What accounts for Good or Bad Strip Club Culture in a City?
Book Guy
I write it like I mean it, but mostly they just want my money.
Saturday, June 15, 2024 1:20 AM
What factors do you think make for a city's strip club culture to be good or bad? This has come up a few times recently in tangential discussions here. I've always wondered. Politics? Economics? Industry? My thoughts ...
One factor is simply size. If a city is really too small, there's unlikely to be the critical mass necessary for clubs that anyone will enjoy. In my experience, Jackson MS and Shreveport LA are both simply too podunk to have good vice-trade type outlets at all.
Another factor is tourism. Any city with a lot of tourist travel has higher likelihood to have "good" club culture, whereas a similar city with zero tourism has lower likelihood. Seasonal and event-based tourism may also bring in dancers for periods of time -- maybe the ski resorts or the beach resorts get better strip clubs at their times of year? Certainly the Super Bowl will draw hotties to otherwise drab cities.
What about political climate? I would love to say that one or the other end of the political spectrum is better for strip clubs, but that isn't always the case. You'd think the Liberals would let things go free and hairy, like San Francisco CA used to do. But some traditionally Liberal places like Portland OR and Boston MA generally have a poor strip club culture (and I'm not entirely sure why). Meanwhile, ultra-Conservative cities like Salt Lake City UT and almost anywhere in the Bible Belt are simply zero for strip clubs. It seems that the Liberals and the Conservatives both seem to be able to ruin strip clubbing. Further, although Texas generally votes Republican and therefore might be called Conservative, still Texas has some of the best strip clubbing culture cities with Houston and Dallas, further confounding the relation between politics and strip club quality.
Obviously, it also depends on what you mean by "good" of course. If you like extremely over-priced extremely glitzy showgirl type dancers, hard bodies, women who are skinny, probably with large spherical fake tits, and you're willing to put up with very very high club prices for drinks and entry and VIP room, if that's a trade-off that's enjoyable to you, then you're a fan of Las Vegas strip clubs. If you want interpersonal touching that makes you feel like you've met a girlfriend for the night, lower prices, but you're OK with girls who aren't all glam-glam, maybe Las Vegas isn't your favorite. If you want extras available on a reliable basis for sensible prices, then maybe you're interested in the area North of Miami FL (although YMMV and, just about everywhere, something is always available as long as you are willing to pay the price).
Maybe economic downturns? Or interesting jurisdictional borders? I know East St. Louis strip clubbing benefits from being in a location NEAR a major city, but technically across a State line from that city, and further benefits from having few other employment opportunities for many of the young women there. That seems to be good reasoning for why that city has long-standing extras-available club reports. But then, this reasoning should also apply to Gary IN, right across the State line from Chicago, but it generally doesn't. Or to the area of New Jersey near-ish to New York City.
Everywhere I've been, strip clubs are in areas zoned for light or even heavy industry or for all businesses. There are very few strip clubs in strictly residential neighborhoods unless they're out in the suburbs where there's wide driving margins between the parking lots. There are many in the older downtown buildings in many cities. And there are lots in the regions between assembly plants and trucking outlets. Seems to me that City of Industry CA is aptly named.
Urban decay and strip clubs. I love 'em. I could drive the rotten trash-strewn brickyards of America's railroad side of town forever. Stop in for a cool one at a "tavern" type local bar that caters to the world's Archie Bunker types, next door to the hootchie show. Street walkers showing their assets, semi-trailer trucks turning around in small delivery lots with expert tight hairpins, a few abandoned businesses with "For Rent" phone numbers, cracked pavement, a stoplight at every intersection, no pedestrians anywhere except the streetwalkers and their customers, giant stanchions holding up huge signs for "RMV Corp." and "Furniture, Mattresses, Hot!" What's not to like?
What other factors? Size, tourism, Conservatism or Liberalism or Libertarianism, jurisdictions, industry, economic downturns, is there something else that explains it?
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