Wisconsin's Rough Times

Wisconsin has a disproportionately large number of strip clubs. It probably has something to do with the fact it has a disproportionately large number of bars, period. It stands to reason, in a twisted sort of thinking, that a percentage of those bars will use naked women to try and convince guys to walk in and spend more. The proliferation of clubs has little to do with the talent. The most attractive dancers I've met that claim to live in Wisconsin are ones I've usually met working at clubs around Chicago, which is smart, given that they often charge upwards of 50-100 percent more for dances and rooms and probably only inconvenience the dancer another hour or two of commute time and a quarter of a tank of gas or so each trip.

Alas, though, this is a difficult time for clubs in Wisconsin, both for the clubs and mongers, and I think it's taking its toll in a few ways. If anything, it's a classic case of how messed up the sex industry is in America.

The elephant in the room is what's all happened in Dodge County.

A quick primer for those unfamiliar with Wisconsin: The two big cities in the state are Milwaukee and Madison. Both are in the southern half of Wisconsin, with Milwaukee on the state's eastern coast line bordering Lake Michigan and Madison in the southern, central part of the state, a city located mostly on an isthmus between two large lakes. Green Bay and other smaller cities like Appleton, Oshkosh and Fond du Lac lie well north of Milwaukee along the valley of the Fox River. To the west of those are places like Wausau, La Crosse and Eau Claire among other smaller cities that dot what's mostly either rural landscape or forests.

Milwaukee and Madison are connected by Interstate 94. On a day with little traffic and good weather, it's about an hour trip from one to the other. In between is Dodge County. A mostly rural place, it had three clubs until fairly recently: The Hardware Store, located in "downtown" of the one-stoplight town of Clyman, and TNT, a shed-like building in unincorporated Lebanon, and a franchise of the Silk brand in Juneau itself.

Silk is Wisconsin's version of Spearmint Rhino, a strip club brand with multiple franchises. Its first, "flagship" location went up in a former dance club on the northwest side of Milwaukee about 20 years ago. In time, it also added a second location on the west side of Madison and the Juneau location.

Milwaukee has a few clubs, highlighted by Silk. Its biggest competitor is On The Border, on the complete opposite side of the city (southeast side). Heart Breakers and a few other smaller clubs are around, but the big two are Silk and OTB.

Madison is home to three clubs: Silk on the west side, Visions on the east side and Club Bristol, on the outskirts of Sun Prairie, a suburb northeast of Madison. Madison also has a more vibrant massage parlor community, notably The Geisha House on the east side and The Rising Sun downtown.

Silk is the party brand. It's the one that advertises on late-night TV and radio. It's the one that brings in the big-name features. It's the one the non-mongers know and usually the one they pick when they're planning a bachelor party. It's relatively affordable as strip clubs go — dances at the Milwaukee location have been $20 apiece for a long time, while you can get into the VIP room for three songs for just $100. It's also among one of the stricter clubs you'll visit when it comes to enforcing rules. While air dances aren't a thing, and some dancers will give you a great grind, if you don't keep your hands off the dancer in the lapper room, you'll get a visit from the bouncer watching the cameras pretty quickly.

It's at this point that it's worthwhile to point out: Wisconsin is an interesting place, both politically and morally. A tradition of progressive politics has lived on in the cities, while the country has followed much of the rest of rural America in turning hard right. No matter where you stand politically, however, Wisconsin is decidedly conservative morally. This may be another explanation for the proliferation of strip clubs: There's a lot of repressed sexuality.

As a result, the city clubs have long been scrutinized. When Silk wanted to open a second club in downtown Milwaukee, the city fought such a long, protracted battle against it that it was willing to swallow being on the losing ends of huge lawsuits, some of over a million dollars, to keep it from happening. Eventually, Silk won, though, opening not just a second club downtown but eventually buying and taking over Art's Performing Center, a smaller club in a party-bar area of town whose name was both a play on the nearby Performing Arts Center and whose reputation was for being home to strippers with bullet holes and communicable diseases. In Madison, meanwhile, Visions, the trashiest of the three clubs there, had a shooting, which resulted in Silk and even rural Club Bristol taking measures to make sure customers were checked for metal before entering.

A recent wrinkle for Silk, however, involved the Dodge County clubs.