Amanda Greever

A while back I wrote a column about a friend of a friend who went to a strip club with her new husband on their honeymoon. I was baffled at both behaviors: that of the husband having so little respect for his new bride and that of the new bride having so little gumption and being unable to say no.

Strip clubs have always been a curiosity factor for me. They hold a mysterious appeal to men and sometimes women. But the question is, why?

As one friend put it, do these people have so little imagination that they need this type of stimulation in their face? I’m not so concerned with lack of imagination so much as how much it actually costs to look but not touch.

If you’re the type that can’t fathom the very notion of a strip club, look at it this way. It’s like taking a shopping trip, paying to try on the most expensive dress and then leaving it at the store. Has your time been well-spent in that endeavor or does it just leave you unsatisfied?

Or as I heard one GUY put it the other night, it’s like paying to go to a restaurant and having a fabulous meal (let’s say steak) placed before you. You can look at the steak and you can drool over the steak but you’re not going to get to see if it’s as good as it looks. On top of all that, you probably have to buy a couple of drinks just to look at your forbidden feast. It gets even more expensive when every few minutes you have to drop another 10-spot.

I love what one of my other friends told me, though. She has a cousin that lives in Las Vegas, and he’s single. His married friends have been strip-club attendees while on a business trip. The cousin, being the single one, is still the one that hasn’t gone. He finds it disrespectful to women (go, friend’s cuz!) while the married guys see no problem with it. I’d love to know what their wives think although I would bet my own 10 that the ladies are clueless.

So what draws men to strip clubs? Is it that fact that every single lady is putting herself through school, no matter what her age? Really, I don’t quite understand why that’s the common excuse for taking off your clothes for money. My school certainly wasn’t that expensive.

What circumstances could possibly drive a woman to that profession? No, I’m not trying to judge. Desperate times do call for desperate measures. And I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have the body to do it. Various strip clubs advertise X number of pretty women and one ugly one. What man in his right mind is going to get excited at the thought of seeing an ugly woman on stage? And how do you feel if you’re the ugly one?

I know that strip clubs hold a certain allure to guys. Hey, you just turned 18 … you can go watch women strip. Hey, you’re getting married tomorrow … you should totally go watch a bunch of women take their clothes off. Hope it doesn’t hurt the honeymoon. Or maybe you can go together WHILE you’re on the honeymoon. Nothing says “I love you” quite like a lap dance from another woman.

I’ll never understand it. There are plenty of other ways to find entertainment that are cheaper and a lot more sanitary. And the ladies at these clubs deserve more respect than this can ever afford them.

Amanda Greever is assistant managing editor for print at The Daily Times. She writes a weekly column in Women’s Times. She can be reached at 981-1163 or amanda.greever@thedailytimes.com.