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<p>Contrary to popular opinion, strip clubs aren't all alike.&nbsp; In fact one can argue that they are all unique, that no two are alike.&nbsp; There is an almost endless variety, which is part of the fun of visiting different strip clubs.&nbsp; But sooner or later most of us develop a preference for one sort of club over another, so it can be helpful to try to classify them according to some common types.&nbsp; There are obviously many different ways of doing so.&nbsp; Here is FONDL's classificaton scheme, based on 40 years of visiting clubs all over the US.&nbsp; They are arranged roughly in order from high end (upscale) to low end (downscale).</p>
<p>Gentlemen's Clubs (GC).&nbsp; These are the big, glitzy places that are usually depicted in movies, and are what comes to mind when the uninitiated hear the word &quot;strip club.&quot;&nbsp; They typically have all the amentities including parking attendants, doormen, tuxedoed bouncers, obnoxious DJs, gift/cigar&nbsp;shops, large bars, a large selection of uniformly-gorgeous dancers (mostly&nbsp;Barbie dolls&nbsp;with fake boobs), a variety of exotic private rooms, full kitchens, extravagant prices, and stuffy atmospheres.&nbsp; This is where the creme-of-the-crop experienced professional dancers work.&nbsp; Professional athletes and people who pretend to be wealthy hang out here.&nbsp; And seasoned strip club customers avoids these places like the plague.&nbsp;&nbsp;Fortunately there are very few&nbsp;such places, and they exist almost exclusively in downtown areas of large convention&nbsp;cities like New York.&nbsp; If you go bring lots of money.&nbsp; Lots.&nbsp; And don't expect any bargains.<br />
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GC-Wannabes.&nbsp; Most places that&nbsp;call themselves gentlemen's clubs actually belong in this category.&nbsp; They pretend to be GCs but they lack some of the amentities of the true GC.&nbsp; Typically&nbsp;they don't have the size or as fancy a level of decor.&nbsp; Often they don't have much in the way of&nbsp;a kitchen&nbsp;if any.&nbsp; Nor are they able to attract quite as&nbsp;professional a&nbsp;caliber of dancer (which is a good thing).&nbsp; And they may be lacking some other key&nbsp; elements as&nbsp;well.&nbsp;&nbsp;Never-the-less in most cities these are the fanciest places available.&nbsp; And they're where most&nbsp;upscale dancers would like to work.&nbsp; The GCs and the GCWs constitute the high end of the strip club&nbsp;market.&nbsp; And they attract&nbsp;few of the&nbsp;frequent strip club customers who post here because they generally have the highest prices and the lowest contact levels, although in some parts of the country the latter isn't&nbsp;necessarily true.<br />
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Titty&nbsp;Bars.&nbsp; The most common type of strip club in the US is the small neighborhood bar that&nbsp;&nbsp;at some point&nbsp;over the years added&nbsp;some dancing girls as entertainment.&nbsp; The girls typically dance&nbsp;on a stage behind the bar&nbsp;or in a corner, then circulate for tips and sit and drink with customers.&nbsp;&nbsp; There may be&nbsp;some additional forms of entertainment as well, such as a pool table or two, and there may also be some&nbsp;private dances available, but most customers come&nbsp;just to drink and socialize.&nbsp; Such places&nbsp;typically feature low drink prices and a very&nbsp; friendly&nbsp; welcoming atmosphere.&nbsp; Many dancers begin their careers here, and many older dancers return to end theirs, so there is typically a very wide&nbsp;variety of dancers, although they may be fairly few in number.&nbsp; Such places can be&nbsp;quite popular, but tend to draw customers almost exclusively from their local area.&nbsp; Such places abound&nbsp;throughout older outlying&nbsp;residential/commercial areas surounding older major cities,&nbsp;as well as in smaller cities, towns and rural areas.&nbsp; Typically the bar is open all day long, but dancers&nbsp;may only be featured at certain busier times.&nbsp; Go into&nbsp;many of these places in the middle of the afternoon and you'll see a bunch of retired guys at the bar drinking beer while a teenager or two dances in a bikini or topless for dollar tips.&nbsp; Some of these places can be quite pleasant, if you're in the area, but they're rarely worth a special trip.<br />
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Lap Dance Factories.&nbsp; A fairly recent phonomenon&nbsp;in many parts of the country, the LD factory is typically a&nbsp;smaller bare-bones affair&nbsp;where the lap&nbsp;dance is the thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;Such places may have originated with the famous Mons&nbsp;Venus in Tampa,&nbsp;but have since become quite common thorughout the US.&nbsp; Unlike&nbsp;most of the previous club types discussed, such places often don't serve alcohol, although BYOB may be allowed.&nbsp; You'll see guys rolling in coolers full of beer in many shcu places.&nbsp; And they typically feature &nbsp;girls dancing nude on a little stage.&nbsp; Nearly unlimited two-way contact is sometimes available.&nbsp; And if there are separate private rooms, even more may be on the menu.&nbsp;&nbsp;Such places often attract fairly young inexperienced dancers as well as older girls, and more recently have been attracting a lot of foreign-born women who are sometimes less intimidated by high contact.&nbsp; And drug abuse, common throughout the strip club industry, may be at it's most common here.&nbsp; These can be very enjoyable places to visit at a reasonable cost&nbsp;because they&nbsp; often don't sell overpriced drinks.&nbsp; Such places also often attract a very young rowdy crowd, especially late at night.&nbsp; Best to go fairly early to avoid that.<br />
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Hybrids.&nbsp; One of the more recent trends in the strip club industry&nbsp;is that many clubs, especially titty&nbsp;bars,&nbsp;are trying to&nbsp;become more upscale.&nbsp; They're improving their decor and adding amentities, which often include separate lap dancing facilities.&nbsp; They aren't large enough or fancy enough to be considered GCW's,&nbsp;but they inlcude some of their features as well as features of LD factories.&nbsp; Yet the good ones manage to&nbsp;retain the friendly party atmosphere and the reasonable prices of the titty bar.&nbsp; We call such places hybrids, and they are FONDL's favorite type of club.&nbsp; Think Brad's Brass&nbsp;Flamingo in Indianapolis.&nbsp;&nbsp;These places have become quite common, in fact next to titty bars they are probably the most common type of club.&nbsp; (Note - hybrids&nbsp;are listed here out of order - they are often a bit more upscale than the two previous types of club discussed, but those had to be described first before&nbsp;in order to&nbsp;describe the hybrid.)<br />
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Sex Emporia.&nbsp;&nbsp; This term refers to those places that typically combine&nbsp;a wide range of other adult services such as an&nbsp;adult book store&nbsp;or a jack shack combined with&nbsp;a stripping area, which may actually be a little theater.&nbsp;&nbsp;Fairly few in number, such places&nbsp;can be found in really seedy areas of some major citiesand in a few smaller cities and towns (Harrisburg, PA&nbsp;has one but&nbsp;don't bother to go)&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;near a few truck stops here and there.&nbsp; Some are open 24/7 and rarely&nbsp;serve alcohol.&nbsp; In some cases anything may be&nbsp;available.&nbsp; They tend to be quite small, althought there are a couple well-known&nbsp;larger ones&nbsp;(eg. Mitchell Brothers in San Francisco.)<br />
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Block-Type Clubs.&nbsp;&nbsp;Any classification scheme for strip clubs must&nbsp;include a specail category for the 30 or so clubs which comprise one block of&nbsp;East Baltimore Street in Baltimore.&nbsp; While there are no doubt a few such clubs elsewhere, these tend to be unique and are therefor worthy of special mention.&nbsp; They are a real throwback to the past - anyone who wants to know what strip clubs were like 40 or 50 years ago need only visit this unsafe area (don't go alone late at night and don't drink heavily.)&nbsp; Such&nbsp;areas were common&nbsp;in many inner cities then, but&nbsp;Baltimore's is the&nbsp;only one which remains, and it remains virtually unchanged since we first visited it in the late 1960s.&nbsp; The format is simple -&nbsp;a&nbsp;long anrrow room with a bar&nbsp;extending along one wall and booths along the other.&nbsp; Girls dance nude behind&nbsp;the bar, then circulate offering their comany.&nbsp;&nbsp;Typically a special&nbsp;dancer for $20 or so gets their company at the bar, a $75 drink gets&nbsp;a hlaf hour&nbsp;alone together in a booth, a&nbsp;$120 drink&nbsp;takes you to a more&nbsp;private area&nbsp;in back for a little longer period ot time.&nbsp; There are no&nbsp;lap dances but there's lots else on the menu, depending on the place and the girl and your tip.<br />
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We're tempted to add&nbsp;one more&nbsp;special category of club for brothels&nbsp;masquerading as strip clubs.&nbsp; There appear to be many such places and their numbers are increasing.&nbsp; But they are also somewhat difficult to define because, let's face it, some form of prostitution or other takes place at least occasionally in almost all strip clubs - if not&nbsp; directly inside the club, some girls are nearly always making &quot;dates&quot; for later elsewhere.&nbsp; And in many clubs of all types, illegal sex acts are being performed,&nbsp;at least by a few girls,&nbsp;within the club itself.&nbsp; But identifying in which clubs this is taking place at any given moment is impossible because it's constantly changing.&nbsp; And in any case most of these clubs will fit into one of the other categories anyway.<br />
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One should also be aware that there are many regional differences within the stip club industry, both because of local laws and tradition.&nbsp; So&nbsp;some of the comments here may not apply everywhere.&nbsp; Any attempt at generalization ultimately falls short of the mark on occasion.&nbsp;&nbsp; So why bother to do it at all?&nbsp; First of all, we think it can help understand the industry a little better.&nbsp; And secondly, we think it's kinda fun.<br />
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So which type of club is best?&nbsp; It all depends on what you're looking for.&nbsp; Some customers go clubbing for high contact lap dances.&nbsp; Others just want to sit and watch.&nbsp; Still others like to talk to dancers and get to know them a&nbsp;little bit.<br />
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Your enjoyment will also depends to some extent on how the club is managed.&nbsp; Some managements try hard to create an environment in which both dancers and customers can enjoy themselves, others could care less.&nbsp; So regardless of the type of club, there are both good ones and bad ones.&nbsp; And it also makes a huge difference when you go - a club is a very different place at 2 pm on a Tuesday than it is at 11 pm on Satruday.&nbsp; BAnd ultimately it can be one girl who makes all the differences.&nbsp; We've had some great times in truly bad clubs because we met a girl we really like, and some terrible times in good clubs because we didn't.&nbsp; One of our most enjoyable nights ever was in a small rural barn with 2 dancers and no other employees in sight, and we were the only customers there.&nbsp; For many&nbsp;of us&nbsp;it's that uncertainty that makes clubbing interesting.<br />
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Obviously there are many clubs that don't fit neatly into any of these categories, and new types of places are&nbsp;emerging all the time.&nbsp; Which is part of the fun of&nbsp;visiting new clubs.&nbsp; Enjoy.<br />
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Respectfully submitted,<br />
Friends&nbsp;Of Naked Dancing Ladies (FONDL)<br />
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