Wildcatting

Read Susan Shepard's excellent piece: "Wildcatting: A Stripper's Guide to the Modern American Boomtown."

At times the customers were bafflingly delightful. The farmer who pulled a Leica out of his overalls and asked if he could take my picture. The shy, funny drilling contractor who would bring us surf and turf from the nearby steakhouse on slow nights. The tattoo artist who said the town was so small you could walk across it. The photographer on assignment to shoot one of the first boomtown articles written about the area. The local fortysomething lesbian smiling like a 21-year-old. The kid who was tickled that I recognized his Daniel Johnston T-shirt. These people would make my day.

I'm a pole dancer

For my Forbes blog, I took a pole dancing class.

In pole dancing class, there is nowhere to hide. At the start of class, I had chosen a pole in the second row. Presciently, most of the other women had chosen poles in the back row.

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Tax that ass

My pal Bubbles let me interview her for my Forbes blog. What's it like to work with a pole tax? Bubbles explains.

Jezebel, as you pointed out, called Houston’s pole tax “genius,” adding, “Pretty smart to use money from folks who enjoy sexualized women to aid sexually assaulted women.” Are pole taxes feminist — or anti-feminist?

The pole tax is a regressive and optional tax and as such is definitely not progressive, liberal, or in line with a statewide economic policy that would further the interests of most of the working women in the state.

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I need a stripper

I am looking for a stripper in Chicago.

Do you know one?

Are you one?

Do you know someone who knows one?

If you post this somewhere you hang out, might a stripper in Chicago see it and reach out to me?

Do you think kismet is possible when the subject is gentleman's clubs?

Email me.

How much can you make?

Stripper, Las Vegas, Nevada

"3) How much can a contributor make? As I’ve written, a writer who attracts 1 million unique visitors a month for 12 consecutive months, with a solid base of repeat visitors, can earn a six-figure annual income. That’s not easy to accomplish. In 2012, only the second year of our model, two contributors topped $100,000. We had a few at $75,000 and $50,000, and 25 hit the $35,000 mark. There is a long tail at $10,000. Using their individual data dashboard, a contributor can track how they’re doing in real time. For comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the average full-time reporter or correspondent’s salary at $45,270. Remember, being a contributor (many have worked for major national and regional news brands) is a freelance job, with considerable freedom to publish content for others." -- "Inside Forbes: Amid the Finger Pointing, Journalists Need to Explore New Payment Models"

$krippers

Nokia Music, 'Atlanta Dream$' from Somesuch & Co. on Vimeo.

Interesting short on strip clubs and hip hop directed by Tyrone Lebon, friend of cross-eyed girls.

Stripper

Stripper, Las Vegas, Nevada

Strip club generation

I wrote a post for the Guardian's opinion section on twenty-something men who go to strip clubs.

If one strip club gets its way, it'll be offering lap dances 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The effort by the London-based Spearmint Rhino has caused a high-profile controversy, with local residents complaining the club's non-stop stripping proposition will increase crime. Bob Dear, a retired member of the Metropolitan police, is leading the bid.

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Are you a twentysomething male strip club patron?

I'm working on a piece under very tight deadline and am looking for twentysomething males who go to strip clubs. Basically, I want to know why you go. You can be anonymous or not -- whatever you like.

Email me.

Thanks!

Magic

I went to see "Magic Mike" tonight. It was pretty good. It has a lot of dancing naked men if you're into that sort of thing, but if you are a straight guy, you can also see Olivia Munn's boobs if you're into that sort of thing.

Basically, it's an American Dream story that reminded me of "Pretty Woman" and reminded my husband of "Flashdance."

The dancing is phenomenal. As stripper Kat wrote of Channing Tatum in her co-review of the movie with stripper Bubbles: "His pelvic thrusts are the cathartic thrusts of a man who can only express himself truly on the stage with his crotch."

I would like to see Matthew McConaughey be the first actor to get an Academy Award for playing a male stripper.

Not all the acting is great, due to Soderbergh's in recent years interesting in working with non-actors or not-great actors. So things drag a little when people are trying to portray emotions they're not so sure they're having.

But it's fun. Like popcorn.

People are always interested in what a movie like this says about the current state of masculinity. It explores a lot of the same things Susan Faludi explored in Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. If you haven't read the book, I recommend the chapter on male porn stars: "Waiting for Wood: A Death on the New Frontier." The book is mostly about how men can be men in a post-industrialized America, and the answer seems to be: It ain't easy.

The same factors are at play in "Magic Mike." Men are objects at which women throw their money, and the guys' sexual gyrations are a punchline to a joke nobody's sure they get. Women make the first move and don't call you after they fuck you. In the wake of masculinity's absence, young men try to fill traditional roles, fail, and feminize themselves for dollar bills if that's what makes a bunch of oversexed postfeminists happy.

In the end, Mike seems to make something out of the wreckage. The bespoke furniture he creates includes the detritus of a bygone time that washes up on the shores after the latest storm. There isn't much left, but for a guy in the 21st century, this is the closest he's going to get to a happy ending.

Thong

It's about seven months into Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs.

Typically, I run these things for a year, and this one was started in late October of last year, so it will end in late October of this year.

So far, I've gotten 31 letters.

Here are the top 10 most popular tags in no particular order: "marriage," "tips," "friends," "sex," "alcohol," "lap dances," "money," "naked," "strip clubs," "women."

If you'd like to write an anonymous letter, send it HERE.

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Man

I've posted a new Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs:

The memory of my first time has faded, fuzzy like memories of all 18th birthdays are, tainted by alcohol and regret but I think I liked it, I think I did feel like a man for the first time in my life. Having just finished school and moved out of home it felt like something only the truly free could do.

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Telegraph

Here's a Telegraph profile of me and some of the projects I've done over the years.

It’s tempting, on seeing the name of Susannah Breslin’s new blog, to think you already know what it contains: Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs.

Surely it’s just a bunch of stories about how entertaining it is to be surrounded by naked women?

Actually, like Breslin’s acclaimed earlier projects, Letters from Johns and Letters from Men Who Watch Pornography, it is startling.

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Club

Why do you go to strip clubs? I want to know. Email me HERE.

More letters

I posted some more letters from men who go to strip clubs. Interested in submitting one? Email me HERE.

Furthermore, while I watch pornography to satisfy these urges more often than I go to a club -- I'm a bit of a homebug and it's cheaper and less hassle to load up a site rather than go out for the evening -- I much prefer the strip club experience over pornography. Porn is unrealistic and exaggerated, it puts you at a distance, whereas in a strip club it's all happening there, right in front of you. There's a tangibility and reality to the experience that is lacking in porn. Besides which, I often feel uncomfortable, depressed and unfulfilled after watching porn, while an evening at a strip club will, conversely, often cheer me up and boost my confidence and spirits for a while afterwards. 

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Happy Valentine's Day

I've got a new letter on Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs.

It was as if the entire world was upside down inside the four walls of the club. Women were expected to make the first move, not men. Women flirted with men. Women were dominant. My loneliness and insecurity were not liabilities here. They were seen as cute, quaint, even desirable traits for a man to have. When I got my first lapdance, I felt like I was on a higher plane of existence occupied only by the two of us. The music faded out, the lights dimmed, and all I could feel was the warmth of her soft skin and tight body rubbing against me.

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Strippers

I haven't gotten any new letters from men who go to strip clubs in some time.

Will you send me one?

By doing so, you will become part of an improvisational sociological study on why men will exchange dollars for thong views.

This is important stuff.

EMAIL me today.

Email me

Why do you go to strip clubs?

I'm looking to hear from men who go to strip clubs about why they go.

I have a fetish for big fake boobs. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. I don't know where it comes from. When I was a teenager and started finding porn, that's what I was drawn to. During my decade plus of enforced chastity, I disappeared farther into a fantasy life, and now it seems to be inextricably linked to my sexuality in some way. They don't have to be insanely huge - although I like that too - but fake in general is what I go for.

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Listen

If you missed me on CBC Radio Q yesterday talking about Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs, you can listen to it online HERE.

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Radio

Tune in to CBC Radio Q this morning, and you can hear me discuss Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs.

The reason I go to places like this is for those moments when they stay and talk. That's all I wanted. They don't have to be naked. They could be wearing a suit of armor for all I care; I just want to talk to someone who cares, and $1 every 3 minutes is a lot less than $250 an hour for a therapist.

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