Questions on the history of stripping and lap dances

I made it to most of the LA area clubs in the early ‘80’s. No lap dances or mileage of any kind available. It wasn’t until I came (literally) to Atlanta and Memphis in the mid ‘80’s that I ever had a lap dance. Depending upon the club and the dancer, ultra high mileage very available for very reasonable prices.

When did the lap dance as we know and love become part of the standard club menu? ......... Personally, DK, but I'll bet some TUSCLers do. Perhaps in SF?

In KCMO the Follies Theater, now a well-appointed venue for theater and music performances, was then the spot for burlesque shows. Mostly traveling performers, I think. All slow strip, bump and grind ..... no direct patron contact. Bazookas Showgirls has pics from that era in their front lobby.


Somewhat later two other 'adult entertainment' spots had live burlesque style stage shows. Interaction with patrons might include throwing out panties or other costume parts. One lady shot ping-pong balls from her vag into the audience. A few performers might parade down a main aisle but there was no direct contact with patrons. They also had porn movies, peep show loops, bookstore, sex merchandise, etc. Front for prostitution? sounds plausible but heard nothing to suggest it was so; other places...go-go girl bars probably were often better bets finding working girls.

I'm not sure when lap-dance strip clubs began operating here.

However, in Kansas, the Trop56 [Tropicana Club] billed itself as the the oldest continuously operating 'gentlemens club'. It started in the ***early 1950s***
Located in east-central Ks at rural crossroads. Back then it consisted of a roadside bar with girls. Behind the bar was a metal trailer that was a bordello.

With the advent of lap dances and VIPs it evolved into a nude strip club; VIP often included extras including FS.

Closed several years ago for good after owner died and relatives sold the property. Building razed and replaced with roadside camping and fishing store.

Now there's a great idea for a new Ken Burns documentary. The history of bump and grind.

I do recall seeing a girly show at a traveling carnival in 1962 or so, when I was about 12 years old. I have no idea how I gained admission to the strip show but it scarred me for life--- assuming that a life long obsession with female anatomy and investing countless hours and dollars in pursuing sex with women counts as a "scar."

My first time in a strip club was Bourbon Street Circus in Phoenix in 1982. There were stage dances, and table dances where the dancer danced in front of you at your table. No contact,, and dances were $3.00. My recollection is that this was the case through the 80s, although table dances went up to $5.00. Contact slowly increased in the 90s, although it was mostly one way. Things started heating up in Phoenix clubs around 2000, but major extras in clubs like the HiLiter started ramping up in about 5 years into the new millennium, followed by the inevitable course correction and LE attention which combined with COVID has killed the golden goose, at least for now. I’ve seen articles suggesting that the post-pandemic USA will be marked with excess in society, must like the roaring twenties after WWI. I guess we will see.....

Rediscovered strip clubs in 2005. Full on contact then. My early years? Just sitting at the rail tipping stage dancers.

I first went to a strip club in the very early 90's. No lap dances but they had strange table dances where the dancer would literally dance on the table in front of you. No VIP either. The dancers would sit and hang out though and sometimes cuddle or more. I imagine some "take home" could be had but I was too young and naive at the time.

Its important to remember that just seeing a naked woman was much more rare. That was often erotic in itself. The internet changed, some would say ruined, everything.

Lap dances evolved as a response to the internet. Clubs had to offer more than just nudity to keep the customers coming in. Before the internet, the nudity itself was actually a big deal.

My understanding is that the burlesque-style shows as described in the OP were pretty much what strip joints were like until the late 1980s (say, 1988 or so) when "table dances" first emerged as a chance for what was then considered a more intimate experience where the girl would dance on a stool privately for a customer or group. Table dances then evolved into lap dances in the early 1990s, and were fully roaring by around 1995. Lap dances had quickly and easily become the number one draw for most clubs by then.

Joe Redner from Mons Venus in Tampa is considered by some people (and proclaims himself to be) the inventor of the modern lap dance since Mons Venus was one of the first clubs to operate almost entirely as a lap dance factory and was thriving off LDs in the 1990s/early 2000s. That's probably a stretch, but Mons' rise in the 1990s does line up perfectly with the time when lap dancing became really popular in SCs.

In either case, table dancing in the 1980s was the definite precursor to lap dancing taking off in the 1990s. I think table dances started off at $5 each, then when lap dances were introduced they were $10 as a step-up. Then it became table $10/LD $20.

My experiences with titty bars commenced in the mid 1970s in Texas. The strip clubs I went to were “you can look but you can’t touch” kinds of places. It was like going to Baskin Robbins just to “look at the ice cream.”

My first in the club contact occurred in the early 1980s in Houston. That’s where I had my first lap grind. They were not too intense but it was a welcome improvement to have the ice cream cones reaching out to touch me that way.

But there were no VIP rooms back then. Over time, I learned to sit in darker, more secluded parts of the strip clubs. This led to better grinds and the dancers encouragement to let my hands roam. But there were usually limits on where my hands could roam. Titties and ass were OK but nothing was allowed under the G-string.

With one glorious exception on a frigid night in Texas in the late 1980s, I never had any in the club extras. That night was an aberration. I’ve never come close to anything as marvelous as that in a club since then.

By the 1990s, wicked grinds and mutual grope sessions were becoming widely available, at least if you were a regular customer.

I don’t know when VIP rooms became common in the USA. I think I was living overseas when VIP rooms became commonplace. I became acquainted with them around 2003 and bought my first “forever VIP membership” in 2008 (and my member has never been happier).

Now, if you have money and/or are a regular who can spot the high mileage girls, anything and everything is available in some of the better clubs.

The most remarkable aspect in all of this is that the price of a lap dance per song has been constant at $20 for over 30 years. What other vital service has been so immune to inflation for so long?

I started going to strip clubs in 1974. $1 tips at the stage rail, but in Boston, although I did not participate, it was rumored you could go out back and....within 10 years you could get a handjob at your seat in Boston clubs, but only on "dirty Sundays", which due to the blue laws here meant no stores open, no alcohol sales except bars etc. In Providence at most clubs the famed $1.00 dance was in high gear by the mid 80's, but no private rooms. They also had very full-contact $1.00 dances at a club in western mass, which for the time and area was insane. By the early 90's Providence clubs started private rooms and lap dances, which by the late 90's/early 2000s saw full-contact laps explode. On $10 lap dance dats (sun, mon, fri) at Fantasies you would find 80 guys at 1:00 p.m.. I recall $6.00 laps at the Inner Room and Inner Room II up until about 2002 and think they were $4.00 in the 80's. They just went to $20. Tampa laps were always $20 and South Florida ranged from $5.00 contact dances in your seat to $30 bj's at the Sperm Maid (mermaid) in wpb. Just a summary. There were way less fat dancers back then and believe it or not I never saw an overweight dancer at the Inner Room until 2008. It was so unusual back then. I represented a dancer from back in the day a few years ago. I met her in 1989 when she was 28 and saw her again in 2016 when she was 55. Looked gr8 and the same except older. I commented and she said: "same weight as back then but now its wonderful because I am a size 3 and not an 8. A size 3 is now a size 8. Society seems to cater to the failures in life.

The novel "Going All the Way" is about the nineteen fifties written by someone who lived through that era. The book has a chapter where the two main characters visit several strip clubs in Calumet City. The clubs are described as filled with steel mill workers and sailors and all on one street along with bars with no stage shows but where you can pay girls to sit with you and do a little touching. Nothing like a lap dance is described as being available in either the bars or the strip joints.

I first visited a strip club in the nineteen eighties in Indianapolis with some friends. There was a stage show but no stage tipping where customers could momentarily touch the girls. The girls looked unfriendly, never came to our table and there was no dj encouraging customers to take the girls back to a private room. I'm pretty sure there were no lap dances. I didn't like it and didn't go back to a club until 25 years later in 2010. I saw customers going up to the stage to tip girls. I did the same thing and the girl smiled at me and said I could touch her so I did. Then she asked if I would like to go do a lap dance and we went and did one. I had been living next to the club a couple decades and had never visited but would have earlier if I had known that clubs had changed since the eighties.

My first experience with semi naked women dancing was in the late 1960’s. There were two types of experiences, A Burlesque show where the ladies came on stage in gowns and stripped down to g-strings and pasties with tassels which they could twirl. Or topless GoGo dancers that came on stage and danced topless. Neither one had any dancer customer interaction. In the early 70’s I was in the Navy in San Diego. There there were SC’s as we would know them today except it was all stage shows. No private dances. Although I am pretty sure OTC was sometimes available. One girl slipped me a business card of a massage parlor where she worked and indicated we could have some fun there. By the late 80’s I was in North Carolina and table side dances were available, but no privacy at all and no two way touching. The first private room dance I ever had was about 2000 in Funkstown, MD.

Joe Redner from Mons Venus in Tampa is considered by some people (and proclaims himself to be) the inventor of the modern lap dance since Mons Venus was one of the first clubs to operate almost entirely as a lap dance factory and was thriving off LDs in the 1990s/early 2000s.

Lapdances were being done at the O'Farrell Theater in the 70s and 80s, very well documented (along with the Mitchell Bros famous 1st amendment fights) and that's almost certainly where it started.

Across the city, the Condor claims to be (and likely is) the first of what would go on to be strip clubs. First topless club, in the 1960s.

So, ironically, it all started in what is now one of the worst SC cities. But man, you guys wish you were here around 2000 :)

Thanks for the great intel everyone. I started clubbing in the early '90s so I was on that leading wave of lap dances. If I recall correctly, the pricing at the Deja Vu in Minneapolis was $10/song for table or lap dances. Still is just $20 per song at most all of the local clubs but a great variety of pricing for VIP options. And it makes sense that internet and DVD porn options made clubs have to up their game to compete.

I heard clubs were at their height in the 1990s. When I started in the mid 2000s everyone was saying how they declined already. One big difference I notice between now abd then is that back then girls were somewhat ashamed of being strippers and hid it. They were less trusting of guys in the ckubs but once they trusted you they really were loyal. It meant something.

When I was a kid the carnivals that came to town in the summer always had a tent with strippers. The barker would bring the girls out one-by-one and tell the crowd about the salacious shows that went on within. But I was too young to enter. I'm sure the shows were actually pretty tame.

I know from books and movies that strip clubs and burlesque clubs used to have live musicians. This was before the good sound systems we have today. Comedians like Lenny Bruce also performed at strip clubs.

When I hear stories of back in the day, there's not a lot things I could say this about but it seems like the 21st century for strip clubs have been the golden age and we just might be leaving it now.

I started going to clubs regularly around 1994-95 in San Francisco and San Jose. Back then there were high contact lapdances in SF and weak air dances in San Jose. The clubs in SF were the Mitchell Brothers, New Century, Market St. Cinema, Deja Vu, the Roaring 20s, and the Condor. All of them were high mileage at the time and even by today's standards it would still be pretty good mileage. At the time SF was dealing with a pretty big street prostitution issue and as LE ran it off the streets, they drove some of it into the clubs. Since it was the lesser of two evils, LE basically let a lot of prostitution happen in the clubs. Mitchell Brothers was one of the main clubs for this. Meanwhile in San Jose I went to the Pink Poodle, the Kit Kat, AJs and the Brass Rail where at best you could get your leg touched during an air dance. Plus AJs and the Brass Rail were bikini bars / no nudity.

Back in the day I lived on Long Island in Nassau County, there were a bunch of strip clubs on montauk highway in amityville that were run by the pagans MC club and if you had the balls to go there sex was available for a price, there was also a club in farmingdale on rye 110 called Cloud Nine those girls were always available for take out, and there were a bunch of soul clubs on hillside Ave, where the girls were always available that’s what I remember from about 1970 -1980 after that I was married and a family man until the early 2000s.

I would much rather go back to the Inner Room circa 2000 and get lap dances that extras with any dancer. I am a fan of strippers and lap dances.

The lap dance is from Seattle Washington. Talents West started clubs here that allowed table dancing and then lap dancing. Talents West was organized crime and a huge sting happened in 2006 where 5 clubs were closed and several people went to prison.

Some of these people’s affiliates now operate Kittens Cabaret in south Seattle.

Thank you, Talents West.

@grand1511

“Extras” have been available in the “down low” since the beginning of human civilization, as “prostitution” is the “oldest profession”

There is an Historical marker at the original Condor Club site. Full text: "The Condor; Where it all began; The birthplace of the world's first topless & bottomless entertainment; Topless – June 19, 1964 Bottomless – September 3, 1969 Starring Ms. Carol Doda; San Francisco, California"
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=7341

Carol Ann Doda
She was the first public topless dancer
Born: August 29, 1937 Vallejo, California, U.S.
Died: November 9, 2015 San Francisco, California, U.S.

America's First Top-less Dancer Carol Doda Poster https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=7342

“In 1964 Doda made international news, first by dancing topless at the city's Condor Club, then by enhancing her bust from size 34 to 44 through silicone injections.”

“Her breasts became known as Doda's "twin 44s" and "the new Twin Peaks of San Francisco".”

“Doda's act began with a grand piano being lowered from the ceiling by hydraulic motors; Doda would be atop the piano dancing, as it descended from a hole in the ceiling.”

“She go-go danced "The Swim" to a rock and roll combo headed by Bobby Freeman as her piano settled on the stage.”

“In Yosemite National Park, Doda Dome was named for her”

@jackslash, I also remember seeing a tent at the county fair one year with graphics depicting dancers in barely-there bikinis all over it. I was probably about 12 at the time (early 80s?), and I only recall seeing it once.

My experiences echo many others here. Started with bikini bars in the 80s, mostly little bars next to factories that had dancers from 7am to closing to cover all three shifts. You had a tiny stage and maybe something like a table dance for under $5. I can remember partying with the regular girls in the parking lot then going back in for another beer but didn't see much action being had. Things evolved in the 90's with more skin, more dancers, and nicer clubs. My first nude "juice bar" was a dive called The Nest where things got pretty raunchy but again, there was nothing like a private or VIP, though I am sure there was much mischief going on in the dark corners. The old State Burlesque in Cleveland had nude shows--I saw Annie Sprinkle there and ended up taking polaroid for her in the lobby. Ohio was always uptight when it came to contact but it was there to be had in places as nice as Crazy Horse or Diamonds or as truck-stop friendly as Club 76. I have drifted out of it (cam girls are getting my money now) but miss the days when I knew all the regular girls, could burn one in the parking lot, then go out to breakfast with a couple a dancers at 3 AM.

I got my first full nude contact dance sometime around 1982 in Tempe AZ. This wasn't a classic strip club per se but a nude dance place where you could pay for extras. I don't even remember the cost but I was a poor college student and couldn't have afforded a whole lot more than $50. I remember being disappointed that it was only a naked grind and the girl was all business.

The first high mileage dances I remember getting were at a club called Nightlife in San Diego in the 90's. They were $5 a song. The owners of this club also owned 10's in Tucson that I think is still open.

I remember extras being available since I was able to go to bars in the early 80's but never gave a thought to the origin of the lapdance. I couldn't afford much at an early age.

you want to know the origin of the lap dance? you can thank my grandpappy.

he was a confident of david crosbee when david was in the group called the birds, which most of you are to young to remember. when the other birds kicked crosbee out of the group for being an asshole my grandpappy left the city of angles and went to las vegas where he said “hey wouldnt it be much better if you could hire a girl to get naked and dance on your lap?”

the rest is history

on behalf of my amazing family your welcome