversation. They particularly home in on single guys and groups of guys. They are lingerie-clad, twentysomething or thirtysomething, a mix of races, and voluptuous rather than petite. They're awake to what's going on, ignoring females and couples, sizing up each person, calculating what each is there for.
The girl on stage tells us directly, "If you tip me, I'll do a dance for you. Please tip me." Sexy smile. "Aww come on, why not? Aren't I worth it?" Pout. "Don't make my job harder than it is. Don’t you want me to? What are you here for then?" Long challenging stare.
The waitstaff pass by and urge us -- Go on, tip the sexy lady.
If each dancer receives a base rate of only $50, that's already $600. So they can't be paid very much -- it must be all about the tips, whether they're shared evenly, or whether you keep what you earn.
The first dancer makes no headway with us, so, as if by agreement, the rest of the dancers ignore us. They don't face in our direction, they don't dance on our side of the stage, they don't waste any more breath on us, and the attention they give to spenders is lavish.
Just goes to show: if you want a good view without tipping, seat yourself behind people who do.
Performing
The stage blends physically into the rest of the room. But it's still a stage, a zone with symbolic power. You step onto it, and everything's different. You might be giggling with your girlfriends a minute before, but now you transform into movements and grace and dark glances, very in touch with your appeal, very conscious of the sensations of your body, and of its effects, or very practised in your routine.
In theatre, there is the "dramatic illusion" that the audience is looking through a window into the world of the play. Actors are taught not to lock eyes because it freaks the audience out, it breaks the "fourth wall".
Strippers, however, play openly with the fourth wall. -- They will stare you in the face, challenge you, invite you to stare back. They will move to the edge of the stage and speak to you. -- And they will pose into the mirror, and undress themselves, as if alone in a private room. Or they will gaze at nothing, looking beyond the strip club walls, somewhere else entirely.
You see person and pretence and skill -- fake smiles, vain promises -- you see performing. But you also read in terms of the world of the pretence, you appreciate on the level of intended effect -- you see performance. No doubt all acting has this tension, but, outside Brecht, perhaps seldom as violently.
As persons, do you look them in the face, or are you embarrassed? Do you dare to objectify a very conscious subject? Do you risk showing yourself, exposing yourself, brimming with fascination or lust? Do you want to demean yourself, give the impression that you've been suckered into the pretence or the manipulation?
What's frightening is that if you look at her, she will look back, respond.
But when she does, she will do so in role, as a character. And the ambiguity is itself unnerving. When you're spoken to, are they persons, or are they characters. How to respond -- do you enter the game?
The fourth wall remains, though stretched to breaking point. It's still a screen the dancers can slip back behind.
The acts
Surprisingly basic.
Some wear more, but most of the dancers come on stage in g-string and bra, with a garter strap for tips.
The bra comes off about two-thirds of the way in.
The tease is of bodies in motion, rather than of bodies unveiled.
Some bring a rug for floor work.
There are no group performances, and no real attempt at burlesque or fantasy characters.
At some times it is more dance than acting, and very choreographed. At others, it is more acting than dance.
Each act is different, but the same. It seems that given the constraints of mercenary objective, ceiling space, stage space, and high heels, you're limited in movements and roles.
Head tosses, hip grinds, pelvic jerks, tracing a finger down your torso, caressing your calf and thigh. Breast licking, butt slapping, clitoral rubbing. Swinging on the poles and crawling on the floor. And working both sides of the room at once: wriggling your butt in one direction, whilst flaunting your chest in the other; or lying down and opening your legs whilst arching your back to look behind you.
If you pay them, there will be crotches and jiggling in your face, and cat-stretches an inch from your body.
Some dancers put more effort into it than others, some crowd-interact more than others, some vary the tempo more, and some attempt athletic twists and dangerous inversions.
But to my eye, untrained in subtleties, the repertoire here is essentially uniform, even if it's true that sexual symbolism varies from culture to culture.
And the music is repetitious, with the same feel, and with similar musical effects (for instance, the pause, then the sudden gyrating take up).
Clientele
Most of the clientele is pairs of males (buddies, or, in one case, father and son). But there is a surprising number of couples. And there is even an Asian family (who freak out my friend).
I think it an open question where the interest lies.
1. Internet porn must have hurt strip clubs. Nudity is no longer as rare. $25 would buy you many more hours in downloads.
2. And if you're conscious of the "air dancing", the no touch rule, then why pay to be tortured? Why is the tease enough?
3. And isn't this sameness boring, like most sexual acts are ultimately boring?
I suppose there are various explanations… There's aesthetic or technical points of view -- dancing simply as dancing. And there's entering the headspace of the dancers (though so fake and cold compared to real ecstasy).
But, yes, the easiest explanation is that people "give in", delude themselves, forget the performance as performance. You're encouraged, after all, to forget. They buy the bullshit wholesale, or lose themselves in fantasy, dreaming of bodies and their capabilities and what can be done to them, or are mesmerized by repetition and the fitting of bodies to music, or immerse themselves in sensation, in all the disparate stimulations, and, like a junkie, keep paying so the experience keeps flowing. Because when you spend, it's all happening for you, like a gambler at a table with a crowd cheering you on. It's girls all over you, waitresses waiting on you. And if you're still conscious of the pretence, it mightn't matter, because what's real is that she's staring at you like that, and you want her to keep staring, regardless of why. And money is simply paper, worth nothing next to the pleasure; or it is play money, part of a game, and unserious, not the point; or else you are conscious of its power, and you relish it, you enjoy that people dance for it.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Striptease.
The group was two guys and a girl, and this was the first club any of us had been to. Our plan was to walk up and down Darlinghurst Road, and maybe get free previews. But at the first place we dropped by, the bouncer emphasized: (a) that his was the only licensed joint (got to be false, come on); (b) that his was the most female-friendly joint (surely a subjective claim); and (c) that his joint had more girls (twelve) than anywhere else (I wouldn't know).
When we replied we were going to look around elsewhere, he added (d) that though the normal entry was $25 a person, he'd let us ALL in for $25. And this last offer sold it, and we still haven't seen what any other strip club is like.
From the bouncer's point of view, he wasn't losing anything, because: (a) $25 in the hand is better than nothing; (b) we made the place look more full; (c) females make the place friendlier; and (d) there was the strong possibility that we'd spend on tips and overpriced drinks, though, being poor and cheap bastards, we didn't.
So we go inside, and we find thumping beats, garish red lighting, and television sets with music video clips. It's a small and low-ceilinged room, with a bar, and with chairs and tables and lounge chairs and coffee tables.
Curtained alcoves at one dark end, and a corridor drenched in blue light at the other.
And a simple raised platform, about two metres by three metres by one metre high -- backed against a wall -- with two poles and a mirror -- on which girls take turns to dance.
The dancers are on a half-hour rotation. Announcements are made of their names and of their availability for private sessions.
Money
We're immediately offered drinks. We sit down, in the front row. We're soon offered more drinks, and the purchase of black cardboard cards for tipping, each equivalent to $5.
The dancers are littered around the room -- smoking and drinking at the bar, greeting entrants, working the audience, making conversation. They particularly home in on single guys and groups of guys. They are lingerie-clad, twentysomething or thirtysomething, a mix of races, and voluptuous rather than petite. They're awake to what's going on, ignoring females and couples, sizing up each person, calculating what each is there for.
The girl on stage tells us directly, "If you tip me, I'll do a dance for you. Please tip me." Sexy smile. "Aww come on, why not? Aren't I worth it?" Pout. "Don't make my job harder than it is. Don’t you want me to? What are you here for then?" Long challenging stare.
The waitstaff pass by and urge us -- Go on, tip the sexy lady.
If each dancer receives a base rate of only $50, that's already $600. So they can't be paid very much -- it must be all about the tips, whether they're shared evenly, or whether you keep what you earn.
The first dancer makes no headway with us, so, as if by agreement, the rest of the dancers ignore us. They don't face in our direction, they don't dance on our side of the stage, they don't waste any more breath on us, and the attention they give to spenders is lavish.
Just goes to show: if you want a good view without tipping, seat yourself behind people who do.
Performing
The stage blends physically into the rest of the room. But it's still a stage, a zone with symbolic power. You step onto it, and everything's different. You might be giggling with your girlfriends a minute before, but now you transform into movements and grace and dark glances, very in touch with your appeal, very conscious of the sensations of your body, and of its effects, or very practised in your routine.
In theatre, there is the "dramatic illusion" that the audience is looking through a window into the world of the play. Actors are taught not to lock eyes because it freaks the audience out, it breaks the "fourth wall".
Strippers, however, play openly with the fourth wall. -- They will stare you in the face, challenge you, invite you to stare back. They will move to the edge of the stage and speak to you. -- And they will pose into the mirror, and undress themselves, as if alone in a private room. Or they will gaze at nothing, looking beyond the strip club walls, somewhere else entirely.
You see person and pretence and skill -- fake smiles, vain promises -- you see performing. But you also read in terms of the world of the pretence, you appreciate on the level of intended effect -- you see performance. No doubt all acting has this tension, but, outside Brecht, perhaps seldom as violently.
As persons, do you look them in the face, or are you embarrassed? Do you dare to objectify a very conscious subject? Do you risk showing yourself, exposing yourself, brimming with fascination or lust? Do you want to demean yourself, give the impression that you've been suckered into the pretence or the manipulation?
What's frightening is that if you look at her, she will look back, respond.
But when she does, she will do so in role, as a character. And the ambiguity is itself unnerving. When you're spoken to, are they persons, or are they characters. How to respond -- do you enter the game?
The fourth wall remains, though stretched to breaking point. It's still a screen the dancers can slip back behind.
The acts
Surprisingly basic.
Some wear more, but most of the dancers come on stage in g-string and bra, with a garter strap for tips.
The bra comes off about two-thirds of the way in.
The tease is of bodies in motion, rather than of bodies unveiled.
Some bring a rug for floor work.
There are no group performances, and no real attempt at burlesque or fantasy characters.
At some times it is more dance than acting, and very choreographed. At others, it is more acting than dance.
Each act is different, but the same. It seems that given the constraints of mercenary objective, ceiling space, stage space, and high heels, you're limited in movements and roles.
Head tosses, hip grinds, pelvic jerks, tracing a finger down your torso, caressing your calf and thigh. Breast licking, butt slapping, clitoral rubbing. Swinging on the poles and crawling on the floor. And working both sides of the room at once: wriggling your butt in one direction, whilst flaunting your chest in the other; or lying down and opening your legs whilst arching your back to look behind you.
If you pay them, there will be crotches and jiggling in your face, and cat-stretches an inch from your body.
Some dancers put more effort into it than others, some crowd-interact more than others, some vary the tempo more, and some attempt athletic twists and dangerous inversions.
But to my eye, untrained in subtleties, the repertoire here is essentially uniform, even if it's true that sexual symbolism varies from culture to culture.
And the music is repetitious, with the same feel, and with similar musical effects (for instance, the pause, then the sudden gyrating take up).
Clientele
Most of the clientele is pairs of males (buddies, or, in one case, father and son). But there is a surprising number of couples. And there is even an Asian family (who freak out my friend).
I think it an open question where the interest lies.
1. Internet porn must have hurt strip clubs. Nudity is no longer as rare. $25 would buy you many more hours in downloads.
2. And if you're conscious of the "air dancing", the no touch rule, then why pay to be tortured? Why is the tease enough?
3. And isn't this sameness boring, like most sexual acts are ultimately boring?
I suppose there are various explanations… There's aesthetic or technical points of view -- dancing simply as dancing. And there's entering the headspace of the dancers (though so fake and cold compared to real ecstasy).
But, yes, the easiest explanation is that people "give in", delude themselves, forget the performance as performance. You're encouraged, after all, to forget. They buy the bullshit wholesale, or lose themselves in fantasy, dreaming of bodies and their capabilities and what can be done to them, or are mesmerized by repetition and the fitting of bodies to music, or immerse themselves in sensation, in all the disparate stimulations, and, like a junkie, keep paying so the experience keeps flowing. Because when you spend, it's all happening for you, like a gambler at a table with a crowd cheering you on. It's girls all over you, waitresses waiting on you. And if you're still conscious of the pretence, it mightn't matter, because what's real is that she's staring at you like that, and you want her to keep staring, regardless of why. And money is simply paper, worth nothing next to the pleasure; or it is play money, part of a game, and unserious, not the point; or else you are conscious of its power, and you relish it, you enjoy that people dance for it.
***
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Striptease.
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Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Plus, I've noticed that, in Sydney, the strip clubs may be bordellos, so the strippers are really hookers. I've seen some terrible, rhythmless dancers - which really turned me off.
Yeah, Asians love the strip joints. I think it's partly because they can't get over the idea?
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Incidentally, I've never heard of what an earlier comment of yours alludes to: "the strip clubs here involving sex acts with the audience... that is insane. Where I'm from, strip clubs are no-touching, just watching the girls dance. Australia is XTREME!"
Comment by Anonymous
The girls are not paid at all. They pay the club a fee between 40 - 100 per night depending on each club. They pay that as sort of a rent to do business in the club.
Any money made there after is theres to take home. That is of course unless the club uses something other than standard currency to tip the girls.
Eg the black cards you had to tip them with, They wouldnt buy anything in the real world, there for the girls are forced to turn them over to the club at the end of the night and cash it into real money, at which point the club takes its cut, generall around 40 to 50 %
The girls are working for them selves and are totally responsible for what they do or dont make in money each night, but dont be mistaken, girls take home anywhere up to the likes of two thousand dollars in one night.
Comment by strippers in melbourne