How has "clubbing" changed your life, if at all?

This question is any easy one for me. Ten years ago I was severely depressed - overweight, out of shape, bored with my life, drinking too much, feeling unwanted and unloved, feeling old, and constantly lonely. Which is why I was spending a lot of time in strip clubs. Then I met my ATF and everything changed. And I do mean everything.

I'm sure that a lot of you think I'm in love with my ATF but that's not true, nor was it ever true. I'm very fond of her boyfriend and feel no jealousy at all. I do love her very much, but as a friend not as a love interest in the sense that we usually mean that. When I was younger I always wished I had a younger sister and that's sort of what it's like (except that there is some lust involved.) She's the closest friend I've ever had. I can't imagine my life without her in it. I honestly believe that she saved my life, if I hadn't met her I'd probably be dead by now.

So I'd have to say that clubbing has had a very positive impact on my life.

Fondl: Nice story. It appears you have a great relationship with your ATF. I sure don't see how you can keep it from being a "love interest" type of relationship, though, especially as you noted, there's lust involved. Not that you can't have lust without love, but how can you possibly spend so much time with someone that you obviously care deeply about, AND have lustful thoughts about (I'm assuming) and NOT feel more than a modified "brother/sister" sort of feeling?

I fell for my ATF after spending about 20 hours with her. Now, months later, after spending many hours and OTCs together, I'm so far into her, that if she gave me the word, I'd move to her city and start over with her. (as crazy as that sounds)

Doug, my relationship is the way it is because that's how she wants it. And I must say it has worked out very well. So I'm not about to try to change anything. And I think a major reason that we've been able to keep it that way is because of the huge age difference - I'm old enough to be her grandfather. And yet when we're together, either in person or on the phone, I don't think either one of us is aware of it. She has always treated me like we're the same age and I often forget we aren't, which is a big part of the attraction for me.

I hope you are careful with your situation. Sounds like it could lead to big trouble. Make sure you get to know the real person and aren't caught up in the fantasy.

The fact that strip-clubs exist, and are accessible to me, hasn't really "changed" my life. The fact that I personally have LEARNED to maximize my experience there, is a different thing entirely. I can't really say what would or would not have happened, if I hadn't been miserably lonely and surrounded by problem people (I look back now and realize that I actually wasn't the problem, but I'm sure at the time it was rather hard to perceive it that way) and hadn't discovered a brothel-cum-strip-club in the distant suburbs of the city I was living in at the time. It was pretty much a free-for-all up there, about 1993 at Fantasia in Richmond Hill, just out from Toronto. And it was my only social life.

I guess, to the negative, this means that a large portion of "formative influences" were had by means of a social crutch rather than a socially more "solid" venture. I don't know how to meet women my own age who are attractive to me. I don't know how to "date", at least not in an effective manner, to the point that a girl I like might end up liking me, too. I have a strange ability to be hail-fellow-well-met with everyone, intimate with no one. I am not sure if strip clubbing has contributed to this, or whether maybe going to the clubs is more a symptom than a cause, of this syndrome.

Either way, I do feel that learning to go clubbing probably cut me off from a group of friends among whom I might have developed a more normal social life. But "normal" is over-rated sometimes. I might have ended up marrying some manipulative bitch who realized I was good for money, and desperate for sex, if I hadn't been getting sex through the brothel clubs I was frequenting, for example. Or I might have gotten some ugly chick pregnant just because, as a young male with a normal level of horniness, I was desperate for it and surrounded by American women.

So, it could be that strip clubs SAVED me from the typical disaster of sexual desperation that is the hallmark of our Puritanical culture. Or it could be that they were merely a band-aid cure for a gaping wound that should have been addressed more thoroughly. That wound being, my inability to relate to my own peers in anything more than a superficial manner, and therefore my inability to get the girl I might have wanted.

I dunno about the rest of it. I did start shaving my balls "because of" strip clubs, har ... I read about it on the 'net. But then, I might have read about it and done it without ever having visited a club, too.

The money thing ... I don't want to think about it. I've probably averaged about $7,000.oo to $10,000.oo US a year on clubbing and mongering. (I realize that the original question centers more on non-monger-style clubbing, as in, just going to get legal lap-dances. But my own clubbing is nearly always as a sub-set of my overall mongering experience -- getting sexual service in some manner -- so I can't separate out the strip-clubbing from the higher-service experiences.) Financially, I certainly could not have afforded that amount of money in any given year, yet somehow I figured out how to spend it. I guess it all adds up to about $120,000.oo total, which I wish I had now to invest in some high-cap low-margin high-yield penny-ante blue-chip standard-and-poor something-or-other.

Funny thing is, I could look it up and be specific if I wanted. I have meticulous records of all my money transactions, cash or credit or bank or investment or what-not. I guess there's some pretty incriminating evidence in those accounts. "August 9, 2002. Suzie. AMP on Main Street. $150 plus $30 door fee. Miscellaneous comments: Rates a B+ in body, C in service." I wonder how many of those there are ...

I also am now rather more picky with the women I'll try to date. I don't really feel the necessity to go out with a girl just because we get along. I used to kind of believe, that if you "clicked" emotionally, then the guy was "supposed to" look past such undesirables as a fat butt or a bit of a moustache on a girl. Now, I'm damned picky. "What's that? She doesn't live up to the bare minimum 'spinner' standard of the top tier girls at Deja Vu Barely Legal? Then I don't want to bother. She can damn well hit the gym. I don't CARE if she's nice to small animals ..." It's kind of isolated me further, in fact. I'm incapable of interacting with ugly women -- especially women who LET themselves get ugly, by the lack of grooming or exercising that is so common in American culture, or by the lack of "carrying yourself with pride and sexuality" that European women seem to have mastered and Yanks just DON'T get the concept of.

In fact, I'm so distant from most people in a typical office setting, that I've kind of gone out of my way -- some of it rather more inadvertent and "I just happened to do it" than planned -- to end up failing in office settings. I'm actually considering career and city changes in order to be closer to attractive young women -- getting into theater management, modeling and photography, maybe fashion; trying to transfer whatever skills I have from the fields I have worked in, in order to get to where the girls are.

But then I think, what makes me think I could possibly LAND a hot girl? Sure, I'll be another desperate middle-aged man slavering and drooling over her tight buns at the photo shoot or the dress rehearsal, but I won't be any more likely to bang her and get "the one I want" as a REAL girlfriend any more, nowadays, than back then when I was as young and innocent as her. What makes me think I could get what I want just because I surround myself with it? It doesn't work at strip clubs, it never worked in real life. And now that I've frequented strip clubs instead of making a real "pick up guru" of myself by practice practice practice, I don't even know the LEAST thing about approaching a stranger at a bar. And I'm SURE she won't respond as positively as the last stripper did, when I asked "Why haven't you asked me if I wanna dance?" :)

So, have strip clubs been good to me or bad to me? I dunno, are they the symptom, the cause, or the cure, of my social distance and inability to accomplish what I know I want to accomplish?

Well, I'm a few dollars poorer. If I'm traveling I always have an alternative to a night in the hotel room. I don't fight rush hour anymore, I have a relaxing beer or two, sometimes a meal, and then drive home relaxed. Kind of lost my interest in porn magazines.

Well, I've met some interesting people over the years, from dancers, bf/husbands of dancers, bartenders, managers, and bouncers, to “costume” ladies. If there is one thing that sticks in my mind, it is my ATF. After I split with her (still the only ATF), I couldn’t stop thinking of her. I’ve seen her a few times since, but with mutual friends that know nothing of the personal relationship between us. I still, to this day, miss her and think of her. The few times I did call her, she would not return my calls. I still hear of her from a mutual friend, but have no idea if she is working or not. That was not a common thing, her work, that our mutual friends and I knew about. One of the dumbest things I’ve done!

I look at the money I've spent as money spent on a recreational hobby. If I hadn't spent it on clubbing I would have spent it on something else. The liklihood that it would be sitting in a bank somewhere is pretty small.

I think one additional benefit for me is that my ATF worked in a juice bar so spending time at her club cut down on my drinking. I always did most of my clubbing when out of town on business, and the clubbing was a substitute for going to a nice restaurant and having an expensive meal or sitting in a bar, neither of which I never much enjoyed doing alone. So my expense account probably paid for a lot of my clubbing.

I also think that getting to know some strippers really opened my eyes to another side of life that I didn't know much about. I used to think that I was better than people who grew up on the other side of the tracks. Now I realize that I'm just luckier. Which has made me more thankful and appreciative of what I have.

It has made me less inhibited about my sexuality.

By the way, Founder, nice job on the new Web site layout!

I don't think it has changed me, however it has affected the things I do -- both positively and negatively. Perhaps it's the same thing. Had somewhat of a similar experience as FONDL, but not as dramatic. When I meant my ATF last summer -- and she is probably the only dancer I have ever called my ATF -- she motivated me to do something that not even my doctor has been successful at. I started walking 3 miles a day and have dropped 50 pounds. She didn't pressure me to do so and I hope I am smart enough to realize that she isn't going to leave her S/O for me, but I just thought I should care a little more about my appearance if I am going to spend a lot of time with such a beautiful lady.

But my hobby has also affected me negatively. I am just a bit embarrassed about lying and sneaking around. I am not married, so I don't mean in that way. This isn't so bad -- in fact it might even be funny. When I fly to Florida to see my retired father, he insists on picking me up at the Orlando airport (he is bored with retirement and likes the drive.) But since I am too embarrassed to tell him I go to strip clubs, I lie about my return flight and have him take me to the airport a day early, then I rent a car and drive to Tampa for the night and drive back to Orlando the next day. (I know...sounds silly...maybe I am just a PL).

Anyway, the lying seems like a classic sympton of someone with an addiction. So am I addicted to my hobby? Maybe, maybe not. I would like to think not, since I went over 5 years from 2001 to 2006 without visiting a club while I went back to school and earned my graduate degree. So, I try just to have fun and not think too much about it.

In my case, I'd say its more like life evolving along with clubbing. Its but 1 key factor in my life- it affects decisions, but it doesn't always drive me, either. In choosing a winter vacation spot, I could be happy in a lot of places, but at times, availability of "hot club(s)" have been the dealmaker when choosing 1 place over another.

David, congratulations on losing weight and becoming healthier. It takes a lot of courage and discipline to do that, you should be very proud of yourself. Keep it up, and if you ever need encouragement send me a note.

A mutual interest in health and fitness is one of the major things that originally brought my ATF and I together. When we first met she was out of shape and trying to improve (she'd already lost about 40 pounds by that point - she was 185 lbs in high school, today she's about 125 with a killer body), and I'd been studying fitness and was a little ahead of her knowledge-wise. I encouraged her to join a gym and start working out regularly, and we used to talk about our mutual fitness programs all the time. Later we started working out together. It's one of the areas where we've really helped each other, she's been my trainer and I've been hers. Now when we're together we either go to the gym or go for a run every day. Neither one of us could quit today even if we wanted to, we'd feel like we were letting the other person down.

By the way, it's a great conversation topic with dancers, an awful lot of them are looking for fitness advice. It's also a great first OTC "date" - go to a gym or go for a run together.

David, why don't you fly from Orlando to Tampa, then fly home from there? It'll not only save you a lot of driving, you won't have to lie about it.

I was shy and intimeditated by beautifull girls Especially young ones. No more. ITC or OTC I am a confident male now.

I spent some money but I have fond memories as a result. Clubbing has made me happier overall. I've had some fun times in regular clubs as well with regular girls and a couple of times with dancers in their off time. I once thought $50 in cash was a lot of cash to being carrying around even for a special occasion. I don't think so anymore. Going to clubs has been an educational experience.

Clubbing has given me a wonderful opportunity to wallow in the seamy underbelly of a demimonde of vice and addiction, to know the blackness of the human heart, to meet many of the damaged souls that are the casualties of our debaucheries. Along the way, I've also enjoyed inappropriate physical intimacy with a hell of a lot more, and younger, girls than I would have otherwise. Thanks, clubbing!

If we are on this board, we are probably addicted. But I think there are many worse things to be addicted to. I agree that I sometimes feel bad about the "white lies" about where I spent a few hours while out of town. But I've met some really interesting women, have developed a much more comfortable communication style with people younger than myself, and I feel much better about myself as a man than I did 10 years ago. Clubbing has been expensive, but no more so than other hobbies. True, I can't talk about it like I could about Golf. But somehow, I don't think sinking a 25 foot putt would feel nearly as good as 30 minutes w/ my ATF. Addicted? Yes! Sorry? No!

Clubbing allowed me to interact with hot, beautiful women and not be afraid of them. Clubbing also allowed me to find out what the terms 'Extras','ITC' and 'OTC' meant, LOL!! Clubbing also allowed me to be able to talk to my ATF of the moment, after hours. I've enjoyed my time with topless clubs, and feel it has made me appreciate the exotic dancers more as people, and they in turn, 90% of the time usually make my dick feel a whole lot better with their dances. :-)

I've found that any confidence I gain from flirting with strippers on the job doesn't really transfer all that well to hot young women in the real world. Women who aren't being paid to flirt back are no more receptive than before.

Also, I wonder if clubbing leads any guys to gain weight. Patrons I see on the whole don't seem to be paragons of fitness. If anything, knowing that strippers care more about how fat our wallets are probably leads a lot of PLs to let themselves go.

I don't know if it ever changed me. I definitely don't save as much and probably could live in a nicer place, perhaps even own my own home, if I didn't go clubbing as much as I do, but I don't see the point of paying extra for housing if I got a workable arrangement as it is. The one definite thing I can say is I see a slice of life I wouldn't have seen if I never went clubbing. On the other hand, I've come to the conclusion 99% of everyone is alike, but our vices are different. People who smoke pot don't offend me as much as they used to. That's not to say they should smoke pot or we all should smoke pot, but I don't let it bother me. That's partly because a couple favorites were into it and I doubt that happens staying in the real world.

Chandler says: : "I've found that any confidence I gain from flirting with strippers on the job doesn't really transfer all that well to hot young women in the real world. Women who aren't being paid to flirt back are no more receptive than before."

I'm sorry to report, this is my experience as well. For a while, clubbing was good for me because it relieved the sexual pressure, especially since I was attending "full service" clubs where I could access full sexual services. But then, the access to those services simply increased my desire for them, to the point that my dissatisfaction at how much I was getting laid didn't change at all. I was getting it more, but I wanted it even more than before.

My hope has always been, to fuck a girl whom I think of as hot enough to warrant fucking. If she turns me on physically, then physically I'm turned on, and would therefore be willing to try to engage in a relationship with her. I had thought that clubbing was some kind of "side route" to that arrangement, but it's turned out (no surprise) that it isn't. I'm still trying to land a hottie or two. Wouldn't it be nice, to meet people whom I'm attracted to, get to know some of them, hit it off with a few (and dislike some, if not most; that's fine, my human nature can't be compatible with everyone else's!), and then among those few whom I like, I choose one or two to try to date, and select again. But I don't have CHOICE. I never MEET people whom I attracted to, not people who are as hot as a stripper that I want to bone. So, the dating pool for me is "people who are so ugly I have to think about someone else when I'm trying to seduce them." Is it any wonder that I don't get very many second dates?

Chandler again: "Also, I wonder if clubbing leads any guys to gain weight. Patrons I see on the whole don't seem to be paragons of fitness. If anything, knowing that strippers care more about how fat our wallets are probably leads a lot of PLs to let themselves go."

I think clubbing is a symptom of the same syndrome that leads to overweight. Both spring from the same root cause, consumption. Taking in, rather than putting out, your life force. Looking to the rest of the world to "give" (in terms of what you buy, or finagle, or bater for, or steal) to you positive experiences, rather than looking outward from yourself and thinking, "How can I GIVE positive experiences UNTO the world at large?" I don't criticize this attitude -- I'm very much a participant in it, especially when it comes to attractive females; I "need" them to provide for me an "improvement" on my otherwise date-less lifestyle -- and I certainly understand how it comes about and how it's hard to get away from it. But I also think it's pretty self-explanatory if you think of it that way.

Consumers and producers. We are, all of us, both of those things. Men who go to strip clubs have learned to "produce" in some other area of their lives -- making a living, fattening up their wallets so that their bodies and their sex-drives can be catered to by means of creating a leaner wallet at certain locations on certain nights of the week.

BG, everyone sets their own priorities. Some people place a high priority on fitness, others don't. It's that simple. If fitness is really important to you you'll be fit. Otherwise you won't. There's no mystery about it. And the same is true about nearly everything else in your life. You choose the life you want.

Beautiful women are really important to me but I'm not one. :)

No, really, having civilian real-world non-strip-club dates with (and eventual sex with) beautiful women is a high priority to me but I haven't had much of that at all. It's a high priority, but wishing don't make it so.

I was fat long before I entered my first strip club, so I don't believe there is any correlation. And if many clubbers are out of shape, don't necessarily blame the calories from alcohol. I rarely drink alcohol -- it's Diet Coke or water for me

chandler: david120 doesn't find any correlation and neither do I. I am 5'10 1/2". I graduated high school at 150 lbs. At the Doc's office, 2 weeks ago, I checked out at 151 lbs.

Book Guy: I somehow missed your post expanding on my points about confidence with non-strippers and about fitness until just now. I didn't mean either point as a complaint or lament, just comic observations that cried out to be made, tempering some of the testimonials here.

I find it pretty funny that a PL would expect real world women to respond to his newgained confidence like strippers do. It's like that Chris Rock bit about going to a dance club with a friend who's a strip club addict. After the first woman he asks to dance is ambivalent, he elbows his friends, "Fuck this shit, let's get out of here, go to a titty bar."

IGU, David: Note that only I asked if any guys' experience ran counter to the Strip Club Weight Loss claims reported here. A lack of correlation is the point I was making.

BookGuy, I agree that wishing doesn't make it so. You have to act on those wishes. If you aren't willing to act, it isn't really the priority for you that you think it is.

Sometimes, one doesn't know HOW or WHAT to act. For example, I know a guy who knows a guy, who relay wanted to make a lot of money, and he took college courses at a fancy school ino order to do that. Then it turned out that he was studying the wrong thing and there wouldn't be any money in it. So in 1988 he changed over from computers to international relations.

Something happened to me over the weekend that I suppose is a result of my hobby. While I was driving on the Insterstate to my favorite club, a small car happened to pass me. I glanced over to catch a glimpse of an incredibly beautiful young girl -- probably 21 or 22. She was absolutely stunning. Of course, my immediate thought was, "she must be a new stripper at the club I was going to." Would a "normal" (non-clubber) guy think the same thing? Or would he think she was just a regular, hot girl?

I think we had a similar thread a few months ago about seeing girls on the street and wondering if they were strippers.

I told this story to my ATF when I got to the club and said this was probably only something that a guy who goes to strip clubs too much would think of. Actually, she told me she thinks the same thing. She claims she is pretty good at picking our fellow strippers when she sees certain girls out in public.

Anyway, I never saw that girl at the club that night...so maybe she works at one of the other clubs in town. (At least I can still hope for that.)

David, I think that shows that your point of reference has been warped by strip clubs. An incredibly beautiful young girl is the least likely of all to be a stripper. The very best looking of strippers are remarkably un-stunning compared to the best looking of other women.

I think you CAN pick out strippers who are going to or from work (perhaps not in their cars) but it isn't by means of merely their stunning beauty. They generally do have to have a certain degree of atractiveness -- smallness is the highest priority. But after that, the things to look for are, among others: long straight hair up in a plain pony-tail; wearing comfortable street clothes such as jeans and a t-shirt; straightforward shoes like Keds or cross-trainer-type athletic shoes; carrying medium-ish gym bag, or wheeling a small carry-on-style rolling bag; with extremely carefully applied, overly thick, make-up; and with long-ish well manicured fingernails. If you see these people outside an airport or gym, they're going to an airport or gym. Usually gym-rats don't have long fingernails. If you see them outside a strip club, they're likely to be strippers. Also, giant-sized over-large unreasonable fake tits are a dead give-away, too.

Often, on Bourbon Street, you can identify strippers this way. The parking is difficult, several blocks from any given club; and the clubs only have one front door; so the girls have to walk through the crowd of revelers for two or three blocks to get to their workplace. Many call for an attendant, so some loser-Bluto wearing all black, or a dumb waiter's tuxedo, will be accompanying them along the street.

I don't necessarily agree with Chandler that all the best looking non-strippers are inherently better looking than all the strippers. But I do agree to an extent, that very many strippers are much less attractive in "civilian" life than you might expect. The "stunners" on a given night at Platinum Plus in Memphis (they were my favorite kinds of girls; small, petite even; natural tits; lithe mildly athletic bodies; generally middle-class Caucasian, in 'style' if not also in ethnicity) would leave the club and become merely solid 7.5s or 8s in "real" life.

Then again, last night on Bourbon Street, a gaggle of Penthouse Pets were partying. One of them had a little mini-bridal-veil tiara thing, so it must have been a bahcelorette night. I knew they were from the Penthouse franchise because their clothes and jackets all had those key logos on them, and eventually most of them disappeared into the Penthouse club just off Bourbon. They were hot hot hot, in civilian clothes. Hotter by far than most "civilian" girls on the street. Skinny, smooth-skinned, with pleasant girl-next-door smiling happy faces, well-done non-cosmetic-like make-up and hairstyles, tight form-fitting clothing, but not excessively revealing (tight jeans; midriff-showing halter-tops and jackets; or a blousy men's style shirt; high heels), in that "tramp but classy" stripper style.

So, SOME girls who get naked for money are also super-hot even in real life. :)