USA TODAY Cover Story: "Should business execs meet at strip clubs?"

17 comments

• FONDL

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  19 years ago

  Lopaw, this is just another area where the world has become a lot more complicated. There used to be rules and everyone understood them and abided by them, even though they may not have liked them very much. Those days are long gone.
• lopaw

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  19 years ago

  All's fair in love & business I guess, FONDL. I'm just glad that I get to stay in my little laboratory all day, and I don't have to deal with these kind of things outside in the cold, cruel business world. And when I do step foot into a SC, the only business I will be doing there is between me & the ladies that work there.
• FONDL

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  19 years ago

  Lopaw, I wasn't referring to women going to bed with someone to get ahead in business, although that probably happens more often that I realize. But I've seen an awful lot of woman use flirting to great advantage in business. I've also seen an awful lot of woman-only networking, in fact there are organizations whose purpose is exactly that. So what's wrong with guys doing the same thing?
• AbbieNormal

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  19 years ago

  Imagine that, people of both sexes acting human. While lopaw has a point I've seen on more than one occasion a woman (who probably went along "voluntarily", yet who was obviously uncomfortable) with a group of guys being pressured to go tip the dancer to prove she was "one of the guys". Sucks when the world doesn't live up to what we think it should be, but guys will have an old boy network and a boys club and women will use sex to get ahead. Can't we all just get along?
• lopaw

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  19 years ago

  FONDL,
  While what you stated is all too true, in this case I'm talking strictly about the networking/shmoozing done outside of the office, in a public setting (no hanky-panky between client/employee). If it's a public establishment, then it should be fair game to everybody...that's why I stated that if the women were denied the opportunity to go to the club even if they wanted to, then they have a legitimate gripe. But if they didn't want to go, then the hell with them. They need to quit their bitchin'.
  I know all too well that some businesswomen use their own sexuality to "seal the deal", and I will reserve comment on that issue. I guess if guys could sell their sexuality to potential women clients, they would do it as well. And I'm sure that some do.
• FONDL

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  19 years ago

  Lopaw, women have their own advantages in business, and I've never known a successful businesswoman who was above using them. Why should guys be any different?
• lopaw

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  19 years ago

  While I am the last person to defend uptight bitchy women that hate anything to do with stripclubs, I can't help but think about what men would think if the shoe was on the other foot: in an alternate universe, say that big $$$ women clients were the norm, and women chasing after their business took them to lunches at spas & other girlie places, basically excluding the men? Far fetched, maybe, but I'll bet the guys would be all over themselves raising a stink about the unfairness of the situation, and they would have every right to. I guess the landscape view depends on where you are looking at it from.
  
  Back to the real world - IMHO, if the women are complaining because they were not included or were not asked to go along to the SC's (and would have been more than happy to go), then they have every right to bitch about exclusion. If they were asked & declined, or hate SC's in general, well then fuck 'em.
• casualguy

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  19 years ago

  IMO lawsuits are usually about money and sometimes about money and/or power. I don't believe this will raise prices in the typical strip club.
• SuperDude

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  19 years ago

  FONDL gets it right, as usual. In addition to the "loss" of the tax deduction is the loss of the ability to put the expense on the company. Years ago, women in the accounting departments at the Detroit Big Three started denying reimbursement requests for expenses at strip clubs. In the good old days, auto parts suppliers entertained and were entertained on the SC scene. Now, with the troubles in the auto industry, the bankruptcies of major parts suppliers and the overall tightening up on expense accounts, many Detroit clubs have felt the pinch. The only really big spenders in Detroit were top end auto guys and they have been cut back or out. Anyone who feels that someone has an advantage that is denied them will fantasize over how much goes on behind the curtain. Sure, guys in the auto industry used to hang in clubs and sometimes deals were made. The same can be said for ball games, golf courses and NASCAR races. But when it gets to SC's women really feel that this is the one thing that cuts them out of deals and the want the company to stop paying for the visits. So guys who really want to generate business and close deals in the SC venue will pay for it out of their own money or find a way to disguise it with phony receipts from acceptable venues. Women cannot accept the idea that most guys go to clubs to enjoy beautiful women and the fantasy. Beats looking at the plain Jane stiff broad in the blue suit in the next cubicle at work.
• chandler

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  19 years ago

  Good points all, FONDL. I think you even explained what I meant to say in my last sentence.
• FONDL

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  19 years ago

  The focus on limiting expense accounts of 10-15 years ago largely focused on manufacturing companies. The service industries have been much slower to react, financial services in particular, because their profit margins are much higher. The tightening that has recently taken place only means that it's no longer tax deductible, not that it has stopped. People making huge commissions in the industry have reacted by paying for entertainment of their best clients out of their own pockets and they can easily afford it. So it still occurs, it just isn't tax deductible anymore. The high-end clubs won't notice any difference. And as far as the neutering of the businessman goes, I think strip clubs have largely benefitted from it because they are the only place left where guys can still be guys in the traditional locker room sense. Which is why a lot of women are opposed to them.
• AbbieNormal

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  19 years ago

  Minnow, I read it. It doesn't seem to concern the owner of the club much. My guess is that they'll find a way around the new rules.
  
  http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/…
• minnow

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  19 years ago

  Did anyone read the article? High end clubs aren't at the top of my wish list, & I don't shed tears for CEO's that make 400 times what avg worker makes or securities brokers who make $$$ whether or not corporations of the stocks being bought or sold are profitable(or not). I was interested in the potential fallout effects, whether high end clubs would fold or actually make themselves PL freindly or "whales" that are now "on their own dime" would go to lower tier clubs, thus driving up prices there, much like Californians driving up real estate prices in ID, WA, AZ, NV? CG- Nowhere in the article did female plaintiffs indicate that they gave a crap about going to stripclubs, per se. Its abt. $$$, getting clients, keeping up or getting ahead of other brokers. One plaintiff(and her attorneys) were awarded $29M.
• casualguy

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  19 years ago

  I don't know why they don't allow females to come along if they really want to go. Lots of females already attend the gentlemen's clubs that I go to and they aren't dancers.
  
  Of course I am speaking on a thread which I know almost nothing about. The guy that got me started going to strip clubs did take me one time and had a vendor pay for certain expenses. The vendor paid paid the $5 or $8 cover for myself and the other guy and for the $3 beer drinks and a pizza we ordered out and ate at the club. That was it. That's my only experience with someone else picking up the tab.
• chandler

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  19 years ago

  Good news. I'm no more interested in underwriting other people's lapdances at appallingly vulgar clubs than I am in contributing to their Hummer purchases or their dream home eyesores. However, I believe most of the cutbacks in expense account perving have already been made over the past 15 years and had their effect.
• AbbieNormal

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  19 years ago

  I think I'd like it if hummers were tax deductable...Oh, you mean the SUV...
• AbbieNormal

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  19 years ago

  Minnow, I've never been a fan of the high end clubs, so I can't say I'd shed a tear if they lost their highest end clientel. Sadly this sounds like just one more example of the neutering of the American buisnessman. What is capitalism coming to when you can't hang around with your cronies dressed like the monopoly guy in your private exclusive clubs lighting cuban cigars with $100 bills while illegal imigrants serve you a fully tax deductable 3 martini lunch while working for substandard wages? Next thing you know you won't even be able to deduct the hookers you comp your best clients!