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exhilarationAh, let's see, where to start, and which direction to take this one?
Well, first off, I went to a strip club, and I've got a whole lot to say about that one. It was a pretty surreal experience. If you didn't know it, South Jersey is full of strip clubs. They're all over the freakin' place. I've never been in one. My friend Matt once dated a stripper, and I've been outside her club outside Camden waiting for her to come out, but that's about it. I've been to a BDSM club when I was in college, and I sometimes call it a sex club, but for as freaky as it sounds (and it was pretty freaky deaky in there...) there was also an atmosphere of complete respect for all human beings in the building. That is NOT what a strip club is like. And I'm pretty torn as to how to react to it all together, how to react to my own reactions/behaviors/instincts, and etc. It was a very unsettling night.
On one hand, the girls are beautiful, and they're amazingly talented. Can you climb a pole and disrobe at the same time, all the while making it look not only easy but sexy as well? Yeah I didn't think so. Not to mention sliding down the pole, naked and upside down, by one knee and stopping six inches from the floor. It was fucking incredible.
On the other hand, how can you say they're not objectified, even if it is a job, even if they are making an insane amount of money? How isn't it degrading to take dollars from people for shaking your booty or playing with your pussy or rubbing your boobs in their face?
And I'm a girl, and there I was waving my dollars and getting boobies in my face too.
I've been giving it a lot of thought.
I was the only girl there. So that had a lot to do with my feeling like I was doing something wrong.
Not that I am an expert or anything, but I did live in Philadelphia for years and I found all kinds of stuff there. The BDSM club I mentioned (it's closed now) and then there was another sex club that was bigger and more well known but not as hard-core. There's the gayborhood, you know, around Spring Garden area, and Silk City and all that. There's the dance club, Sisters, that's, you know, a girl's club. And there's rainbow flags all over the place for pride week. But I've never heard of a strip club that's meant for women to watch other women dance naked.
So I've got this feeling I'm not a very good lesbian (again. I feel like that a lot.) Certainly not a good feminist. And kind of a dirty person.
I do understand that I'm a girl. Really, I do. And I do girly things. I'm pretty obsessed with my appearance, I mean, I look in the mirror pretty much every chance I get - I wear make-up, I do things with my hair, etc. But sometimes I really feel like I could definitely be a guy. Like I'd rather be a guy, like it would just be that much easier to be a guy. I could be a fashionable guy with awesome hair, right? David Tenant is a guy with awesome hair, so...
But then part of my reason for thinking that is that I feel like I get along so much better with guys (I am currently still fighting with my only girl friend, as it is) and I feel so much more comfortable and I feel like I understand them so much better... but it's also pretty fair to say that perhaps I like hanging around guys better is that they like hanging around me because I'm a girl.
Yeah that.
So here's how it went: I worked my usual double shift last night, and therefor got off fairly early (for me, anyway) and Bevan worked pretty much the same type of shift, and so, as usual, gave me a ride from work to his house, where the idea was that we would go somewhere and do something that involved hooking up with several more people for the evening. I figured we'd just decide which bar it would be, like how things usually end up.
So Bevan's phone rings and he answers and has a conversation that I don't really listen to, and then he pulls away from the phone and says, "Lara, you don't want to go to a strip club tonight, do you?"
And I was like, 0.o WHAT?
And to the phone he was like, "yeah I didn't think she would want to come."
And I was like, all of a sudden, "no no, I want to go!"
Which pretty much surprised him, and me too, cause I was just thinking how trashy and degrading strip clubs were...
But I went, along with some of Bevan's friends, only one of which I'd ever met before. They thought it was pretty cool that I was coming along. I was pretty fucking nervous.
And the place was pretty trashy, but there I was, sitting with a bunch of guys, beer bottle in front of me, chin on my hands, staring at girls taking off their clothes and climbing poles, and finding myself totally enthralled by it all.
Also I... spent all my cash on liquor and um, tipping the girls...
Some of the girls would see me and come right over to me - some of them wouldn't come anywhere near me. I mean, I can't really be bothered by that, I mean, it's not their job to dance for other women, is it? And I'd like to think the ones that did come right over to me and whisper in my ear and [nah, I'm not even typing this part, just use your imagination, ok?] did cause I like made eyes at them and they were like, oh! A pretty girl! What a nice change from all these nasty guys!
But... the thought did occur to me that they did it cause they knew it would drive all the guys in the place mad, and they'd make more money that way.
I mean, plenty of guys (old, shady guys, no less) were all about handing me dollars to give to the girls...
And of course I'm just sitting there with the cheese-face on, I'm sure, through the whole night. Well, whatever. I remember all of their names. And there's no way they're going to remember mind, that's for damn sure.
So, basically, I've totally skeeved myself out.
Sometimes I feel like I don't even know myself.
And it has recently occurred to me that if I were a guy I'd be one of those skeevy, creepy ones that no one wants anything to do with.
Yeah.
Anyway, Bevan is into that freaky-deaky stuff, it seems. I totally would never have pegged him for a guy who oggled at strip clubs and went off with strippers to the "back room" for a private dance and stuff. But he is. Then again... I am one to talk, I guess.
Sooooooo. Maybe me and Bevan bonded over our interest in naked women.
And so now for the grande finale, I'm kind of feeling guilty for the conflict that has ensued from this evening. So Jury, Bevan's girlfriend, has been being pretty nice to me recently. We had a nice little chat the other day and everything. We went out on the beach together in the evening, even, the three of us.
Now Jury is absolutely furious with Bevan, she's calling him her ex boyfriend, and saying all kinds of shit about him, and I feel really bad. Logically, this has nothing to do with me. Her boyfriend isn't cheating on her with me - I don't even like guys. I don't even enter into this - she doesn't care that I was there at the strip club, she doesn't have a problem with him and me hanging around each other. It's not even specifically that she had a problem with him going to a strip club to begin with - she doesn't like the idea, but it's not like she forbid it or anything (although if I was a girl with a boyfriend I might be kinda pissed if he went to a club to watch other women disrobe...) - she's furious that he lied to her about why he wasn't answering his phone all night.
That's pretty valid too, as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah, my favorite person does very uncool things, like lying to his girlfriend and oh, wait, cheating on her while she's away at college too. Come to think of it, that might just be the source of these guilty feelings of mine, or, some of them, at least.
So, I don't need to repeat how much I wish that had never happened.
And I'm pretty embarrassed to face anyone, Bevan included, who was at the strip club with me, cause I still feel kinda dirty and skeevy and unsettled about the night. Seriously, that was me, putting dollars between woman's breasts with my teeth?
Real winner, me.
Well, first off, I went to a strip club, and I've got a whole lot to say about that one. It was a pretty surreal experience. If you didn't know it, South Jersey is full of strip clubs. They're all over the freakin' place. I've never been in one. My friend Matt once dated a stripper, and I've been outside her club outside Camden waiting for her to come out, but that's about it. I've been to a BDSM club when I was in college, and I sometimes call it a sex club, but for as freaky as it sounds (and it was pretty freaky deaky in there...) there was also an atmosphere of complete respect for all human beings in the building. That is NOT what a strip club is like. And I'm pretty torn as to how to react to it all together, how to react to my own reactions/behaviors/instincts, and etc. It was a very unsettling night.
On one hand, the girls are beautiful, and they're amazingly talented. Can you climb a pole and disrobe at the same time, all the while making it look not only easy but sexy as well? Yeah I didn't think so. Not to mention sliding down the pole, naked and upside down, by one knee and stopping six inches from the floor. It was fucking incredible.
On the other hand, how can you say they're not objectified, even if it is a job, even if they are making an insane amount of money? How isn't it degrading to take dollars from people for shaking your booty or playing with your pussy or rubbing your boobs in their face?
And I'm a girl, and there I was waving my dollars and getting boobies in my face too.
I've been giving it a lot of thought.
I was the only girl there. So that had a lot to do with my feeling like I was doing something wrong.
Not that I am an expert or anything, but I did live in Philadelphia for years and I found all kinds of stuff there. The BDSM club I mentioned (it's closed now) and then there was another sex club that was bigger and more well known but not as hard-core. There's the gayborhood, you know, around Spring Garden area, and Silk City and all that. There's the dance club, Sisters, that's, you know, a girl's club. And there's rainbow flags all over the place for pride week. But I've never heard of a strip club that's meant for women to watch other women dance naked.
So I've got this feeling I'm not a very good lesbian (again. I feel like that a lot.) Certainly not a good feminist. And kind of a dirty person.
I do understand that I'm a girl. Really, I do. And I do girly things. I'm pretty obsessed with my appearance, I mean, I look in the mirror pretty much every chance I get - I wear make-up, I do things with my hair, etc. But sometimes I really feel like I could definitely be a guy. Like I'd rather be a guy, like it would just be that much easier to be a guy. I could be a fashionable guy with awesome hair, right? David Tenant is a guy with awesome hair, so...
But then part of my reason for thinking that is that I feel like I get along so much better with guys (I am currently still fighting with my only girl friend, as it is) and I feel so much more comfortable and I feel like I understand them so much better... but it's also pretty fair to say that perhaps I like hanging around guys better is that they like hanging around me because I'm a girl.
Yeah that.
So here's how it went: I worked my usual double shift last night, and therefor got off fairly early (for me, anyway) and Bevan worked pretty much the same type of shift, and so, as usual, gave me a ride from work to his house, where the idea was that we would go somewhere and do something that involved hooking up with several more people for the evening. I figured we'd just decide which bar it would be, like how things usually end up.
So Bevan's phone rings and he answers and has a conversation that I don't really listen to, and then he pulls away from the phone and says, "Lara, you don't want to go to a strip club tonight, do you?"
And I was like, 0.o WHAT?
And to the phone he was like, "yeah I didn't think she would want to come."
And I was like, all of a sudden, "no no, I want to go!"
Which pretty much surprised him, and me too, cause I was just thinking how trashy and degrading strip clubs were...
But I went, along with some of Bevan's friends, only one of which I'd ever met before. They thought it was pretty cool that I was coming along. I was pretty fucking nervous.
And the place was pretty trashy, but there I was, sitting with a bunch of guys, beer bottle in front of me, chin on my hands, staring at girls taking off their clothes and climbing poles, and finding myself totally enthralled by it all.
Also I... spent all my cash on liquor and um, tipping the girls...
Some of the girls would see me and come right over to me - some of them wouldn't come anywhere near me. I mean, I can't really be bothered by that, I mean, it's not their job to dance for other women, is it? And I'd like to think the ones that did come right over to me and whisper in my ear and [nah, I'm not even typing this part, just use your imagination, ok?] did cause I like made eyes at them and they were like, oh! A pretty girl! What a nice change from all these nasty guys!
But... the thought did occur to me that they did it cause they knew it would drive all the guys in the place mad, and they'd make more money that way.
I mean, plenty of guys (old, shady guys, no less) were all about handing me dollars to give to the girls...
And of course I'm just sitting there with the cheese-face on, I'm sure, through the whole night. Well, whatever. I remember all of their names. And there's no way they're going to remember mind, that's for damn sure.
So, basically, I've totally skeeved myself out.
Sometimes I feel like I don't even know myself.
And it has recently occurred to me that if I were a guy I'd be one of those skeevy, creepy ones that no one wants anything to do with.
Yeah.
Anyway, Bevan is into that freaky-deaky stuff, it seems. I totally would never have pegged him for a guy who oggled at strip clubs and went off with strippers to the "back room" for a private dance and stuff. But he is. Then again... I am one to talk, I guess.
Sooooooo. Maybe me and Bevan bonded over our interest in naked women.
And so now for the grande finale, I'm kind of feeling guilty for the conflict that has ensued from this evening. So Jury, Bevan's girlfriend, has been being pretty nice to me recently. We had a nice little chat the other day and everything. We went out on the beach together in the evening, even, the three of us.
Now Jury is absolutely furious with Bevan, she's calling him her ex boyfriend, and saying all kinds of shit about him, and I feel really bad. Logically, this has nothing to do with me. Her boyfriend isn't cheating on her with me - I don't even like guys. I don't even enter into this - she doesn't care that I was there at the strip club, she doesn't have a problem with him and me hanging around each other. It's not even specifically that she had a problem with him going to a strip club to begin with - she doesn't like the idea, but it's not like she forbid it or anything (although if I was a girl with a boyfriend I might be kinda pissed if he went to a club to watch other women disrobe...) - she's furious that he lied to her about why he wasn't answering his phone all night.
That's pretty valid too, as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah, my favorite person does very uncool things, like lying to his girlfriend and oh, wait, cheating on her while she's away at college too. Come to think of it, that might just be the source of these guilty feelings of mine, or, some of them, at least.
So, I don't need to repeat how much I wish that had never happened.
And I'm pretty embarrassed to face anyone, Bevan included, who was at the strip club with me, cause I still feel kinda dirty and skeevy and unsettled about the night. Seriously, that was me, putting dollars between woman's breasts with my teeth?
Real winner, me.
