The first strip club I worked in was sometime in 1988. I was a barback. I’ve worked as a floor host and a manager as well. I’ve done promotions, planned theme nights, thrown parties, and I’ve spent a lot of money making mistakes. So if you have never been to a club, and you want to go or have to go I can help. Really, it won’t hurt anything but your wallet.
Strip clubs are graded on a scale just like your grades. You have A clubs, B clubs, C clubs, D clubs and F clubs. You can get out of some for under a hundred dollars, others you can spend thousands. One local guy in Clearwater claimed he got “ripped off” for fifty thousand dollars in one night. The disputed credit card charge was upheld, according to local legend he’d disputed similar charges before. That’s a great deal of money, and from personal experience the most I’ve seen anyone spend was about fifteen grand. What can you get for that kind of money? Well, probably not as much as you think.
Contrary to most people’s prejudices strip clubs aren’t necessarily whorehouses, and strippers aren’t whores. With apologies to Chris Rock, sometimes there is sex in the champagne room. However that doesn’t happen in a good club, and it never happens in an A club. For the purposes of this article we’re talking about A clubs or B clubs. We’ll talk about C and D clubs another time.
Fun Fact #1 The laws are different everywhere.
Let’s just assume for the sake of argument that you aren’t one of the guys that goes to a strip club at noon for a few pops. It’s probably about ten o’clock at night and you’ve just finished a sumptuous meal at some corporate steakhouse chain and one of the guys from work says that you are going to see “this girl he met the other night”. He didn’t meet her at the mall, he was there already. Anyway, not wanting to be a killjoy you go with them. Usually you’ll pay ten bucks a head or more. Some clubs you’ll pay fifty. This depends on a couple of factors. If the club serves alcohol you usually pay a lower cover charge. If a club doesn’t have alcohol you pay more.
Yes, even in this enlightened age some states, counties, or cities don’t allow naked women and alcohol in the same bar. Some of the last “blue laws” in American jurisprudence revolve around stripping. Now the strip club business has not changed in my lifetime. Actually I doubt that it has changed much ever. Strip clubs are about fantasy, not reality.
For strippers the job is a job. For most of them this isn’t a career. I have met some amazing women who were “entertainers” which is a very nice way to say stripper. Writers, Moms, addicts, and some of the world’s greatest Liars. They are there to work and make money. They usually don’t take their work home with them.
Being a stripper is about lying. There’s a great line in a movie called The Goods where one of the characters says that to a girl that strippers come in three kinds: Single Mom, College Student, and Crack Whore. Then he asks the second girl how old her kids are and the third girl starts crying. It’s a funny aside, but the skinny is true. Women don’t usually plan on taking their clothes off for money. However it is what she does now.
I guarantee that if you are reading this you are the most interesting, witty and funny man in the room. As long as you keep giving her money. When you stop or if you say no she’ll just go on to the next guy and the next. This is a numbers game, and it isn’t about dollars any more. It’s about twenties, fifties, and hundreds.
The first thing that you’ll notice is that everything is slightly more expensive than a regular nightclub. Okay, it’s a lot more expensive, but you are buying atmosphere. By atmosphere I mean tits. In Los Angeles I think I paid $10 for a beer, and twenty for vodka soda for a lady. Ladies drinks are one of the great ripoffs in some strip clubs. The girls get big glasses with fruit and juice for $20 to $50 and sometimes they even have alcohol in them. In better clubs all the drinks are equally overpriced. Enjoy your drinks, but moderate your intake. Men do not have self control around beautiful naked women who really seem to like you. So getting drunk can be very expensive.
Fun fact #2 Spend Money
Unless you want to look like the leering idiot make sure you get some singles. If you are sitting at the stage tip every single girl a buck or two. Yes, I said every single girl. Even if you aren’t sitting on the stage you should tip girls that catch your eye. Some places have the girls wear the classic garters and you slide them in politely. Some clubs don’t allow you to touch the girls and you just make eye contact and slide the money on the stage. Other places you just hand it to the girl. You can ask the waitress or the floor host what is customary for the club that you are in, and you can also watch the crowd.
Eventually some girl or another or all of them will ask you if you want a dance. There are different rules everywhere for those two. The most common is the $20 Thee DollHouse style table dance. You give the lovely lady of your choice $20 per song and she gives you a personal dance right in front of you This dance is usually sans top but with panties on. Watch your hands, and try not to be a complete pervert. Table dances can be really enjoyable, sensual, and fun.
Some places charge more, very few charge less. There are usually rules. The girls don’t mind if you ask where to put your hands. As a matter of fact most of them really appreciate it. Here in Florida we have contact allowed. That means that you can touch the girls within limits. Each girl has her own likes and dislikes. Yes her ass and tits are hanging out, in some clubs the girls are just walking around naked in high heels, but that doesn’t mean they are fair game. This is doubly true if you can’t get the fishhooks out of your pockets and tip a girl. Rule of thumb, don’t touch someone in their “bathing suit area” without permission.
Now in addition to table dancing there are also VIP rooms in many clubs. This is somewhere you go and pay $5 to $10 per minute to have a girl dance privately for you. A half hour VIP room in an average club is $300 and includes one girl. I’ve seen VIP rooms at clubs that got for $1,000 an hour plus girls at $300-$500 a pop. This isn’t for sex. I am sure sex has happened in many clubs, probably even many that’d surprise me, but most places and most girls are pretty clean. Clubs that have VIP rooms do allow touching and maybe even a little fondling, but they have cameras.
Fun Fact #3: There are cameras everywhere.
In an A and B clubs surveillance is the name of the game. They have cameras everywhere, some places even have casino style cameras hidden. These are used for security, loss prevention, and evidence. If you fuck up on camera you need to assume someone is watching. If you whip it out in the VIP room you should assume that you have just forfeited your money, along with your self respect. If someone is watching there is a strong possibility that a large man with no neck will shortly be showing you the door. Sometimes at significant velocity.
Fun Fact #4: Sometimes you can eat too.
I visited Palm Beach a few weeks ago on business and had time to have dinner at Rachel’s. This is the World Series, Super Bowl, and Stanley Cup of strip clubs. There can be a hundred or more girls on the floor at any one time. The setting is palatial, and the service and food were extraordinary. I had a mixed green salad followed with a ribeye cooked to perfection served au poivre with a side of asparagus. Dessert was a fantastic creme brulee topped with a raspberry caramel prepared tableside. I was in a great mood and drinking Macallan 12. The check was about $200 and that might be a bit spendy but the company was excellent. Now not all clubs have food at this level. As a matter of fact no other strip club restaurant I’ve eaten at in America compares, but the food is usually well-prepared and well-served even if it is expensive.
If you are lonely you might even find a lovely girl to share dinner with you, but you will probably need to tip her at least a hundred dollars an hour for the pleasure of her company. No, you don’t get a discount for buying dinner, cheapskate.
Fun Fact #5: It’s an act.
No, she’s not really a twenty-two year-old, bisexual nymphomaniac who has a fetish for slightly overweight, funny, successful, middle-aged men. However she has a 7 series BMW and two kids in private school. She might be married, she might be a lesbian. She’s working and you can have a fantastic time with her. She’ll laugh at your jokes, share a few drinks, do some dances. She’s going home alone, and you might be going home to bottle of lotion and a towel. Get over it and just enjoy yourself. As an aside, working in the sex industry is a wonderful way to develop or nurture a deep and abiding dislike of men.
A stripper in an A club spends a lot of money to look good. She has weekly manicures and pedicures, she has hair appointments, hours in the gym every week, and sometimes significant plastic surgery. Unless you make over $200k annually you can’t afford her. If you do make that much god bless you.
Why does every underemployed twentysomething guy in an Affliction t-shirt and a pair of Levis think that he has enough game for a go? Guys, back off. Most of the girls you think you are doing so well with are laughing at the size of your penis. These girls are professionals. They aren’t looking for a husband, or a boyfriend. If they wanted to date you then you probably couldn’t handle the fact that whether they are good girls or bad girls they do sex work for money and every time she leaves for the club you are going to wonder if she’s going to meet someone better that night.
If you go to an A club and don’t spend $100 you didn’t spend enough. Say you go for two hours. Cover is $20. You tip $40 in singles, usually two or three at a time. You spend $40 on drinks just for yourself. You get a couple of table dances and $200 isn’t hard to spend. Add a VIP room for good measure and you are easily over $500.
You should look nice. If you are wearing Nikes, a Lakers jersey, and a wifebeater then you usually aren’t getting in. Wear a collared shirt and a pair of jeans. Some clubs don’t even allow sneakers. Shorts, ball caps, and sandals are usually against the rules. Now if you have an NFL players card or a black AMEX they might make an exception.
My local strip club is OZ Gentlemen’s Club in Clearwater Florida. Some of the best strippers in the world work in Florida. Yes I have been to Vegas, Toronto, New York, LA, and San Francisco and yes it is all very nice but Florida has the best strip clubs in the world. Rachel’s is probably first among them, but Tampa’s Mons Venus, and Scarlett’s in Hallandale are also world famous for a reason.
I think that there is more to say than a single post can hold. So I guess this is part one. Stay tuned for part two and maybe three. Who knows, this could get weird.
Ross Winn is a freelance writer, dad, and chauffeur who lives and works in Clearwater Florida. His first novel is Never One to Quit: A Novel About Women and it isn’t cyberpunk either, but it is available on Kindle, iBooks, Nook, and Amazon.
