I must object to some of the previous premises expressed on this topic. A strip club is an establishment which purveys a service, a very specific service, that being to build a fantasy for those who are sexually attracted to the sexual human form -- most often the female form (and we all ought to be attracted to the human form, in its wondrous variability and giftedness of sensation) -- and so, well, everything
is centered around perceptions and stereotypes. I have been in my time a patron of several of them here and there, enough to know the excellent from the execrable, I have dated more strippers than can easily be counted, and most important of all I have for a brief portion of my life been employed in such an establishment and seen the business end of the business.
Now, if I ran a strip club.... (and I begin from the presumption that if I am
running a strip club, it is because I am the owner of the establishment and can run it in every particular as I wish).... if
I ran a strip club.... you know, The cadence of the phrase brings to my mind a song, '
If I Were A Rich Man' from '
Fiddler on the Roof':
If I ran a strip club.... [clap]
Yubba dibby-dibby dibby-dibby dibby-dibby dummmm.
All day long I'd biddy in their bums.
If I ran a strip-pers' club!!
I wouldn't have to work hard. [stomp]
Yubba dibby-dibby dibby-dibby dibby-dibby dummmm.
If I were a biddy biddy rich,
Idle-diddle-didle strip club owner.
I'd build a big ballsy club, champagne rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine mirror ball with real wooden floors below.
There would be one cute stripper just going up,
And one even cuter going down,
And one more going nowhere, just for show.
And that actually about sums it up. Now, I will make the further presumption that if I owned a strip club, it would be located somewhere with an extremely nonintrusive legal and law enforcement regime (or simply a lax lack of enforcement at all). Because, by 'strip club' what I would really mean is a
cathouse, a
brothel where (as in the Old West) the girls dance on stage as well as, ahem, entertain in the back rooms (naturally, those whose preference is to not provide that next level of intimate contact may keep their business in the front end of the club).
The Dancers:
Now I understand that such a conception will raise immediate protests of the
exploitation of women, but I've known some women who worked in the field of sexual services and rightly took themselves to be much less exploited by that endeavour than they would have been waiting tables at
minimum wage, or running a cash register at some big box store, or sealing lids on cans in a factory. And, let's face facts here, it is men who come to strip clubs and drop hundreds, even
thousands of dollars because they get to see a little skin and perhaps get a little touch, and that experience utterly clouds their minds and makes them impervious to
common sense. So, is it really the
women who are being exploited in this scenario?
Now it has been put to me that I ought to have both male and female dancers. I think such an endeavour would fail, and I would put that down to economic realities -- I've been to strip clubs where women dance while (mostly) men watch, and to those where men dance while women watch, and once to one where men danced mostly for other men, and a few gay women were there to poke fun at the spectacle -- but clubs where both sexes perform (unless in a sex show) tend to flop. Why? Possibly because men and women who are in a place to ogle members of the opposite sex don't wish to be seen doing it by non-performer members of the opposite sex. But there's an easy solution to this, which is to have two 'wings' to the club -- one where the ladies dance for whoever wishes to watch that sort of thing, and the other where the men dance, for whoever wishes to watch
that sort of thing.
As to the
dancers, my preference is that they will be
dancers first and foremost -- simply wandering about on the stage looking sexy will not do. Show some talent, some energy, some
spunk up there!! And as for the performances, well anything goes. Live
lesbian lickfests will be roundly applauded. Cute costumes and silly themes -- the naughty
nurse, the frisky
French maid, the hot to trot lady
cop, the
nun looking for fun -- will be encouraged. This is de rigour for male strippers anyway. And as to the ladies, will I do like variety, and bleached blonde, honey-colored Amazons with breasts like ripe cantaloupes will indeed share time and space with women of all ethnicities and breastices, so long as they earn their keep.
Japanese,
Swedish,
Thai,
Latina,
Filipina,
Hungarian, all will find a welcome home here if they're willing to work for, and within, The System.
The System:
Ah, the system. Now here's the real thing, here's what will distinguish my house from the rest. Since I'm already delving into a fantasy wherein I am able to own a strip club, I will go further and presume that I am so unconcerned with personal wealth as to own it as a bauble, a plaything into which I can invest as much as I desire and from which I need not be concerned with making a personal income. Because at
my strip club,
every dancer gets a cut of the house!! Yes, you heard that right, it's communal (though not communistic) in terms of pay.
It works like this: it's a
funny money club, but without the funny money itself. Your Uncle Sam printed cash is no good inside these doors. In order to get in the door, you must buy 'club' cash up front, say, a hundred dollars worth paid for with cash or credit -- but you don't get fake bills, oh no, we're way beyond that. You get a card -- like a debit card, black and gold, embossed with your name (or a suitable pseudonym of your choice) and having a point value corresponding to how much you paid to put on it, with something like a three-points-per dollar ratio for minimum buyers, and volume discounts for those who buy thousands of points. Want to buy a drink? Swipe the card and pay for it with your points. Because they are
there and presumably continuing to enjoy the show (or at least the ambiance of the place), costumers will
automatically be charged
one point for every dancer's show (figuring the typical show will run three songs of 4-5 minutes a piece). And instead of putting cash in the dancer's
g-string, you'll show your extra appreciation by swiping your card on one of many ports at the stage's edge, and putting in the number of club bucks you wish to pass on (minimum of five points for a stage tip, the value of those points to the tipper depending on the volume of his earlier point purchase). And there goes the problem of groping hands on those g-strings!!
Taking just the girl's side as an example (as the men's will work the same), when a girl is on the stage, whatever is paid
at the stage is counted towards her contribution to the evening's take. If two girls are sharing the stage, they split it, or it will be split by some formula taking into account whether one of them started on a later song. Same goes for the girls who do dances for gentlemen at their tables, and get the guys to put in a number of points at her portable card reader. And the same again to the girls who lure men to the more secluded couches along the side wall, or to one of the back rooms. There's a minimum house fee charged for using a couch or a room at all, plus whatever the dancer wants to charge for whatever she does there. The
cameras liberally distributed throughout the establishment will do more than provide security, they will capture digital images and vids of the stage performances themselves (though not what goes on in the private areas), and unless a performer opts out of her vids being made available, those pics and vids will be available to be purchased in the club itself or at a members-only
website made accessible to points buyers. And again, purchase of pics and vids will be with the points on the card, and will be counted towards the take of the girl starring in them.
So at the end of the night, when closing time comes around, all the points will be counted up, and each girl will get a share of the total profits of the establishment, with that share being calculated by the relative number of points attributable to that girl through all of her point-earning activities -- simply being on stage at all while customers are being charged to be in the club at all; tips taken at the stage; tips from dancing at tables, on couches, or doing other things in the back; tips from the sale of her pics and vids; tips from the price of drinks that customers bought her. The dancer gets her proportion calculated, and the house keeps twenty percent. The more she hustles, the more the house makes (not necessarily the case in strip clubs where cash is king, and the club makes the same money off one dancer who does a handful of table dances, and another who is giving hundred-dollar
handjobs in the back. But because all of the dancers will be getting a cut of the whole, all will be encouraged to bring money into the whole club, and to keep their coworkers making money as well.
And just to spice it up further, I'll add a little competition -- the dancer who brings in the most points in a month gets a thousand-dollar cash bonus for that month. The number two points-earner gets eight-hundred for the month, and so on down the top five. You may have seen that model at work on live webcam sites; no reason it can't work at a live
live location as well.
The setup:
As to the decor, yes, there will be
mirrors with frosted
engravings of nude woman arching their backs ecstatically (on the girl's side -- I'll have to consult with the experts to figure out what the male analogue is, though I suppose it's easy to imagine), pleather couches, and a purple-and-gold color scheme theme. And oh yes, there will be a pole. Three of them, really, one for each stage, for there will be a main stage running along the back wall and spilling out like a teardrop into the center of the room; a modestly
jungle-themed side stage off to one side; and a '
birdcage' suspended over the other side. What there won't be (as there was at the club where I once worked the door) is a setup where dancers walk around on the bar; I simply find that to be unacceptably unhygienic.
Now, as for the music. Indeed there will be no Clarence Carter or BTO, but not because it is to be replaced by sexy mood music. The club will still rock, but only with chick pop, and chick rock. You will never hear a song sung by a man. You will hear only upbeat selections from the collections of such varied luminaries as
Madonna,
Shakira,
Lady Gaga, even
Joan Jett, the
Pretenders,
Heart, the
Bangles,
No Doubt, and
Veruca Salt. That's so far as recorded music goes, but we
will have a house band one or two regular nights a week as well; and this band will be all chicks, and they will rock out as well.
And yes, there will be food. Not chicken wings, naturally, but not a salad bar either. Instead, simple snackings like tortilla chips with salsa or spinach or avocado dip; fried mushroom caps; and potato skins with chives. But as any owner of such a location knows, the real profit center for the club, so far as comestibles go, is at the bar. And here we are talking fully stocked, finest of everything. I'll perhaps not go so far as to declare out loud that long-time customers who know the right person to ask will get access to a fine selection of fine, American-grown marijuana, but let us just put it down as a
dispensary, if that
status may be obtained.
And, like all the best attractions, customers will
exit through the gift shop -- a little adult convenience store all our own where they may stop and buy naughty vids or pornographic magazines, or perhaps some sort of vibrating electronic device to take home and do who knows what with.
----
FERRASSIC