Yeah-but it's really costly nowadays. Oh, there isn't more crime at strip clubs-that's just propaganda drummed up by the religious right and there lackeys-the police.

Been there, done that.  I was never a regular, it has almost always been for some male bonding type nights like when one of the guys was getting married or wind-up after the hockey season was over.  The guys are generally generous, appreciative, but above all else, well behaved.

However, years and years ago a friend and I once stopped by a local pub after a baseball game.  We didn't notice on the marquee that there was "special entertainment" that evening.  Just as we were getting our drinks we both noticed that about 95% of the the bar patrons were female.  Then the DJ cut into the music and announced "OK Ladies, here they come!!!!"  A male review came dancing onto the stage and doing their thang.  The women went wild!!!  Female audience for male strippers are WAY more enthusiastic, vocal and into the show than the guys at the local brass pole bar. 

  First, it was after hours and I was just changing on my way to the house party, okay?

Second, I will NEVER go see another male strip show in my life.    I've been three times.. first time I watched the whore waitress I worked with use her mouth to drop a dollar coin somewhere :: shudder :: Second time, it was because my girlfriend wanted to introduce me to her fiance, what she didn't tell me was... that he was the main event.  Third time? My girlfriend takes me to a local bar for a girls night out, this scrawny young fella gets on stage and is being coached by the older strippers on how to dance.. and he's.. it was so.. I wanted to grab a blanket and send him home to his momma! We left, I just couldn't stop laughing. 

I'm certainly no prude, and I'm as horny as the next middle-aged guy, but I never quite got the appeal of these places; not even when I was a just-turned-18-year-old teenager with rampaging hormones. Have I been in them? Occasionally, but never because of any impetus on my part (I know that might come across as Ted-Haggard-denying-his-homosexuality-style rationalization, but it's true). On one occasion, a guy I knew was planning a fishing trip to Canada that I wanted to participate in, and he suggested meeting at a NJ strip club to discuss our travel plans (he had a bad marriage and seemed to be addicted to strip clubs). Our discussion was terminated abruptly when he went off for a "lap dance". I tried to nurse my over-priced beer, but I was constantly propositioned by one siliconed "dancer" after another until it reached a level of total absurdity. Do the guys that patronize these places on a regular basis actually imagine these women are interested in them in any way other than as a cash cow? To me, strip clubs are just grim and depressing (and financially draining). I don't want to come across as overly censorious or judgmental, but both the customers and the strippers seem to be such a sad, seedy bunch. Look, if these clubs give a down-on-her-luck woman who might not otherwise be working a job, and if they keep some repressed sad sack dressed in a rain-coat and nothing else from jumping out of a bush in front of some innocent woman, then more power to them. But I haven't been to one in years (it was a bachelor party for a friend in 1999 that I was sort of compelled into attending) and if I never have cause to darken the neon-illuminated doorway of a strip club again in this life, that's more than fine with me.

Yeah, I've been to them.

No, they're not generally all that great, and some are damn depressing.

And I'd respectfully suggest that 90 per cent of the men that say they've never been in one are lying.

I've never been to a strip club.  Though, I don't think I'm the target audience, anyway.

It's all in choosing, the right club means a good show.

That was my old job...