Are you addicted to strip-clubbing? To sex? To buying sexual services, or sexually related services such as lap dancing?
What's the thrill? Psychologists report that some men don't enjoy it unless they can spend money on it. I frankly think there can be no such thing as "addicted to sex," though there can be a self-abusive over-use of it, like someone who is "food addicted" (meaning, they eat more than is necessary for nourishment and enjoyment, hence leading to other life problems like obesity, heart disease, loss of disposable income ...).
I'm "addicted" to hot young-looking women. I don't have enough in my life. I have this theory deep in my mind, that IF ONLY I could get a girlfriend who was hot enough, and lithe supple thin sexy enough, I wouldn't "need" to go to strip clubs. But I never seem to meet those girls in any circumstances except when they're dancing at a strip club ...
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last commentAt 65 and 4 months old, I still have a keen interest in sex. I don't know how much longer I am going to live(feel fine) or how many good hard ons I still have left in me but I don't want to waste any of them. My choices for relief are internet porn and strippers. I can't imagine a gradmother getting me up. Plenty of 40 YO's out there with baggage (kids). Not interested. I don't like saggy tits and I have already raised 3 kids. Iv'e got 3 of them at the office dropping hints. Prostitutes/escorts are too impersonal for me. I have to know her for awhile. To be comfortable with her ITC/OTC. I want the GFE. I know I gotta pay for it but dating a 40 YO, I would be paying for it too.
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I don't think I'm addicted. When it comes to the weekend and I look at choices of what I can do. Playing pc games, going to a local bar and hanging out, or going to a strip club where I can also drink beer and be entertained by naked dancing girls, the choice seems easier to make. As far as lap dances go, I could go without most of them. When you get asked 40 times or more in a night or else it's the only way to sit down in a club like in Columbia PP on a Saturday night, you might end up getting a couple or more. Actually if no dancer asked me for a lap dance for several months, I would be happy most of the time. I could just ask them if I wanted one.
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When I had a newer PC and a new PC game came out that I really liked, you couldn't get me away from the pc. I did go to work but I didn't sleep on a regular schedule or even eat on a regular schedule. I would grab something when I noticed I hadn't eaten in hours and I was starving. I kind of miss that intensity. I have heard some of the newer online games such as Everquest being referred to as Evercrack a couple of years ago. Some of those people were really addicted.
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There was another old online game called Axis and Allies. I used to play that all night long on some weekends with friends or on the net when it went online. Some guys said they broke up with girlfriends due to playing the game and demands from their girlfriends saying it's either them or the game. Most guys I talked to online were more into the game. I still remember playing the board game in a friends garage all evening and all night long. The temperature was in the 20's in that garage during the night. It was still fun.
My father once had me and my brother playing golf with him one early morning with the temperatures in the single digits. That was too cold. Apparently nobody else wanted to play that day. I was too young to care. The ball bounced like it was on concrete going down the fairway though. It had some really good bounce.
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I'm not addicted to Astronomy either but I remember thinking "hmmm, some people might think it would be suspicious to see someone strolling through a cemetery after midnight claiming they were trying to find a dark spot to watch a meteor shower." Getting up at 4 or 5 AM sounds a bit extreme to some just to watch a possible meteor shower or lunar eclipse. I did encounter something a bit spooky while watching one lunar eclipse in a campground I believe in Ohio. It was late at night, no one seemed to be stirring. The moon was in partial eclipse moving towards a total eclipse. The fog started rolling in across a large open field in front of me. The fog also started rolling in from a different direction near a pond. Then I spotted some wolves in the distance. Seemed like a cool scene out of a horror movie but I just enjoyed the moment. I wasn't afraid of the wolves. I did walk back to my tent and rejoined my parents and brothers and sister already asleep before the fog closed in too much.
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I don't consider myself addicted to sports either but at times someone might question that as well. I remember I once camped out with just a sleeping bag to wait in line to get tickets for a basketball game. It was early evening and tickets went on sale the next morning. It had rained earlier and the concrete was wet. The sleeping bag didn't sleep too well on wet hard concrete. Some girls were talking a lot during the night so it was hard to sleep for a while. But if someone asked me if I ever slept on a sidewalk, I could truthfully answer yes.
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I wish I could figure out how to "addict" myself to an obsessive pursuit that was also extremely remunerative. Like, get "obsessed" with technical analysis of the stock market for an investment banking firm, to the point that I got so excellent at it that it was like crack. Or become totally fascinated with ... I dunno ... buying and re-selling web domain names, or something.
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Yes, I am addicted to strip clubs. I haven't been to a club in two months, but I think about it every day. I believe anyone who posts here regularly must at least be obsessed with thoughts of strippers and the pleasure they provide to a degree that qualifies as addiction.
Of course, "addiction" gets overused to claim victimhood or shirk responsibility. I don't mean it at all in that way. However, I don't think any milder word can describe the compulsive feelings and behavior that we go through to support our strip club habit - lying about it, hiding it, letting it interfere with our lives more than we admit, deceiving ourselves about its effect. Golf is a hobby, strip clubs aren't.
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Having a hobby that you enjoy and being addicted are two entirely different things. You're only addicted if it controls and harms your life, like if you're spending more than you can afford and can't stop.
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I agree with FONDL. Addiction and hobbies. I like hobbying to strip clubs. If I had all the money in the world, I'd probably hobby to them that would appear to be an addiction.
Unlike drugs, I've never read about people robbing banks or stores to feed a strip club addiction.
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A hobby is something you occupy your spare time with to stay out of trouble and keep your mind from being tempted by vices. Sorry, strip clubs are not that. They are the trouble and the vice that a hobby is supposed to keep you away from. Being able to afford it financially doesn't make an addiction a hobby.
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Really? You've never heard about all the PLs who embezzle thousands, drain their savings and their children's college funds and run up huge credit card debts? Some hobby. On the other hand, are cocaine and heroin merely hobbies for someone like Keith Richards because he can afford it?
I'm not claiming strip clubs are the exact equivalent of hard drugs, but the parallels are undeniable.
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Give me a break chandler. I'm not trying to win an essay contest on this discussion board. I'm just relating my thoughts is all. Holy shit, don't have a cow!
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You bet I am addicted, and I totally agree with Chandler. I'd LIKE to say it's a hobby, but it IS an addiction. It can easily become a destructive addiction, just like alcohol and drugs. It's the addiction that keeps me visting this website off and on all day... it's like getting a "fix".
Clubbing is an addiction that I do not want to stop... guess that proves how addicted I am, right? I used to risk a lot by visiting clubs, and now it's OTCing... My life as I know it would be totally gone if my wife found out about my years of clubbing - especially the OTCing, but still I continue to do it. Dangerous? Yes! Destructive? Definitely! Fun? Absolutely! Crazy? Yeah, I guess so...
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A lot of people would define "addiction" not as a behavior per se but as a particular state of mind about the behavior. To me the relavent issue isn't what label you choose to hang on your behavior but whether or not it is harming your life, in other words it may be an addiction but is it a harmful one?
I know guys who think about it all the time, who do it every week and more frequently when they can sneak out of work early, who spend far more than they probably should, who plan trips around it, who spend more time on it than they do on their family, and if they aren't doing it they're reading about it or watching it on TV. Seems to me a lot of avid golfers are like that.
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It's easy to downplay the harm and the riskiness when you enjoy strippers so much you can't picture doing without them. You can come to rely on the simulated affection and intimacy they offer to take the place of real life intimacy and to avoid the effort of an actual social life. Having a strip club habit can make you distant from an SO, family and friends. Even somebody who has those aspects in balance may be jeopardizing his marriage or career. Russian roulette doesn't harm you either, as long as you keep getting an empty chamber.
Obsession over an ATF, and with extras and OTC action can suck you into self-destructiveness before you know what hit you. You never know when the wrong girl might come along to exploit weaknesses you didn't know you had. Or some unexpected crisis in your regular life might make you act extra stupid in clubs. I'm not just talking hypothetically, because a lot of reports about PLs who ruined their lives follow these story lines. And I came close to being one of them before I smartened up a little. I now respect the awesome Power of Pussy.
In ways, maybe strip clubs are like gambling, where some people are susceptible to a harmful addiction, and others can never be. I think it's less clear cut with strip club addiction. Under different conditions, an even keel clubber can lose it. Gambling has never held much attraction to me, so it's hard for me to relate to somebody who doesn't sense the danger of a strip club habit, yet still cares enough to hang out on this board. Being on an even keel about strippers like I am about gambling is not an attitude I envy.
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I'm "addicted" to hot women. I'm probably also "addicted" to "easy social interactions" of the kind you can get at a strip club -- instant gratification, girls approaching me rather than vice-versa. Sometimes I think, that the reason attractive young (civilian, non-stripper) women like going to dance clubs in the party district in any college town, is because they get the same feeling there, that I get at a strip club: instant approval from people whom you WANT approval from.
If I got that ANYWHERE else in my life, I probably wouldn't be involved in strip clubs at all. I wonder if all us PLs are just people who feel unloved by our mommies or something ...
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Book Guy: I've always thought of that the other way around, ever since my first night in a strip club. We enjoy strip clubs because we get treated like attractive girls do at a dance, only with hot strippers doing the approaching. Attractive girls don't have to go to a dance club for that - they get instant approval everywhere they go, so much so that they take it for granted. At dance clubs, they just get it in more concentrated form. Plus they get free drinks.
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Hobby or addiction??? I'd like to think hobby. Luckily, I can usually afford the money I spend in strip clubs. But, there've been a couple of times when the ATM shocked me with an NSF, or when I found myself taking an inconvenient route on a business trip, in order to hit a certain club. That's when addiction comes to mind. Don't get me wrong. I love the club experience (haven't done anything OTC in a few years), but if I wanted to stop, I'm not sure I could. My other hobbies I can also talk to many people about. Going to clubs, there are only a select few I dare to talk to. It's not a matter of being ashamed. But it would be very complicated. If you run a business, you probably understand. For me, I guess it's like this: If I'm going to be addicted to something, it might as well be strip clubs. Gambling, drugs, alcohol, porn would all be worse by a long shot. I think...
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Are you regulary ducking out of work for long lunches at a strip club? Do you hit the club when you cash your pay check, spend more than you should and then come back the next night? Do you daydream about your ATF? And does the bartender know your favorite drink and have it ready when you come in the door? You might be addicted.
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Addictions aren't necessarily bad, there are good addictions too. And I don't think a strip club addiction has to be bad, it depends on your personal situation. Sounds like IGU might be addicted to his strip club but I don't think it's hurting him or anyone else in any way, it's just his preferred form of entertainment. Would he be better off if he stayed home and watched TV? Lots of people are addicted to TV and are grossly overweight as a result.
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I don't know whether it's a good or bad addiction. All I know is it feels good, and it comes with a cost beyond the money. I keep doing it to feel good, and I try not to think about what it's costing me.
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I KNOW that I am addicted and I KNOW that there are most definitely some VERY negative potential results to my addiction... some of which I already experience. But I also KNOW that there is no way that I am wanting to break the addiction. I completely enjoy clubbing and also reading/writing/talking about it.
I HAVE given up going to clubs - well, technically anyways - since I only do OTCs now, and for the foreseable future. [wink]
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Doug: The keyword being "foreseeable", right? At least I've found there's no telling what's in the future or what you've truly given up until it's all well behind you.
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Chandler: Exactly. That's why I added the phrase "foreseeable future". At this point in time, I can't imagine things falling apart with my ATF, but a LOT could happen that would most definitely put an end to it.
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DougS, I haven't learned very much in this lifetime, but the one thing I have learned is the secret of life - change. Everything changes all the time. And the people who cope best in life are those who accept and embrace change. Change is life. There is no "forseeable." Nothing is forseeable.
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I keep "learning" that I hate myself for failing to get a hot girlfriend, and that I am preventing myself from getting one by wasting all my social energy on strip clubs instead. But I never seem to "learn" to effectively redirect that energy.
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I was thinking last night, I am addicted to going to clubs and seeing pretty and nice girls or dancers. I was thinking, I could have stayed home all this time and been a millionare by now. Then start my addiction back up when I'm in my 40's. However if an asteroid hits the Earth in a few years, I'll be glad I didn't stay home and save every last penny. Just going out and doing want I want to do without worrying about having a little bit of fun makes me happy.
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