Strip Clubs circa 1980 vs TODAY

I have agree with you on all points.. I worked for a corporate club and it is all very generic .
I work in a hole in the wall now, but seductiveness and sensuality is what sells your self in this kind of place... It's not showy, or bright.. We don't sell anything but booze and lap dances, and I am sure you can negotiate for anything else you maybe after with the right one.

I agree that things have changed for the worse. Customers, dancers and club owners all share in the blame. In the early 80's lap dances and contact didn't really exist. yes, you could score OTC but a woman who wanted to make money inside the club had to put on a good show. Costumes, make up, dancing skills, different routines, whatever. Something happened in the late 80's...private dances and VIP rooms began to gain popularity and all of a sudden there was a revenue stream that was more one on one. Over a period of time stage dancing became less important. Guys stopped tipping in a lot of cases saving their cash for private dances. In turn, dancers stopped paying as much attention to their stage sets. The stage became a place to sell yourself foe peivate dances. Costumes became less important as even the guys that did tip at the stage wanted to see something before they put up any money.

I don't care much for the bigger chain type clubs either but in my neck of the woods it's really not an issue.

LOL @ "carnival shit."

Agreed, Dennyspade. The "scene" has changed very much, to turn what used to be a vice and gentleman's scene into some kind of adult Disney World. I don't like it. You can still find the "old style" places, with their inherent greater risk (of losing money, if not of getting arrested or beaten up) and reward, at certain locales. TUSCL exists partly to help us differentiate. But certainly there's nothing like that left in New Orleans, very few in Memphis, and none in Manhattan. I don't know about other cities, but I miss 'em anyway. :)

I wasn't old enoough to go to strip clubs in 1980 (or 1990, for that matter), but when I first went, it seemed like a lot of what you have all said is true. For the longest time, the only women I ever saw in the club were dancers, waitresses, or bartenders. The few I did see were old ladies there because it was a bar, and not necessarily because it was a strip club. Some places didn't do lapdances and others seemed like they did them, but didn't really know how to do them, but I didn't care anyway. But clubs that have lapdances eventually saturated the marketplace, so much so that if you go to a place that didn't have them, it sucked. I guess the big corporate Deja Vu type places are like Wal-Mart, with Evilcyn's hole in the wall bar comparable to the mom-and-pop store.

I didn't start visiting strip clubs until the 90's but do remember it was very unusual to see a female customer in strip clubs. Usually if I saw a female customer then, she was a visiting stripper checking out the club or visiting other stripper friends. I didn't see any couples or co-eds. Now, I see groups of males and females visiting the strip clubs together and the girls act like it's just a dance party. Even had one girl a few hours ago come up to me and ask me for a dollar to go tip another girl on stage. She wasn't a dancer. I didn't use to have any interaction with non dancing females years ago but now some strip clubs seem more like a regular night club. However unlike some others, I haven't really noticed any drawbacks so far to having more females in the strip clubs. Well maybe one if you are competing for a dancers attention for a stage tip, the dancer sometimes will go to the female first. That usually doesn't bother me either and is nice if the female customer allows herself to get topless with the dancer encouraging her. If the female customers don't get topless or put on a good show, I like the dancers taking tips in order instead of ignoring the guys.

It still seems a bit strange to me to be sitting in the lap dance room and I see a female customer getting a lap dance right beside me. I never used to see that in the lap dance room but I did a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't start going to clubs till about 1995 or so, but as I've discussed on other topics I see a big decline and have a low opinion of the mega-clubs.

I guess I am going to be the one that disagrees about things being better in the 1980's. Maybe I am just from the wrong part of the country -- or just hit the wrong clubs, but I visited my first strip club in 1982. It was a hole-in-wall dive in Indianapolis. The girls were not attractive and they wore pasties that covered most of their breasts. There were couch dances -- but they were mostly air dances. This was typical of Indiana clubs in the 1980's.

How can that be better than today? If you are just talking about the quality of dances -- not about the availability of sex -- everything is better today. Dances with mutual touching -- that years ago seemed to be only available in Tampa or other southern clubs -- is now becoming common in the North. I think the girls are by far more attractive than they used to be. With strip clubs entering the mainstream, it is more acceptable for attractive co-eds or soccer-mom types to work as strippers.

And as I said before in the thread about Deja Vu Clubs, personally I am a fan. Maybe I am just lucky that my club, the Lansing DJV, is probably the best DJV in the country.

David120: if your experience as you describe it from the 1980s were what I compared current clubs to, then I too would find things to be an improvement! You have good points about some of the developments. And I certainly agree that, if the girls are becoming better looking, and the private dances are gaining in the level of contact that is considered "standard," then indeed, things are improving.

For a price, of course -- that ol' Indianapolis dive probably only charged you $5 for a couch-dance that was the length of one rock-song, roughly 3 minutes. Now they're $40 in most of the country.

I think what most people are objecting to, isn't so much the "improvement" of services, as the up-scale-ification of things that goes ALONG WITH that improvement. I'd take hotter chicks, more contact, greater privacy, nicer lounges, cleaner drinks glasses, friendlier bouncers, even a bit of a "corporate" mentality (when you have a problem at one outlet, you can always email the main office and they'll probably at least send you a coupon or something!), sure, all those things are great.

But along with those things, goes a whole main-stream-ization thing that weirds me out. It includes MUCH higher prices (the change from $5 to $40 is well in excess of inflation from 1982 to 2007), no improvement in certain fields (the girls are just as skittish, there's no "professionally approved" level of service-for-money across the industry, etc.), and detriment in a lot of fields.

And the fields where the detriment is growing, are the ones most of us are pointing out. It may be ironic, but most of us seem to WANT to remain outside the mainstream. We don't want the following, or at least we find the following to be mild annoyances: frat boys, loud groups, bachelor parties, patronizing attitudes among "for a lark" female customers, sterilized VIP rooms, regular bouncer visits, couples on an "average" night out after the movies and dinner, business groups of mixed gender, lesbian customers whom the dancers actually DO go out on dates with after work, advertisements that purport that the club is nearly "family fare", and Times Square cleaned up with nothing but Disney outlets!

All those changes, and the like, can indeed bring advantages with them. And certainly, if the girls are hotter and the dancers are higher-contact, then those are some of the advantages. But the ATTITUDE behind most of those changes is what I object to. It's a "cleaning up" of things, to the degree that there seems to be an "accepted" level of carnival, which therefore isn't carnival at all. The Latin root of that word, is from the ritual tearing of flesh at a Bacchanal rite. It's not something you can put on your Visa card and have your girlfriend to join you with, right after Wap-Burgers at Mel's.

to BookGuy:
Well said and simply put. If I don't care whether I see my co-workers and neighbors in such an establishment, then I most likely don't wanna be there. The "upscalification, gentrification or cleansing" of the strip club scene satisfies the same folk who think that a CLEAN New Orleans would be a great place to raise kids and invest in a Bourbon Street mini-mansion. (Read elsewhere -- there are celebrity-upon-celebrity buying up New Orleans properties.)

We went to New Orleans (during Mardi Gras and otherwise) because it was seedy, dangerous, and carnal. If the developers want to turn it into Orlando/Branson/Myrtle Beach, why in Hell would we go to New Orleans ?

Tits and Ass alone; may draw some club patrons to a Strip Club toda; however, with the advent of the internet and DVD's, an 18 year old can satisfy his lust in a secluded solo environment. This used to be the domain of the 42nd Street peep shows in NYC and near every military base in the US of A.

A stage show was something else. It was the "art-f-the-tease" costumes (plumes and feathers on Showgirls fo some, PVC and leather for others.) Lap dances vary in different parts of the country. (One-way, two-way exploration, hands-off policies, etc.)

We never knew about the personal lives of dancers and frankly, Scarlett; didn't give a damn !! Now the other strip club board reads like a high school blog --- "who's dating who OTC, which bouncer/manager gets more head from the newbies, and who's marries and using the customers.

The fantasy dance was just that. Some place to throw away some $$$ and your pedestrian thoughts. No high-roller shit. You didn't go to joints where Whales went. No co-ed party groups, after-work groups, etc.

There is so little grit and grime today. However, the glitzy clubs still have their drugs, thugs and crime. Go figga !

Book Guy,
As usual, you have provided us with an interesting and very astute analysis of the issue. And, perhaps you are entirely correct. But, don't you think we tend to overly romanticize the past....we forget the bad things and only remember the good things. Not just about strip clubs, but things in everyday life. Those old enough to remember the 1950's and 1960's get nostalgic about the "good old days" -- but would anyone REALLY want to go back to that era. No computers, no internet, no cable TV, cars that get 12 MPG....I could go on and on.

Same reasoning applies to strip clubs. Yeah, the dances were only five bucks in 1982 -- but I will gladly take the $40 (contact) dances of today over the $5 air dances of the 1980's.

Having said that, I sure do miss the pre-AIDS days when one could walk into an adult bookstore and get a BBBJ for only $40.

David: for me, it's the absence of the readily available service side of the industry -- not necessarily a BBBJ for a mere $40, but SOMETHING in that neighborhood that scratches the necessary itch -- that I mostly bemoan. There are a lot of things I don't think were so great about the 1980s scene, in that the services were more unreliable and there was a whole protocol of vice trade that could easily be manipulated by unscrupulous providers and service-givers and their attendants. But in so far as getting the itch scratched, I'm under the impression that it's getting much much more difficult these days, and the Disney-fication of the strip club scene is just one side of that phenomenon.

I don't want to go back to the 1940s or 50s, or even the 80s, for that matter, since the "good old days" do look "good" only when they're "old." Imagine having McCarthy barking at the television set all over again, or two different seating areas and water fountains and schools etc. for the different races. Yeesh.

But I would like some kind of gentleman's agreement, by which the vice squad would get out of my face, the puritanical Right would stop influencing so much of public decision-making, and my own sex life could more readily be fulfilling, and satisfying. And not at such a fee that I can't afford it! Get the itch scratched dangit!

Good discussion guys. Allow me to toss in my analogy. In my hometown there is a little dive burger joint, slow service, marginal cleanliness sometimes, not very convenient to get to (they actually expanded to two locations), but it is a wonderful dive and all the locals love it because they serve awsome burgers. McDonalds, and there are several even though this is a small town is always cleaner, better service, cheaper, and consistent. At the burger joint depending on the mood of the cook those chilli fries might be extra zesty, the cheesburger might have extra cheese, or the fries extra crispy that night. Do I sometimes wish the fries weren't quite as greasy? Or wish I didn't know every item on the menu? Sure. Do I want my burger joint to become a McDonalds, or probably more analogous an Applebees? Not on your life. I want my burger joint, and other treasured dives to stay dives. I can always find an Applebees if I'm traveling and don't want to risk an unknown dive, but once I find the good dives I like them better.

I think I actually like things better the way they are now. I'm getting less expensive dances on average than I was in the 90's. It's still mostly guys in the clubs except for some younger females and a few couples. I don't mind watching more good looking girls in a club. I can't really relate to the 60's, 70's, and 80's since I was still in high school in the 80's. Well I can think of one club in my area I used to like better the way it used to be. The old club was older and more worn down but dances prices were cheaper. They built a new glitzy club but raised dance prices to help pay for it. I don't care for that. I'd rather keep the old run down club (maybe with new sofas periodically) and keep the dance prices the same.

DS- I like a lot about stripclubs today vs the early 80's- namely the increased mileage. Back then, any contact was a no-no, now at least 1 way mileage and in more cases 2 way mileage seems to be the norm. The elements that you (and I, to a certain extent) seem to long for are elements that can be found in regular bars. There has definitely been an increase in the number of stripclubs.. a recent EDD guide had twice the number of clubs listed vs 1992 issue. Regretably, Deja Vu chain clubs have quadrupled in number, SR chain cropped up in recent yrs, along with gimmicky approach. There's still several unique local clubs- Mons Venus in Tampa, Brads in Indy, and numerous other top40 examples. Unfortunately, some local clubs are trying to be chain copycats. As an analogy, I like to try good local places in other aspects- take local barbershop or steak/seafood place over Supercuts, Lone Star, or Red Lobster.

Much like AN, I'm not a favorite of MEGA CLUBS, give me the ole' hole-in-the-wall friendly type tavern with seasoned dancers. Columbia PP to be the EXCEPTION of course!!

I remember back in the 1970s, in Ohio, we started with bikini dancers, dancing behind the bars on stages, and not removing a stitch of clothing! But, back then it was easy for me to get a hard-on just fantasizing what was beneath those bikinis!

Clubs have come along ways since then. They are still entertaining and some are just out right "bordellos" with a club front, such as Diva's in Kokomo, IN. Read the reviews, you see what I'm talking about.

I prefer the bordellos that are fronted by strip clubs. I'm hearing that there are more of those, these days, than there used to be? I guess that's the case, but there are fewer "normal" bordellos than ever before, as well, aren't there?

For me, the only real question is, how to scratch the itch. I have found, that gaining weight and developing a sedentary lifestyle have both aided in reducing my need to scratch significantly. Also, smoking large amounts of tobacco, and going for regular jogs in the park instead of riding my road-racer bicycle (which evidently stimulates my testicles? I dunno ...). I might take up sous-chef sauce-a-la-creme cooking just to reduce my sex drive even more!

I think it depends on the type of club that you usually go to. I used to seek out the smaller friendly neighborhood bar type places and avoid the glitzier gentltmen's clubs and the real dives. And I don't think my kind of places have changed all that much which is maybe why I like them. There probably is more contact but I don't go looking for it so I don't see all that much.

It also depends on the city you're in. Chicago area clubs have been lousy since at least 1994, when I first tried them. They may have been better in 1980, but I wouldn't draw too many broad conclusions from that.

Chandler:

Yea,the clubs were better and there were a lot less of them. It goes without saying, that the more venues that sprout up the quality/quantity of talent decreases. ( The Law of Supply and Demand.)

The earlier arguments in the post debates the grittier/grimier settings of the 80's and 90's vs the anti-septic chain SC's like Deja Vu. I, too, preferred the Hole-in-the-wall joints in Chicago and suburban communities. It appeared that you had to establish yourself as a "regular," so that they knew you were not LE or a Journalist ("God Forbid.")

It seems that the Generation X and Y'ers ( 20 sumtin and 30 sumtin year olds ) enjoy the group outings with guys and girls sharing in the merriment of an evening out.

I guess that would be akin to the college students checking out OTIS DAY and the KNIGHTS in the movie, Animal House. Hey man ! Otis LOVES us !

I don't recall that Chicago ever was much of a strip club town. Back in those days I always thought of Detroit and Atlanta (along with Tampa and LA but I never got to either very often) as being THE strip clubs towns. At one time Atlanta was just about the only US town where girls danced completely nude, but the emergence of high contact LDs seems to have passed Atlanta by. My impression is that Detroit is still great, but it's been many years since I've been there.

I think the vice trade, to some extent, follows the inner-city decay, size also being a factor. Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis, and Baltimore have very active (though quite different) opportunities for adult entertainment, both legal and more ... ahem ... liberal. Atlanta, full as it is of opportunities for lower-class uneducated people to "make a way for themselves," tends away from the more liberal vice trade, and provides only the cleaned-up variety of adult entertainment (mostly; there are always some exceptions). East St. Louis, on the other hand, a city on the skids, offers plenty of low-cost high-mileage extras service of the totally liberal variety.

It's just a socio-economic thing, as far as I can tell. In New Orleans, there are again street-walkers in the French Quarter, though they take a new form from ye olden tymes of the Red Light District. Now, they're mostly African American females (well, pretty males in one neighborhood too, but that's always been there ...) dressed in jeans, casual t-shirts, and strangely uncomfortable shoes, with puffy jackets and big bags, walking about, a block away from Bourbon Street.

The old 'stroll' was farther from Bourbon, closer to the River, first down Exchange Alley, then down Decatur, back before the 1984 World's Fair when they cleaned it all up. But Katrina brought back to town workmen with cash to spend, a long way away from their families, so it got to be more like the Wild West again.

The new street walkers are the unclean variety (not that any variety was ever REALLY clean), basically crack-ho's that I find quite unsavory. I also don't find, that any of the strip clubs in the French Quarter offer anything remotely close to a vice trade.

This is all very disappointing to me. I am still hoping to find my way into the low-cost high-satisfaction itch-scratching market as a willing customer.

I think the biggest factor affecting strip clubs has been the Internet, which has made other forms of adult entertainment much more readily available. And the other important factor has been IRS and company changes in treatment of expense accounts, especially entertainment expense. Both of these factors have made the strip club business much more competitive. Different clubs have responded in different ways, eg. higher prices, more services, more upscale facilities, etc. And of course higher mileage and extras.

I think the smaller neighborhood clubs have been less affected by these changes because they have always relied mostly on local customers and dancers rather than the out-of-town guys.

What about the mob? Has mob involvement in strip clubbing, and in general in the vice trade, increased, decreased, what? Do they get involved in internet escorting? In the Hustler / Deja Vu chain? Were they in Platinum Plus? Etc. etc..

Honsetly, I really don't know, I'm just asking for opinions. I can't quite figure whether there's MORE or LESS of a "criminal element" to my criminal entertainment. So to speak.

I don't know either, but the traditional Mob is clearly much more fragmented than it used to be and therefore less powerful. But that vacuum has probably been filled by independent groups and mobs of other ethnic backgrounds. So I suspect that some criminal element is still heavily involved in all of these activities, it just may not be as centrally controlled as it used to be. Drug use and drug traffic appear to have increased in strip clubs.

Agreed about the drugs. The last visit I made to Platinum Plus Memphis before the raid, one dancer informed me, that the girls with drug-oriented names were identifying themselves as such in order to get clients to buy their drugs. For example, the girl who dances under Ecstasy sells Ex; the girls who dance under Snow and Powder sell cocaine; the girl who dances under Sky sells uppers of some sort; the girl who dances under Mary Jane sells marijuana; etc.

I found it a little too pat to believe, but now that I look back, I wonder if maybe I wasn't simply naive. Hmmm ...

I mostly agree with FONDL. Mob involvement in clubs is about the same as it's always been, just less direct and less centralized. In most cases where I know about the ownership, they have some mob connection - contractors, lawyers with mob clients, etc. - although they probably aren't "made" members.

I've heard mixed reports on drug use among strippers today vs. 10 years ago. Some clubs where lines of coke where openly snorted in the dressing rooms have clamped down on that. I get the impression that it's easier nowadays for strippers to stay clean if they want to.

Chandler, I think you're right, the clubs I'm most familiar with have cracked down on strippers doing drugs in the dressing room. But a lot of their younger customers are small-time drug dealers and bring goodies to their favorite dancers to gain favor. I've seen girls taking pills while sitting with customers. So yes, it's probably easier for a girl to stay clean, but how many of them want to? If you include marijuana, my guess is that 99% of strippers do drugs, or at least the younger ones do. My ATF once told me that she never went to work without getting high first, and she wasn't the only one, it was very common in her club. Which is maybe why the place had such a fun party atmosphere without booze.

I've known too many strippers who don't do drugs for it to be close to 99%. And I don't disapprove of drug use, so it's not that.

I think about 75% of the girls I've met in a variety of strip-club settings are on something illegal -- marijuana NOT counted -- like Ex, cocaine, or something worse. Mostly I think they do it as a "performance-enhancing" supplement, to keep them on their toes for their work. Nearly ALL of them are heavy drinkers, too. And I'm adding this up by comparing a wide range of club types -- PP in Memphis, Treasures in Houston, Penthouse in NOLa, Mons Venus in Tampa, rinky-dink honky-tonks in Jackson MS, Seductions in Niagara Falls, etc. Never been to Vegas, San Francisco, or LA, but I'm sure the proportions are probably higher there.

Or maybe not. Maybe in "professional stripper" towns like Las Vegas, there are more girls who "take it seriously" and therefore don't do drugs. Maybe it's in the boon-docks that drugs are of a higher proportion. That has kind of become the case in our country with methamphetamines recently, as a parallel.

Your input?

"I've known too many strippers who don't do drugs ..." If you don't count marijuana (which most young people don't consider to be a drug) I'll agree with you. But if you do count occasional marijuana use I'll stick with my 99 percent guess.

When my ATF was dancing she used to talk all the time about how opposed to illegal drug use she was, and swore she never did any. It wasn't till years later when she was arrested that I found out differently. Regular drug users are very adept at hiding their habit, and unless you've worked in the rehab field for a long time there's no way to tell without drug tests.

FONDL: Obviously no one can be absolutely sure what other people don't do. I'm hardly one who believes everything strippers tell me, and I know a thing or two about drug users, thank you very much. I don't know of any group as varied as strippers who all do drugs. To say that IMO is no less credulous than believing what one girl swears about herself.