Comments by FONDL (page 29)

Lap dance pricing is probably a lot more complex than we think it is. For example, probably some of the dancers make more when prices go up, even if the club as a whole sells fewer dances. And maybe the club benefits too. I remember once asking my ATF why she didn't try to maximize her income (she spent a lot of time sitting and talking) and she replied, what makes you think I don't? We don't see the tips that change hands. And Book Guy, please don't get me going on college tuition, which I think is the most outrageous and immoral practice that's tolerated in our society. Suffice it to say that the reason the price can keep going up at double digit rates is that so few people actually pay it. If you do pay full price (like I did for my kids) you're actually paying for other people's kids too, it's built into the list price. It would be like going to buy a new car, asking what the price is, and being told that the price depends on how much you earn. College administrators feel that it is their responsibility to transfer money from the well off to those less well off. Can you imagine if a private corporation tried to do that - the CEO would go to jail. Which is where a lot of college presidents and administrators belong.

I met my ATF the first week of July 1997 and she quit dancing in January 1999. I didn't get fit for her or any other dancer, I was already working out regularly by then. But I kicked it up a notch after meeting her and have continued to do so ever since. Health and fitness have always been a major interest that we share. She was quite heavy when she was younger and was just beginning to work out when we first met, so I was able to give her some guidance. Now she does the same for me. I think you may not fully comprehend what some others are talking about here because you haven't yet reached that critical age. But at some point some of us old guys become more and more concerned about the aging process and it's effect on both our longevity and our appearance, and we become more health and fitness conscious as a result. Attempting to appeal to young strippers is just one side of that, but an important side. Some of us enjoy the fact that we look a lot younger than we are, and we work hard to stay that way. Young strippers often reinforce that belief.

Bobbyl, maybe they're mislead the first time, but a lot of those guys shelling out the big bucks are regulars. And I'll bet the ones who are misled are usually misleading themslelves. IME most dancers know better than to purposely mislead a customer, it can lead to real trouble for them, it's not worth the risk and most of them know that. But the point I was trying to make is that very few things have intrinsic value, the value is determined by what someone is willing to pay, and that differs from one customer to another. For example, milk sells for $2.39 a gallon at my local grocery store. A block away a convenience store sells milk for $2.89 a gallon. And they sell a lot of milk. What's it's true value? Another example - a couple years ago I was looking for a fairly rare used car. I finally found exactly what I was looking for, but the seller wanted about $2,000 over Bluebook retail value, and he wouldn't budge on the price. Do I pay it or spend another 6 months looking? I paid it because it was exactly what I wanted and it was nearby. Value to me is whatever I'm willing to pay - what someone else is willing to pay is irrelevant. I've done the same thing when a stripper was exactly what I wanted, paid more than anticipated. But I set limits - I won't spend anywhere near $1000 in a strip club. But I don't begrudge the guy (or the stripper) who does. And if the guy doesn't get what he thinks he's going to get, that's his own stupidity. As in any transaction, buyer beware.

Just one recent example - the last club that I visited on a regular basis (Gentlemen's Gold Club in Baltimore) is a really fancy GC, easily the fanciest place I've ever been in. It used to be a real nice neighborhood club, then they shut down for a year or so and enlarged and totally remodeled inside and out. So when it reopened I stopped in out of curiousity to see what it was like. And wouldn't you know it, I met this drop-dead gorgeous spectacular girl - the only perfect 10 in every way I've ever met - who I just had to see again and again and ... The regular dances there really suck - $30 a dance, girl fully clothed, and you have to sit on your hands. That's done on purpose to force you to buy a VIP. Which I did the first few visits, the cheapest was something like $150 per half hour (they have 4 different VIP rooms all at different prices) with the girl expecting a tip too because the house takes most of the up-front money. But it was OK because the girl wore much less and you could do a lot more. Then they raised prices and I quit buying dances. After that I just sat and talked with the girl and then tipped her and left. Which was still expensive because the tiny dancer drinks are $10. Anyway she didn't like it very much that I stopped buying VIPs so we ultimately went our separate ways. I can see the club's point in raising pricess if they're doing a lot of business at night, but this was during the day when the place was nearly empty and few of the people who were there were buying any kind of private dances at all. Anyway they lost my business because of their price increase. I suggested several times on their online discussion board that they try lowering prices during the day - they erased my comments. That was 2.5 years ago. I recently received some emails from the club that they're now running specials during the day. Very amusing, must be a new manager.

The other aspect to remember is that the house usually gets a big cut of the money you spend in VIP (which is why the girl usually wants a tip) but the dancer may get to keep everything you give her in the regular dance area. If I like a girl I'd prefer to give my money to her rather than the house. Most of the places that I've frequented don't even have VIP rooms so this was rarely an issue for me. And when they did, I might try them just out of curiousity but for the most part it was always an economic consideration for me - which was the better deal? For example I always did VIPs at Brad's because it was cheaper than paying by the dance. Personally I think they should all be like that but I don't know of anywhere else that is - most VIP rooms are grossly overpriced which is why I don't do them.

BG, I think it's part of the Cafe Risque chain that stretches along I-95 through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. They have billboards advertising mainly to truckers and you always see some 18-wheelers in their parking lots. I stopped in one of them once, I think it was the one around exit 70 in Georgia. It was OK but nothing special. All I remeber is that the girls danced in cages and the LDs were weird. No thanks, a 4 at best. But I dn't remember it being particuarly expensive or a rip-off.

Jablake, the bell will ring at exactly the same time whether she sells 10 lappers or ten thousand. And if you know where I can get some MacDonald firsts, please let me know - I have a pretty good collection (including his first 2 original hardback novels which I have no idea what they might be worth because I've never seen them advertised anywhere for sale, they must be very very rare - I found them in a little local store maybe 10 years ago, one was $10, the other $25, and the bookseller looked at me funny when I bought them obviously wondering if maybe he made a big mistake, which of course is what browsing used bookstores is all about - kinda like finding that diamond in the rough in a tiny strip club) that I put together some time ago but I'm missing a few and I'm hoping that prices have declined since there are fewer people around who ever heard of him. He's my all-time favorite author. Long live Travis McGee.

Physical fitness is central to the relationship between my ATF and I. Our common interest in fitness is, probably more than anything else, what led to our friendship. She looks to me for fitness advice, as do I to her. It's something we talk about all the time. When we're together we either go to the gym or for a run nearly every day, and it's something that helps cement our friendship. For example, earlier today we were talking about signing up to run a 5k (3.1 miles) race on my next visit. She thinks it's amazing that someone my age can do the things that I do. So yes, she cares about my fitness level, and her perception of me is one of the main reasons that I work out regularly. She's my incentive.

Jablake, do you really own or manage a used book store in the Miami area? I spend a lot of time in used book stores, mostly looking for modern mystery firsts in good condition (hardbacks only.) If you carry a goood selection of anything like that (especially John D. MacDonald), send me an email and let's talk. Thanks. Incidently, jablake, selling a service is different than selling a product, because there's no fixed amount of product to sell. When you sell a book, that's one fewer book you have to sell. But when a girl sells a lap dance, she still has just as many left to sell as she did before. So cutting prices may increase her revenue, not decrease it, if the additional volume created is a greater percentage than the price cut.

"The Pink Pony South has carefully hand selected the Creme de la Creme of showgirls to entertain ..." So why are they advertising for dancers? Sounds like the kinda place I'd avoid like the plague. I'll give it a 4 - they probably do have some attractive girls (Atlanta places usually do) and a nice physical plant. But you can bet they'll be grossly overpriced and have low mileage. Makes me wonder where the money comes from for something like this. Drugs maybe?

Hi-Way Playground in western PA caters to truckers - it's right at an exit on I-70 and is open 24/7. The place is a total dump but I actually had fun there once with a girl who obviously didn't belong there.

Whether or not things "get better" depends a lot on what you mean by that term. If you mean more mileage, I think it depends on both the girl and the club. If you mean more privacy and perhaps nicer surroundings, which are obviously important to some people regardless of whether they're seeking higher mileage or not, than the answer is usually yes.

If MIDancer or anyone else has customers who are willing to pay $1000 for an hour or two of conversation, then obviously she is worth it to those customers. Just because some of us wouldn't be willing to pay that doesn't mean that she isn't worth it to some other customers. My most recent fave had a customer who came in every week and paid her $1000 for a couple hours in VIP to sit and talk. She was obviously worth it to him. Seems to me it's like selling anything else, your house for example. It's worth is determined by what someone else is willing to pay for it. If you were selling a service that some people were willing to pay $1000 for but others were only willing to pay $100, what's that product worth? It's worth whatever you choose to sell it for. And it's obviously worth more to some customers than to others. Like everything else, the market place determines it's value.

I agree with David that a lot of clubs, maybe most, are overpriced. As a result IMO strip clubs in general have been losing market share (of the whole sex industry) for years. But what has always puzzled me is, why isn't there more price competition between clubs? Are they all owned by the same people? Or are the owners colluding? I can't think of another business where demand was falling but prices were stable or rising over a fairly long period of time, except for businesses like the auto industry where government regulations imposed increased costs on everyone. What am I missing here? What makes strip clubs different from an economic point of view?

I'm of the opinion that most clubs have a few dancers who are also making "dates" with customers. My ATF once told me that some of the girls she worked with did that. I've been approached a few times in clubs, as I'm sure we all have. I wouldn't be surprised if it were increasing. And I think it's a major reason why so many guys proposition strippers - some of them say yes, and I think that's why some guys go to clubs.

For many years I always thought that drinking and clubbing naturally went together. Then I started hanging out at the club where I eventually met my ATF, which was a no-alcohol club (they didn't even allow BYOB) and once I got used to it I found that I liked it better. Ever since then drinking and clubbing are two separate activities - I do one or the other but not both.

I too have had this problem in very dark clubs. I have 2 compartments in my wallet - twenties go in one, smaller bills in the other. And I've never taken anything larger than a twenty into a club. I'm sure I've made mistakes, but the way I look at it is that it's worth an occasional mistake for the added darkness.

Alcohol (in the form of wine) is indeed my problem too. I have some excess belly fat as a direct result. But man cannot live on bread alone. Hence no washboard ABS for me. Life is full of compromises.

The thing about Philly (including surrounding burbs) is that it has just about anything you might want. If you like friendly and inexpensive neighborhood places, there are tons of them. If you prefer a GC, you have several to choose from. If you like sleezy, it's there too. Super high mileage? That too. All black? Yes. Nude, yes. Booze, yes. BYO, yes. Name it and it's there. I can't think of a type of place that you can't find in the city of brotherly love. And some of the places are pretty unique. Baltimore's pretty similar, although there are fewer choices in some types of place and prices tend to be little higher. Baltimore also has some places where everything is readily available. Philly probably does too but I'm not familiar with them. In terms of variety and sheer number of decent clubs, I don't know of any other cities that can match those two. There probably are some but I'm not familiar with them. Maybe Tampa comes closest.

"Yes, I think its swell that Bill Gates is donating $1B to charity. But, lets not forget that he still has over $50B net worth. (I'm not calling Bill Gates greedy). Does anybody NEED to have $50B?? Couldn't he do "well" on $25B, putting the other $25B on price breaks on Microsoft Windows, etc for individuals, and corporations?" Minnow, despite your disclaimer, that certainly sounds like you think he's greedy. If not I don't understand your point at all.

Bones, you probably didn't mean it literally but it's impossible to turn fat into muscle or vice versa. You have fat cells and muscle cells, and each can get bigger or smaller but neither will ever turn into the other. Once you reach adulthood your number of fat cells always remains the same and in the same place, they just get bigger or smaller. And they do that according to a set pattern depending on your body type - for men the fat cells in the midsection are usually the first to get bigger and the last to shrink, and there's nothing you can do about that. For women it's usually butt and thighs. Muscle is different - you damage it by exercising, then it rebuilds during rest. So you are actually building bigger muscles when you are at rest, not while exercising. And they need protein to rebuild. An excellent book called "Younger Next Year" explains this stuff in easy-to-understand language. "You the Owner's Manual" does much the same thing. Both are excellent.

AN, I've been wondering when you would show up on this topic, this seems like your thing. I look forward to your comments. Enjoy your holiday. Minnow and Book Guy, please note AN's comments about it not being a zero-sum game, because that really gets to the heart of the matter. You guys are both assuming that if you significantly cut the income of the people at the very top, everyone else will get more. That simply isn't true, in fact many people would get less. One example - Bill Gates got his money because he started a company whose stock value multiplied many times over. Not only did he get wealthy but many of his employees did too. If that stock hadn't risen the way it did, he'd be less wealthy but so would a lot of other people. Including the retired people whose mutual funds bought some of those shares. People like Bill Gates who start companies that do extremely well are why our economy keeps growing. Without companies like that we'd have a stagnant economy and high unemployment. The Bill Gates's of this world are the people who create the jobs.

Depends what you like - high mileage, attractive friendly women, low prices, variety (eg. many different clubs of many different types), fancy places, dives, extras, etc. I wouldn't argue with any of the cities listed. But I'd add Baltimore, Providence and Philly to the list. I'm not sure any other city offers the variety that Baltimore does.

Book Guy, in order to lose that last 10 pounds it helps to change your eating habits to 6 small meals a day instead of the normal 3 big ones. And I agree with Bones that you need to eat more protein and fewer carbs, especially simple carbs like white bread and pasta. But I disagree with his other advice, there are no exercises that target fat loss in specific areas of the body, it doesn't work like that. Do more cardio especially intervals (eg. instead of running at a moderate steady pace for 30 minutes, alternate sprints with slow jogs in between), and lift heavy focusing on your largest muscle groups (legs, back). And do mostly compound exercises like squats and dead lifts with free weights. And drink lots of milk (calcium helps you lose fat) but little or no alcohol. Bones, I will send you an email. Just be aware that it will come from Cosgrove C. Cosgrove, who is the executive director of Friends of Naked Dancing Ladies (FONDL).

Bones, I can't send you an email, I don't have access to your address. If you can't get mine, ask Shadowcat, he has it. Or maybe Shadowcat can send me yours.