reviews (78)discussions (116)articles (2)comments (1216)I feel like the strip club is one of the few places where we can feed our only real, hard-wired desires in life. I think we're all hard-wired for just a few things: A want for food, clothing and comfortable shelter (to survive), a want to have sex/be sexual (theoretically for reproduction, but we've been able to limit that part) and a want to sleep (so we're at our strongest when needed to fight off others for the necessities and the chance to have sex). That's all we really want.

The club gets rid of the pretenses. Here's something I really want for something you really want. Perhaps the only thing I really want since I can get all the necessities myself, but I myself don't have awesome boobs, ergo, I need someone else to provide them for me. So, I'll give you cash so you can provide yourself and yours with the necessities in exchange for you giving me the one thing I can't give myself. Seems so simple and sensible that I almost don't get why folks who think it out would have any problem with it whatsoever. (Darn moralists, monogamists, etc., not getting it.)

For those who get it, and are OK with that, I feel like they've reached another, higher plane of existence. A better oneness with themselves and their distilled-down needs such that they see how, on the whole, all this is about is making people, yourself included, happy.

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Dan Savage outlines my views on monogamy quite well in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8SOQEits…

However, he hints at but doesn't fully acknowledge that, for most people, culture looks down on non-monogamy, including your wife, your Mom (insert joke here), the folks you do business with, etc. So, for those of us with a stronger-than-average non-monogamy bent, for whatever reason, good or bad, we have to hide it.

Could I go to a bar, try and pick up a random chick that might be better looking than anyone I can get at a club and probably spend a lot less than I do at the club? Sure. But I'm more likely to get caught, shamed by everyone I know, have to deal with all the other trappings of a random chick other than the physical gratification I wanted, etc. And, honestly, I love my SO. I want her to feel good about herself and not like she has a substandard man, even if I feel like the reasoning I would be seen as substandard by society is ultimately dumb, given what Savage says in the video. It's not like I'm not taking care of her. She's happy with me. It's just that, as I like to put it, you wouldn't expect me to eat the same food for every meal or wear the same style of clothing or have one and only one friend I hang out with, every day, for the rest of my life ... why I should I expect the same kind of sexual satisfaction from the same person all the time? And, oh by the way, if she ever came to me and said she was having an affair or even just had a fling on the side ... I'd almost be overjoyed. Hey, whatever makes you happy, including freeing your mind to other options if I'm somehow not providing you with everything you want. I'm not the type who's hypocritical about that.

Part of the reason you pay what you do at the club is the same reason you pay what you do for an escort: Your natural needs get met, and none of what happens leaves the walls of the building. Do it right, and you can do it the rest of your life with no one knowing and no ill effects. It's a service, and it's a damn good one, given how messed up everyone else is.

So yeah, that's how I look at it: As long as it doesn't get to the point where it impedes you from taking care of yourself or your family, where you spend your rent or your kid's braces money on the club, or you're missing family events or work or anything else important to go out ... I wouldn't feel bad about it.