Titty Bars. Gentlemen’s clubs. Pole Dancing Emporiums. Call them what you will but, resident in every world capital, they harvest big bucks from a hardcore of men for whom the Internet is just a bit tame.
There’s a shared deceit around attendance motivation. It’s just a bit of fun“, The girls get paid well, what’s the problem�? and it’s no worse than downloading porn off the Internet“. Maybe, maybe not.
Prudish though this sounds, I really struggle with these places. On entry into the dim portal of watered down drinks and excited sweaty bodies, I turn instantly gay. The girls are, understandably as it’s a buyers’ market, incredibly beautiful, their tanned and lithe torsos’ standing on legs that finish somewhere close to their armpits. They’re all revealing outfits and seductive smiles at the start of a dance, with those outfits lasting all the time it takes for some guy to throw a twenty onto the stage. The smiles stay though, they are the money capacitor “ turn up the wattage and watch the cash flow in.
My problem with such places isn’t really that it’s degrading for both sexes, slightly seedy or horribly contrived. It’s the denial of a middle aged bloke rolling in cash and fat, truly believing that this Goddess of Beauty actually finds him witty and attractive. You just want to shout it’s a business transaction mate, flash the cash or she’ll be off to leech the next tragic victim“.
I sit and watch and feel like a fraud. When some vision of sex floats up and offers a private dance, you only need to nod faintly before the sales spiel clicks smoothly in and the rules of the game are explained. Twenty Dollars but no touching, kissing or knocking one out in front of me. Get frisky and the twenty stone hunk of bored beef in the corner will rip off your head and piss down the whole. I’m paraphrasing a little but the sense of the transaction should come across.
I never go. Others do and return with obvious enjoyment plastered across flushed faces. Dance follows dance, and soon it’s just Big Gay Al necking watery beer and wondering when excuses can deliver a hasty exit. The cold night air is fresh enough to wash away the stink of cigarettes and half formed sexual acts. It’s a bloody relief and again I tell myself this is absolutely the last time. Until the next time, anyway.
Okay I’m a prude. Because I can’t really enjoy the show, it seems apposite to preach a pious sermon instead. In reality, these places don’t do any harm, they’re serving a need of sorts and even offer up some amusing connotations such as the Businessman’s Lunch�?. What’s that then? Naked women starter, breast of inner thigh to follow and sweet nothings to finish“. But still a lingering sense of doubt remains.
Whereas obviously downloading porn off T’Internet and giving the old fella a vigorous rub in your own home is fine. Allegedly, not that you’d fine me doing treading the subtle line between public and private masturbation.
Not with Carol reading this blog anyway.