Do I have a strip club and/or sex addiction?

Bee,

I read once that any fully developed hobby is actually an addiction. Yes, I would say you are addicted to strip clubs. But so what? If you enjoy your addiction, errr, hobby, more power to you.

East Saint Louis seems like a good place for a Strip Club Addict to spend time. I feel it is just about the best area in the country for the hobby, for several reasons.

Wonder if JudyJudy will tell you where she works. I doubt it. FOr one thing, I believe she works in a number of different places.

JudyJudy is based in MetroDetroit, but will not tell you which clubs or when.

And--if you are planning your life and expenditures around SCs you are definately addicted.

How serious are the problems it is causing in your life? You already mentioned some problems because you felt you had not saved enough, but it does not sound that dire. Do strip club "save" you from having to form relationships in real life? Did they consume so much mental energy they interfered with your job, etc.? You get the idea, see how you answer all the standard "addiction" type questions.

Give how much you spent, and that you probably also had a gambling addiction as well, I would bet (sorry bad joke) that it's at least 50% chance you had an addiction.

Yes, it appears that you are addicted. But so are many of us. We can all commiserate together!

I'm surprised that you mention lack of LA club mileage. I've been clubbing here for quite a while and the mileage seems consistent. Might just me me, tho.

Have you tried the infamous COI clubs? Prices are decent, and mileage is off the charts.

And as much as I love TUSCL (and I do), zbone is my bible for clubbing - a must have for the LA/OC "hobbiest"!

Beeoch, if you make plans , book your hotels and flights just to go to SC, then something is wrong IMO. If we have a gambling problem, there is a toll free number to call, what number do we call for SC addiction problems ?! I think you should balance your life, bud; there are other things equally excite you as SCs do. Also, improve your social skill set -> develop a social circle with hot girls -> seduce them and make them dance for you :)

If driving 240 miles and staying at a hotel for 2 nights and spending $300 per visit every month for the last 8 years is an addiction, then I qualify for the club.Nobody suffers from my addiction. I can afford it. I have missed 3 months during that time and the girls have noticed it and were concerned about my health. I will be 68 in a couple of weeks. When I stop posting reviews and shit on here, you will know that shadowcat has exceeded his 9 lives.

I wanna say that you have an addiction. If you spend more money than you can afford or should be spending on other things, then you have an addiction, financially. Now, if your dating was just on strippers at the clubs or OTC for quite some time and no other type of girl in the last couple of years, then it's an addiction. If you feel that there is a problem, most likely, there is.

To answer your question simply, addiction!

lopaw,

You are comparing apples and oranges.

Clubber,

Yeah, I know. I want to offer info about LA clubbing, but I know that my experiences are often not the norm. What's a girl to do? ;)

In the future I will try to stay with just the facts' ma'am.

lopaw, a mutual acquaintance mentioned that he was doing xmas dinner at the Proud Bird.I had not heard that name in 25 years. Surprise!

Golfing or Strip Clubbing. Neither one leaves you with any marketable skills. I guess learning how to bullshit with a variety of personality types would be common to both.

Addiction or foolish. I understand chemical dependency. I don't subscribe to the notion of behavioral addictions. OCD comes to mind there. Foolish to spend money and time you don't have.

Hiltonhead or ESL. Looks like I'll be making the trip around the end of January. Hope it don't snow.

You may have an addiction. However you can ask yourself what many of us here have asked. What would we rather be doing differently? Would you be happier if you were off playing golf instead of strip clubs? Would you be happier dating some strange girl every week instead of seeing your normal favorites? Would you rather be married and not going to any strip clubs? Would you rather stay home and be engrossed in an online fantasy or real time strategy game? If you need the money and/or it's negatively affecting other things in your life like your family, job, etc. then you may have a more serious problem. Of course this is all free advice and you get what you pay for.

I once played a board game with a couple of friends just about every weekend during very late hours for about 2 years in a row. We even played in an unheated garage in the winter time. Was that an addiction? Maybe. I just called it fun. I didn't let my hobby interfere with anything else. It wasn't costing me any money either. It just cost me most of my free time during the weekend. I believe somewhere sometime I replaced one addictive hobby with another. At one time I had to balance addictions between online computer games and strip clubs. Other guys in those online games sometimes stated that their girlfriend told them it was either them or the game and I heard at least one guy say that he wasn't going to give up the game.

When you go into a strip club try to leave all your credit cards/ATM cards in the car. Just budget out ample amount of cash and once that cash runs low you know it is time to go. You could always walk out to your car to later get your ATM/credit card and walk back inside but the time it takes to do that you might change your mind about it.

Good luck! You could also try looking into therapy and taking medication but with the doctor visits and prescription co-pays it might get pricey and time consuming (although not as pricey as SC binges).

Are you addicted to strip clubs, no. Could you have an addiction to sex, possibly. Could it be a compulsion to go to strip clubs, certainly.

I first dismiss the idea of being addicted to strip clubs, it's like saying drug addicts are addicted to street corners. The question then will be what compells you to go to strip clubs, were you having sex with strippers or something else. I think O.C.D. (obsessive compulsive) can account for some of the tendencies people have toward strip clubs. I'd also believe O.C.D. is a function of addiction.

All I'd say is figure out what inside the strip club was providing the high or if it you felt compelled to be there. You would know better than anyone else.

I've been meaning to respond, but been busy reading club reviews, checking dancer schedules at SC websites and texting my favorites. Ah, what was the question? Oh, yeah, are you addicted? No more than anyone else posting here.

As the song goes:

Lips are sweet as candy, the taste stays on my mind Girl, you keep me thirsty for another cup of wine I got it bad for you, girl but I don't need a cure I'll just stay addicted and hope I can endure

Following up on the addiction tag line, I think we quickly tag addiction as bad, when in reality all human beings have tendencies toward addiction or compulsion. It is when these tendencies dominate behavior the effects become out of control. I think there is a perceptual difference between the addictions for things we ingest and smoke versus the addictions for behaviors. But all addiction is related to a need or want for endorphins, adrenaline or other stimulants caused by a physical reaction to a chemical or behavior. This is really no more than our humanly animal instincts being acceptably controlled.

In conclusion, you may be addicted, but we all may be as well.

When your escape becomes more routine and habit, yes you're addicted. But to what? Maybe you're addicted to getting off and the strip club is just the enabler! The hobby is fun until you can't manage it's various components: money, time, focus on other priorities, emotions, etc.

One test of whether your hobby is an addiction is if you can't stop doing it even when it stops being fun. It kind of sounds like it hasn't yet stopped being fun. It also sounds like you stopped a high-money gambling habit when that stopped being fun, so you're probably not an addictive personality.

BTW, if you have any tips for the rest of us on how to make enough money that your income can drop by 75 percent and still leave you with enough money to shell out $2,000 to $2,500 for strip club vacations three or four times a year, I for one would be willing to hear it.

He's probably a hedge fund manager those people make money all the time.

Yes I am addicted but around 80-90% is for pussy whether otc or itc.

The question about whether or not you are "addicted" should run less along one of the lines in this thread -- how much time / money are you spending -- and more along another line -- is it interfering with your ability to function at a high level in your romantic and family relationships, your career, your education, your long-term aspirations and dreams. If it's genuinely in the way and yet you CAN'T choose otherwise, than to continue to allow it to be a detriment to your well-being, then it's an addiction, NO MATTER how much or little time or money you put into it. If, on the other hand, you are zipping along with a fully functional, HAPPY, productive, non-risky life in which you are not undertaking actions that can have serious negative consequences, then it is NOT an addiction, NO MATTER (again how much or little.

See my point? The question is, whether or not it prevents you from having a decent life otherwise.

I know I have "addiction"-type issues. I don't know if I want to really say that I AM addicted, but I don't want to lose the opportunity to learn and benefit from any potential counseling or research or intervention that might stem from sex-addiction therapies. So, I'm keeping my mind open.

Where strip clubs most detrimentally impact me, currently, are in the realms of friendship-type and romance-type relationships. I'm OK with my family (don't have wife / kids; but relations with siblings / cousins / parents / etc. are good) and my career (doing average to well in a high-caliber, selective professional program that will last another year and a half, at which point we'll see whether I do OK at the work place again).

But I'm doing DREADFUL with my romances. I haven't had a "real" girlfriend in over 6 years, plus I haven't EVER had a girlfriend with whom I had a "decent" sexual relationship, yet I'm now in my 40s and have "dated" longer-term over 10 women. I seem to pick the weirdos ... or, more accurately, I simply don't pick. They pick me. So I end up with either (a) long long long periods of NO options at all (I can't "move in" and "pick up" a girl, it doesn't work); or (b) women who are screwed up abot all sorts of weird things. I dated one girl who gagged and puked if I touched her below the neck (literally). I dated another who twice chose to over-dose on her Xanax, to the point that I was getting dragged down with her and so I moved on. When I broke up with her, I was indeed fearing that she might actually succeed at killing herself because I had ended our relationship, but, much to my surprise and chagrin, she got all better and didn't really have much suicidal tendency once she didn't have me as an audience. Harrumph. Also, I dated three different girls who simply decided they didn't want to fuck any more, and for some goddammed reason I IDIOTICALLY went along with it, continuing to "see" them as girlfriends, take them to holiday parties, put up with their lack of verve for life. These were "real" people, not children. They were in their 20s or 30s when I knew them. See what I mean, I'm really not getting the best of the bunch.

And another thing I used to do, but now I'm learning to get over it, is, I used to find a girl I really liked, who might also show some interest in me, and then I'd match-make for her, seeking out some male friend of mine of whom I told myself, "He'd be better for her than I would." This is heartbreaking, to look back on, not only because it actually WORKED that I managed to cause my dream-girl to hook up with another guy; but also because those hook-ups tended to lead to traumatic, troubled, turbulent relationships in which the women were victims of either abuse (physical or just emotional) or were victims of emotional disinterest and distress on the part of the men (the very guys with whom I had set them up!) to the point that the women became unnervingly unhappy and cruel to the guys, and by vicarious association, to me as well. What a great way to really eliminate any chance with your dream-girl: hook her up with a man who is REALLY bad for her, and then make SURE you are around to be blamed for it while he's beating her. Nice ...

OK, so, what does this have to do with strip clubbing? Well, on the strength of that sort of track record, I've found that I can avoid that crap (the crap I create) by never actually KNOWING the people I 'date.' So I get sexual services (of a sort) at strip clubs. Sometimes I get a fuck, sometimes just a look-see. But either way, it's pretty clear to any psychologist, what I'm doing is avoiding the kind of fuck-ups I used to get when I was younger. When she's giving me a lapper, least she's not gagging, right? heh ...

Consequently, a strip club is like a crutch for me. I use it because without it I'd be seriously hobbled. I'd never even LOOK at tits. But with it, I'm still lame. I can't walk on my own, and as long as I rely on the crutch of strip clubs, I don't actually learn to walk on my own. I can't. There's no chance for me to meet "real" potential partners. This breaks my heart.

I just saw "Up in the Air" (George Clooney is a professional fire-the-employee contractor). Pretty good movie. The female romantic lead is a stunner. She and Clooney have a "mature" relationship, a real Anthony and Cleopatra thing, where they're experienced enough too do away with the girlie-girl bullshit that prevents good sex from happening, where they can be free to bond. For real. (Actually, it's not the idea that THEY, the mature couple, are mature enough to bond; it's the idea that THE WOMAN ISN'T A PRINCESSY LITTLE PRISSY CUNT, which allows the couple to happily bond). Note: later in the movie it all goes haywire. But for the first part, before it's a plot-device-disaster, I saw what I COULD have had. There's a hot woman. Accomplished. Has a great body. Talks to men. Likes them. Enjoys sex.

I want that. Strip clubs prevent it.

But also, that character (in my imagination, and among the real women whom I've really met) wants a man who is taller than her. I'm under-tall. And she wants him to have hair on his head. I'm balding. And she wants him to make more money than her. But I'm an impoverished student. I don't see how to get over these hurdles. I'm stuck with "having" to go to strip clubs, forced there simply because that is my ONLY access to hot-enough women. Reality says, "You can't have a hot girl, you can't date a beautiful woman, you aren't one of the normal humans who are allowed to try to go out with each other. You're that person in Seinfeld is who 'not date-worthy material.' " So, I seek out fantasy instead.

Does that mean I'm addicted, or just normal?

lopaw,

In the future, you can do whatever the hell you wish, at least in my book.

female in strip club "I want to take you home and let you do whatever you want to me!" me from across the room "WHAT?" "what did you say?" she repeats up closer. Then I passed her up as I suddenly felt a beer buzz and she said she wanted to leave right now. smart? stupid? who was she? a dancer? Beats the hell out of me. I can't even remember what she looked like anymore. Am I addicted to strip clubs because I wanted the comfort of staying in a predictable situation and not go off drunk with a total stranger? Maybe I wasn't drunk. I did just down a few beers because they cut you off early several hours before the club closes. I don't remember hardly any random girls coming up to me out of the blue asking to go home with them as the first question they ask. However I do remember a couple of dancers did one night but they made it easy to say no because they said they wanted money too.

I might try spending some time at a regular sports bar.

Book Guy you lost me when you brought up George Clooney

Book Guy - you bring up the woman who travels also - which reminded me of something I read. That women marry the nice stable guy but play with the mysterious stranger full of intrigue. So even if you married that babe, she would be making you a cuckold anyhow.

You want to get laid - lie to them. Be the mysterious adventurer guy.

I also have had my collection of loser bitches full of addictions, car wrecking, and gold digging. I don't know if it is women or this culture.

I have stopped going to strip clubs. I figure I can be frustrated with money in my pocket as well as without money in my pocket. So I lurk here basically to flock with my own kind. I have come to accept it whether by choice or circumstance.

I will say I have been looking forward to a Vera Farmiga nude scene for a long long long time and finally got to see one!

Can someone post the cliff notes of Bookguy's post. Thanks

Book Guy---I understand exactly what you are saying. Your story mirrors my own. The strip clubs, escorts, and massage parlors ARE crutches. I'm 39. If I want to have sex with hot sub-25 year old women in the real world, I have to step up my game. Women like that want older guys---with money. I do OK but I'm not sugar daddy status. I have managed the occasional hookup with a civilian girl, but a hookup isn't the best place to start a stable relationship.

So, my option for a real relationship is to find a woman close to my age---but those women have baggage and tend to be fat. And if they're not fat they're just older versions of the sub-25 year olds. They're not going to want me. And the fat ones disgust me.

It's not a BAD life. In the long run, it's less expensive than being married or maintaining a real relationship. And the sex is more exciting.

A better option that strip clubs(which will most always end in frustration) is to cultivate a relationship with an independent escort in your area. Craigslist, backpage.com, and cityview.com are all excellent places to look. Most in my area(Tampa) charge $250-$300/hr, which is comparable to what I usually spend on a SC visit.

potheadpl: "It's not a BAD life. In the long run, it's less expensive than being married or maintaining a real relationship. And the sex is more exciting."

It is funny how so many of the posters on this board look at women, before civilian and stripper, as nothing more than providing sex, and at the cost of money and time. Looking at it just that way, yeah, whores probably are a good deal, but could it be that there is more to women than that? The misogyny of many on this board, with their "all woman are ultimately whores" attitude is completely astounding.

I will be 68 on Jan13th but I pass off for 15-20 years younger.I am the ultimate bachelor.I have a 3,000 sq ft house in the city that CNN's money magazine ranks the 8th best place to live in the U.S.I make more retirement income than some of you make working.BUT I do not want to go to bed with grandmothers.That is why I go to strip clubs. It keeps me felling young.I do have a problem though.She is 32 and no longer a stripper. I fucking love her but I am a realist.It can't work. She treats me like a dad. Well maybe a little more than that. She watches my back.She still knows a lot of dancers at the club and advises me on who or not who to mix with. If I were 30 years younger???

As requested: Cliff Notes version of BookGuy's post:

1. BookGuy acknowledges that he is a real weirdo.
2. BookGuy thinks hot women suck, but he still wants to fuck them.

Actually this is the same as all of BookBuy's posts to this board, so mark this post in case you need a summary of future BookGuy posts.

"A better option that strip clubs(which will most always end in frustration) is to cultivate a relationship with an independent escort in your area. Craigslist, backpage.com, and cityview.com"

This might be true where you live but here in Ohio law enforcement is cracking down a lot on this. It seems like every month there is a new story about someone being busted on craigslist or backpage. They not only go after the hookers they also go after the customers by posting fake escort ads. This pisses me off and is why I don't use these sites. I still look around on them though and occasionally find a stripper. I at least know next time I go to the club that she is willing to fuck for money.

Also even if you do find a reputable escort (one who has many positive reviews on an escort site) I do know of a situation where the police busted her then had her work undercover for them to lessen her punishment.

Cliff's Notes to Book Guy's post:

1. I'm socially inept, in a very specific way. And I need to cure that problem.

2. One way to diagnose the problem is, to say I'm too nice. I've tried the "tough guy" (and, thank you Deogol, "lie") acts. They haven't yet worked for me. I bet we're all a little like that, here at TUSCL.

3. I use strip clubbing as a crutch. It's better than NO social outlet, but it also might be hampering my ability to actually cure the problem.

4. I want a relationship, and preferably with a woman who acts like the lead female character in "Up in the Air" or similar, at least the better parts of her from that movie.

-- tah dah, end of Cliff's Notes

Now, then, why didn't I just say that in the first place? :)

Second draft is always easiest to write.

More and more though, I am putting the finger on today's culture for loneliness.

Just like the statistics, half my friends are now divorced and more then half poorer than before the divorce. Someone mentioned this attitude about women v money and when one sees the devastation to the one resource one needs to live in a capitalist economy - capital - you have to measure it. It is ridiculous not to. If there was a woman drinking up all the water - there wouldn't be one question about things. But that is going all the way to the marriage contract. One can certainly control costs in a regular or live-in arrangement. (If anything, the live in arrangement works out best financially - just have a wad tucked away for when it ends.)

Just like we are bombarded with images of what we "should want" in a woman everyday - so are the women of our society regarding men. Both of them are extreme and very unlikely. Call it the 1%'ers I guess. They build unrealistic expectations in everyone.

Masculinity in this culture is really becoming undefined. So a woman doesn't know a good man when she sees one I believe. We are portrayed as imbeciles in commercials, fools on TV, beasts in the news, gangsters and playboys in music. If one tries to be a provider, really one is just being taken advantage of by someone usually making the same amount of money these days. One might try to be the stable rock - but that is hard when jobs come and go, the society is becoming increasingly mobile, and frankly I think some of it's messages are driving women flat out crazy to contend with.

I agree with deogol. I've had numerous relationships with women over the years, but never felt the need to get married. Watching my sister,my friends, and my brother struggle in their marriages and ultimately getting beat up in the divorce left me feeling it wouldn't work for me either. So I live alone, I made my choice and that's the way it is.

It took me 27 years to realize what a mistake I had made. Actually I knew it from day 1, It just took me 27 years to do some thing about it. I did get 2 great kids out of it. We divorced almost 7 years ago. She had me $85,000 in credit card debt.I had to assume $60,000 of that in the settlement plus buy her out of the house. Another $80,000. Today I am debt free except for my $500+/mo mortgage payment and have $130,000 in cash. I get all the pussy I can handle from the girls at the clubs at a fraction of what marriage cost me. Yeah, I blame the bitch but it was my own stupid self that got me into it. I am a happy camper now.

Let me just say this about the addiction BS. You can't become addicted to strip clubs or sex. For it to be and addiction you have to have a "compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal." We may have compulsions to visit strip clubs or have sex but no addictions. The strip club addiction definition has been developed by women to describe their husbands need to find companionship outside the marriage because they, the wives, don't give us what we need at home.

I'm with y'all on the comments about the term addiction (so, actually, I'm NOT a strip-club-addict; I'm COMPULSIVE about strip-club-going ...) and about marriage (proud never to have made it happen!).

But I still want to BE ABLE to land a hot girlfriend. And then to do so semi-regularly. I want someone to make out with, cuddle with, and go to New Year's Eve parties with. That kind of thing. Plus the intellectual stimulation of a smokin'-hot brain wrapped up inside a smokin'-hot body. Can't get much of any of that with strippers.

I've never heard a woman/wife use the phrase "strip club addiction" much less make the term up. AAMOF the only people that I have heard use it are PL's, usually in a light-hearted way.

OK, right now I am going to nominate lopaw's pictures and melon girl as the best on TUSCL.

An honorable mention to sc for his.

Meh. Addiction, compulsion, whatever. It's still fun. I meet cool, sexually liberated women who are fun to hang out with. Occasionally I hook up OTC. It's a blast.

Book Guy----Landing a "hot" girlfriend is a difficult thing. If you're 40 and you want an intelligent, sexy, confident, interesting YOUNG hot woman----you better have lots of money or be ridiculously handsome. OR, you'd better be a charming, funny, intellectually stimulating guy. Being a 40 year old short balding guy starts you out with two strikes against. I know, because I'm a 39 year old guy who's 5'6" with a shaved head.

We all want the same women. We, as men, are visually stimulated. We want the beautiful, healthy, fertile young woman. But ALL of us want them. There are plenty of women who are eligible candidates, but they don't meet the physical standards WE hold them to.

So, you're faced with a choice. If you truly want the women who meet your physical standard then self-improvement is in order. Join a gym. Follow a strength training plan and get your diet in order. Get a tan. Women like tans. If you're balding, SHAVE YOUR HEAD. Takes you from wimpy male pattern baldness guy to bad ass MF. Seriously. If you're not dressing stylishly, step up your game. If you dress like you're in your 20s women see you differently. Old Navy is cheap.

But you could always lower your standards. Maybe a chubby woman is OK. Maybe she doesn't have to be physically perfect or have a beautiful face. Maybe she can be a 40 year old with some life experience. Character counts.

Nah. I think I'll keep chasing 22 year old crazy strippers. :-)