"Enter the Strippers" - by Brienna Boydstun

Enter the Strippers(Personal Experience)
March 12, 2008

Breathe, I told myself as the girl behind the cage checked my ID to make sure I was really 21. I had no idea what I would encounter once I went through the big metal doors. I was a little excited to try something new, but mostly, at this moment, I was worried if I was dressed properly. I asked around all day but none of my friends could answer my question, “What does a girl wear to a strip club with female strippers?”
“Nothing too revealing,” was all the advice my fiancé Joe gave me. Finally at the last minute I decided on a brown tank-top and jeans. I let Joe and our friend, John, enter the Fox Club first so I could take one last calming breath.
The lights and the smell are what hit me first. As my stomach tried to adjust to the overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke I prayed I wouldn’t collapse from a seizure. Some of the lights pulsed with the music, others swung around like miniature spotlights, all of them repeatedly changed color. I looked at the floor while the boys decided where to sit.
“Let’s take it slow for her,” Joe told John.
They chose a table close enough to see the stage but far back enough so I could get use to the club. The thought “get use to what? I was raised by nudists,” crossed my mind as we took our seats.
The big leather chairs were surprisingly comfortable and soon my eyes adjusted enough so I could look around. I was shocked.
I expected to see a lot of naked, or at least topless, girls. I expected to see men receiving lap dances. I expected to see strippers trolling the club for men customers.
The only topless girl I saw was on stage surrounded by what looked like a Paul Bunyan convention. As I continued to look around for the expected strippers I found that I was not the only female onlooker.
There were at least six other women in the club who did not work there. In fact, it took me a few minutes to distinguish the female patrons from the dancers because the dancers, at the moment, were fully clothed. The distinguishing characteristic was the strippers clothes were more risqué or looked like pajamas.
Few dancers cruised the club looking for patrons. Before entering the club I was nervous the dancers might come over to see if someone from our group wanted a dance and that the boys might buy me one, but my nerves were apparently unwarranted. The strippers I saw seemed bored and more interested in talking with each other than earning money.
The only girl who approached us that night was a waitress who asked if we wanted something to drink. Because we only ordered water she ignored us for the rest of the night.
For a while we sat back in our chairs and watched the various strippers taking turns on stage. The stage had a pole in the middle of it and the wall behind it was covered by a huge mirror. Again my expectations were wrong. I thought I would see a girl sensually dancing around the pole, but what I saw instead made me want to laugh.
When the girls came out on stage they swung around the pole once or twice but then ignored it to go to the front of the stage and do what looked like a bad impression of a worm struggling to get back underground.
I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore when a girl who seemed so interested with herself came out on stage looking only into the mirror. She would form her hands into claws and then throw them onto the bar running along the mirror. She repeated this move all the way to the other end of the stage. Watching her do this all I could picture was a cat attacking its reflection in the mirror.
I started getting bored, but then someone finally started doing pole work. I was amazed at what she could do. The pole must have been a little over ten feet high but she climbed it upside-down. She made it look effortless but I could see it must take an amazing amount of strength and control. She would stop climbing every few feet to move her upper-body to the music in the sensual way I first thought the dancers would move.
When she reached the top she loosened her legs and let herself drop until she was halfway down. I winced when I heard the high pitch squeal from the skin of her thighs catching on the pole as she tightened them to stop herself. The crowd around stage continued their breathing and applauded once they saw she was alright and had meant to fall.
After the dancer’s performance I continued people-watching but grew bored once again because everyone else just sat around watching the strippers. There was an occasional lap dance but it seemed private and I felt compelled to look away.
The next thing I knew Joe was shaking my shoulder telling me it was time to go. After all my nerves and worrying, I had actually fallen asleep.