How To Tell If You're Dating A Stripper - RTOTD #880

Day 880

A man in Houston is suing a stripper for his Harry Potter DVDs (as well as some cash & a laptop or something). He claims they were a loan to a girlfriend. She claims that they were gifts from a regular.

Ok guy... look... I know that you should know this shit by now, but I'm just gonna have to learn you a thing about strippers.

They are human beings doing a job. Some are great people and some are no better than a common con artist. Either way, their job is partial wish fulfillment & ego stroking. Their goal is to get you to think that they're interested in you and get whatever material goods from you that they can. So if you think a stripper is into you because she spends time with you at her place of employment and you give her lots of gifts & money that she thanks you for, then you've done nothing but prove that she's good at her job. That doesn't mean that you're dating her. If she gave you a sob story about her rent or phone bill or kids and you picked up the tab for her for a month, that doesn't mean you're dating her. It means you've got more money than brains.

Which brings up something else... dating strippers. I can comment on this because I've had both the fortune and misfortune of doing this a few times. I generally don't give a fuck what a girls profession is, as long as she's not a money sucking leech. And money sucking leeches come from all walks of life. As far as I'm concerned, that she's a stripper is no different than anything else. It's no different than meeting any other broad at her work since she's in a service/entertainment industry and I was there to be served/entertained. No different than a waitress or a bartender or a yoga instructor... who am I kidding... there's no way I would ever meet a yoga instructor at her work. That would involve me going into a yoga studio. HA! Not gonna happen.

But still... you're meeting a girl at her job. That her job involves taking off her clothes for money is irrelevant. It's no different than being a regular with the same server. Just because the same girl brings you your burger and coffee twice a week doesn't mean you're dating. And just because she accepts your 20% tip with a thank you doesn't mean you're dating.

So with that said, let's examine a few way to determine if you're dating that stripper or not:

First, if you are NOT 100% sure that you're dating that stripper... you're not dating that stripper.

Second, if you ARE 100% sure that you're dating that stripper, there's a 90% chance that you're still not dating that stripper.

Third, if you have never spent time with that stripper outside of the club, then you're not dating that stripper. And if you've paid for her company outside of the club, then you're only dating her if you also think you're dating the slutted up girl that walked up to your car at a red light & asked if you want a date.

Fourth, if you've ever paid for anything more than on-stage tips or MAYBE a lap dance, you've got fuck-all chance. Sorry man. Just the way it is. You're a wallet now. You might be a wallet with a good sense of humor or a nice personality, but you're just a wallet. A regular and a set amount of money they can rely on when they see you walk into the club.

Fifth, unless she's been to your place for a holiday, you've met family or pets, or hung out with friends and none of these outside-of-work interactions that anything to do with money, you're not dating that stripper. Note: meeting any or all of these requirements do not guarantee that you are dating that stripper. If so, then there's probably another half dozen strippers I've "dated" and not realized it. In fact, if you can't pick up the phone and make plans with her like you would anyone else you're friends with, I can guarantee that you're not dating.

Sixth, sorry... there's a 99.9% chance you're just not dating that stripper. Why? Because you're one of a thousand dudes that they've met in the club to in the past few months and assuming they even date customers, they're likely only dating 1 or 2. And the math says that probably ain't you.

And on a personal note, I've always had a litmus test for determining the interest level of a stripper that I've met at a club & is down to meet up off-the-clock to get to know each other better if there's some chemistry: if on the first "date", she doesn't at least demand to go dutch on drinks/coffee/dinner, I immediately decide that there's no potential for anything else. Sorry ladies, but that's just how I do it. I can guarantee that I've been wrong a few times in both directions and it's not fool-proof, but it's a pretty good litmus test and has worked out reasonably well for me to this point.

So sorry, Guy-In-Houston... you are either an idiot, a total mark, or fell down the naiveté tree and hit every branch on the way down if you think giving gifts to a stripper that she accepts makes her your girlfriend. You just fell for the oldest stripper trick in the book. Also, you failed Common Sense 101.

Leave Them No Ground To Go To - RTOTD #805

Day 805

Remember when LA County passed that stupid condom law last year where porn stars had to use condoms on any movie filmed in the county? And remember when the porn business said that they'd leave if it was passed? And remember when LA County didn't believe them and passed it anyway?

Well, they left and LA County is sitting there going "I don't know what happened?!?!?"

They mostly went down the road to the next county. That next county is now about to try to pass the same law. I bet when everyone tells this new county that passing the same stupid law means the porn biz will leave there as well, they won't believe it either. I guess they don't want the hundreds of millions of dollars that the porn business makes and they can tax either.

I always love seeing California plan to do something stupid, be told why it's stupid and not to do it, ignore all warnings about the detriments of doing it, do it anyways and then be left confused when the warnings they were given come to pass.

Because fuck you, Los Angeles.

When you realize how much tax money you lost from this stupid law & repeal it, think about changing your "no booze & fully nude strippers in the same place" law too. Your strip clubs suck compared to Pittsburgh. And really.... How could you possibly let that happen? I mean really.... That's sad.

I think someone was reading too much Sun Tzu recently. But it is California afterall. They pretty much get everything wrong anymore. I guess they somehow forgot that business is needed for those pesky things like "jobs" and "income" and "tax revenue" and stuff.

Maybe all that "speaking spanish and english" everywhere thing fucked up some translations when you added in Chinese. They managed to mix up Enemy and Business in translation.

Right? Maybe? Come on, I'm throwing you a fucking bone here, California. Just take it.

Dead Stripper or "Strippers Don't Bounce" - RTOTD #772

Day 772

So I don't know if you saw this... but it's probably more amusing to our Cleveland bretheren than to the Pittsburgh folks, but a few weeks ago, a stripper in Cleveland at one of the clubs in the Flats fell off a balcony while performing a lap dance. She had decided to do some move involving holding onto a railing at the top of the balcony and well.. let's just say that her cocaine-addled brain probably didn't really register it as the bad idea that it was.

Long story short... she fell. On her damn head. And has been in the hospital for a few weeks in the ICU.

Well... apparently she died. It sucks. While there's no shortage of girls with daddy issues and a coke problem (or a few kids from a few different fathers that need taken care of) to take up the torch and fill that job of selling her dignity a dollar at a time, it's always disappointing when the ones willing to do acrobatic shit in those 7" heels gets herself hurt or killed. Or when they stab somebody in the eye with those heels.

Or that time one busted Whiskey's nose at the nudie bar with her ass. That was kinda awesome. (seriously... buy my book. the story is in there and it's awesome)

I don't know what the point of this was other than to use Dead Stripper as a post title. But yeah...

On an entirely different note... I got my new bullhorn the other day. And it is amazing. I tested it out last night. Not only am I still ungodly loud, I'm now louder AND I can project my awesomeness further.

I'm not sure if that constitutes a threat or not. But whatever... You're in for a fucking treat in the future. It probably is a quick way to a Disturbing The Peace citation though. Mix that with some Devil's Juice and well.. if you could find a more direct path to the drunk tank without collecting $200 that doesn't include picking up a CHANCE card, I don't know it.

Strippers in LA - RTOTD #767

Day 767

I never thought the day would come when I would be sitting in a Los Angeles titty bar and pining for the strip clubs of western Pennsylvania. But alas, I was doing just that only a few short weeks ago.

You would think that the state where most of our porn originates from would be less prudish with their strip club laws than a rather puritanical state like Pennsylvania when it comes to anything sexual. You'd also be wrong.

I mean, PA is a state where you can't consent to battery, where any sort of kinky anything as a service is considered prostitution, and where we might even still have sodomy laws. I'm not sure about that last part, but considering my penchant for butt sex, and my luck, I have a feeling that we do and I'm breaking it every time the girl is on the rag and it's anal and blowjob week. I'm pretty sure we still even have a law on the books that all-but bans sorority houses because houses with more than 7 non-blood-related unmarried females living in it together without any men is considered a "house of ill-repute".  I don't know all of our laws, but let's just say that when I think about freedom of sexual expression, and which states are the best for it... well... PA doesn't exactly pop into my head anywhere near the top of the list.

Fuck, when our courts overturned the "no full-frontal-nudity if the strip club serves booze" law a few years back, I figured we were just getting somewhere near enlightened and on par with the rest of the country.

Then I decided to hit up the nudie bars with the GM of our LA yard (The Surfer) while I was visiting.

Now, one caveat to keep in mind. We didn't hit the DOWNTOWN LA or Valley strip clubs. We hit the Spearmint Rhino in Torrance. Over kinda near Manhattan and Redondo Beaches. Now, I've heard good things about this place. I've at least HEARD of it and I'd never bothered with going to LA before this. I'm not really much of a People's Republic of California type guy. The Left Coast isn't really my idea of a place I wanna spend much time. So with it being a place I've at least heard of, and The Surfer was taking me there, I figured the place would be pretty good.

When we walked in the door, I had a feeling that I knew what we were getting into. And it was all kinds of not good.

As you also may have picked up from the past few years of my rambling mess of a column here, I love me some strippers. But the thing is... I can be somewhat brutal in my criticisms of anything from their body to their routines to their personality and the amount of effort that they put out. I can't stand the entitled stripper that thinks that she should be handed my dollar just for being hot and glancing in my general fucking direction for a few seconds out of a minute and a half of a song. Fuck that bullshit and fuck you, whore. You're not that hot and you're not that interesting. Earn your dollar. Your dignity is a pretty reasonable exchange rate.

First, like everywhere else in the People's Republic of California, it's non-smoking. This isn't really that big of a change. Erotica is non-smoking here now ever since they remodeled. And considering that it's SoCal, and fairly warm, being forced to go outside for a smoke wasn't that big of an inconvenience.

And the bar had a pretty decent selection of beers to choose from. I was able to get a Guinness, which is a step-up from the swill that they serve at most of the strip joints around here and that I've hit in other cities. But considering that it's a $1 bottomless beer at Erotica or dollar drinks at a lot of the other clubs I've been to, it's not too bad of a trade-off. Paying $5 for a pretty decent sized Guinness at a nudie bar in LA isn't something I'm gonna complain about. $5 for a good beer vs free shit beer? Fuck it, I'm on an expense account. I'll pay for a good beer.

But the second thing I noticed was that while the girls were pretty hot, they weren't really all that much more talented than the locals at home. Although I will certainly say that the girls out there filled out their tops a decent bit better than a lot of the dancers locally. Probably just because fake tits are kind of a factory option out there and a luxury add-on here. But beyond that, the girls weren't appreciably better. Maybe if my only frame of reference for comparison was the Beehive in New Alexandria, the Tennyson Lodge, or that topless cafe in North Carolina, my opinion might have been better. But compared to the clubs in the city that I've been do? The girls were frankly not all that significantly better.

At this point, we were about par for the course for strip clubs. Mid-East Coast vs West Coast was sitting at a tie. But that's where the tie ends. From here on out, I was disappointed.

The next thing that I noticed was that absolutely nobody actually sits at the bar there. They all sit back at tables and wait for the girls to get off stage and hustle their way around the room trying to hunt for sales. This annoys the shit out of me. Not because I give a damn how much or little these girls make, but because the girls making virtually nothing for their time on stage means that they're in full-on used car salesman mode when they're wandering the floor. They don't have the time or energy to actually interact with the customers. And god-dammit, I have no desire to just get a sales pitch thrown at me from the minute they come up to me until they go away.

The other thing that was a major disappointment was that you were lucky if they took off their bra while they were dancing. Not only were they not nude, but they were effectively just dancing in bikinis the whole time. And not even the "might as well be naked" kinda bikini that is more my taste. No, these girls might as well have rolled in off the beach and just thrown on a pair of stripper heels and started dancing. I've seen more skin at a rave or a dance club.

And don't even get me started on their complete ineptitude with using the pole. I didn't see one dancer there that knew that the pole was for something more than just holding onto and swaying around with one foot planted firmly on the floor.

Now, after grabbing a couple beers for The Surfter and myself, we found a table just back from the stage. I was going to grab a seat at the stage since it was wide open, but he stopped me and said to grab a table instead. I still don't entirely understand why nobody sits at the actual stage in LA strip clubs, and never really got an answer, but this was his turf and I was just along for the ride, so whatever. I figured I'd just follow his lead.

Within a moment, we each had girls throwing themselves at us with all the sincerity of a cokehead that's still gotta earn the other half of that day's habit. They were amusing and playful and obviously out of their god damned minds on some sort of mind-altering substance. The big-titted blonde that was draping herself all over The Surfer was cute and engaging. The skinny latina with a poor grasp of the English language and a heavy accent that had hopped into my lap and wrapped herself around me? Not so much. She wasn't ugly or anything, but she was a few years past her prime and her ass sagged in that same way that girls that have a few extra miles after 3 kids from 3 unknown fathers have a tendency to sag. I was not enjoying this. Plus, I kinda hated The Surfer at the time. Mostly because he had already fallen into her trap and was being dragged off for a lap dance while leaving me with saggy ass.

I tried to be as nice as possible while telling her to get the fuck away from me and send over someone that could speak English and wasn't in the country illegally. Her tears told me that I didn't do as good of a job as I thought that I did. Her other 3 attempts to get my attention over the next 45 minutes told me that I might have done better than her initial reaction indicated.

After The Surfer came back, I finally attracted the attention of one of the few other girls there that I thought might have been able to exceed the talent level of your average Pittsburgh strip club. When I had initially realized that 95% of the girls at this place were no more attractive than your average mid-talent stripper in Pittsburgh, I had decided that I wouldn't be spending any cash on any girl that I couldn't confuse for a hometown stripper. And I had finally found one.

One positive that I did find was that their lap dances were only $15, as opposed to the normal $20 locally. There was, however, a trade-off to that. Not only were the girls not nude, but it wasn't really as much of a lap dance as a "sit in 1/2 of a diner booth while she grinds on you through her bikini" dance. They didn't have chairs. They didn't have the lounger things. They had a wall with one side of a diner booth from Eat N Park lined up one after another and 8-10 inch partitions between them. So you were effectively sitting straight up and didn't even really have any armrests to put your hands with the no-touch rules that these places have. So fuck it, I decided that her ass and thighs were a perfectly good armrest. The bouncer didn't seem to object and neither did the dancer.

The other bonus this night was that they were buying "but 2, get a 3rd free" lap dances. So fuck it. $30 for 3 songs wasn't bad. Even with the shitty accomodations and lack of nudity. Honestly, it was about a fair price. I got half of a lap dance by my standards, and paid half price. So it kinda came out in the wash. Come to think of it, I don't know if I could even consider it half a lap dance. It was, at best, a "drunk whore at the club" quality lap dance. I wouldn't pay for that, so maybe it wasn't really all that fair of a price. But fuck it... expense account.

After wandering back out to the table after my 3 songs, I found The Surfer again. He had found some guys that he had partied with in his 20's before he got married and was hanging out. I joined them.

The Surfer: "You don't look too happy"

Me: "I just paid money for a girl in a bikini to grind on me. How was that worth it?"

Guy #1: "What do you expect, it's a strip club?"

Me: "I expect them to strip. As in, take their clothes off."

Guy #2: "You mean like fully nude?"

Me: "That's what I consider a strip club"

Guy #1: "Then you can't drink"

Me: "The fuck I can't! I never thought I'd ever see the day where I said that Pittsburgh strip clubs were better than LA strip clubs, but I guess that's exactly what I'm saying"

Just then, a cute girl came over with her friend that could have been a sister or fraternal twin. She threw herself around me and jumped into my lap. I wasn't complaining. I had already been drinking for about 4 hours by this point and she was cute, young, and had some rather exceptional fake tits.

Stripper #1: "Hi! What are you guys talking about"

The Surfer: "He was just doing a comparison between the strip clubs in LA and Pittsburgh"

Stripper #2: "Oh? We're totally better, right?"

Me: "Actually, the opposite. I mean... you girls might average a half point higher as a roster than some of the clubs in Pittsburgh, but you also might as well be dancing in your underwear. Yippy. I can see that at a dance club."

Stripper #1: "But you can't drink if we were naked"

Me: "Bullshit. I come to a strip club, I expect booze and naked girls. If I can get that in puritanical Pennsylvania, I should be able to get that in debaucherous Los Angeles."

Stripper #1: "But if we were naked, where would the imagination be?"

Me: "Do you know when I don't mind imagining what you look like naked while you're dancing? When I'm taking you home to fuck you later and goign to find out if my imagination and reality match up. But considering that you're probably not about to come home with me, I don't give a fuck what my imagination comes up with. I want the reality if I'm paying"

Stripper #1: "Well, let me see if I can get you to change your mind"

Me: "About taking you home with me or caring what my imagination comes up with?"

Stripper #1: *just grins*

Me: "Well then, I think you have some hard selling to do!"

After another 20 minutes of her trying to sell me on a lap dance, I finally relented. They were still doing the 3-for-$30 lap dances, so I decided to give it a shot.

Following her to the lap dance area, I ended up in almost the exact same booth as last time and let her get started. She kinda cheated by starting her first dance 1/3 of the way through a song, but she didn't want to waste any time and I was OK with it. I wasn't paying anyway.

She spent the next 10 minutes or so doing everything in her power to get a reaction out of me, including pulling my hands onto her back, ass, thighs, and pretty much giving me carte blanche to feel her up over her bikini. I took advantage and went to town. She teased like a pro and I growled while digging my fingers into her back. At one point in the last song, she ended up staring at me while I was in mid-growl and shuddered while dropping hard down onto my crotch and wrapping her arms around my neck.

As the song ended, I stood up, almost throwing her off me. She stood there, looking up at me, even in her heels and shuddered again before shaking her head to regain her own composure. Her eyes were glazed and she was biting her lip. She shook her head, clearing it before looking at me again and used a line that I've never heard a stripper use before.

Stripper #1: "You're dangerous. I don't know if I've ever been this terrified and turned on at the same time at work. I kinda like it"

Me: "I"m a horrible person and I do bad things. I'm gussing that makes me your type"

Stripper #1: "It's a good thing you're not from around here"

Me: "I think that's my cue to walk away now. That was fun."

Stripper #1: "You're telling me!"

I found The Sufer and his friends again and we decided that it was about time to leave.

One of The Sufer's friends decided to come with us and we ventured off to find another club. We did. It was a nude club this time, but didn't serve alcohol. We only lasted about 20 minutes in this place before deciding that it was time to jet again. The talent at this club was significantly lower than the last one. Not quite to the level of The Tennyson or anything, but still appreciably lower. I didn't see any knee braces or Foxx racing logos as tramp stamps, but this place was still not really all that special. And the lack-there-of alcohol pretty much killed any interest we had in the place after about 15 minutes.

We ended up calling it a night around this time. The Surfer got a pissed-off phone call from his wive because we had been out for almost 6 hours by this point and well... she kinda seemed like the jealous type. And considering that The Surfer was pretty obviously a partying kinda guy, and she didn't seem like she was that dumb, she probably had a pretty good idea of what we were up to.

I did end up hitting an In N Out Burger on the way back to my hotel that night. That kinda made my night end on a decent note.