So you want to bring your girl to a place whose singular reason for existence is for you to gawk at other girls. If this sounds at all problematic to you, do not bring your girl to the strip club.
But maybe you’re nuanced people who understand the levity of the strip club experience and know not to pit women against each other. Maybe going to the strip club with your partner sounds like a sexy fun time, but given cultural norms about the strip club that assume the average customer is either solo or part of a bachelor party, you’re unsure how to navigate the situation. If this is the case, here’s how to approach bringing your gal to the strip club, at whatever stage in the relationship…
The First Date
No.
Okay but seriously, if you’re asking if it’s alright to bring your first date to the club, the answer is no.
But maybe you’ve come across a real wildcard! A gal who just freaking loves the strip club and suggests that the two of you go for your very first date together. Or maybe it’s just that sometimes, women feel pressured to demonstrate just how cool and down-to-earth they are by offering themselves up as your guest to the gentlemen’s club. Not everyone is prepared for the reality of the situation, though, and that’s okay — the club isn’t for everyone! Either way, the first date isn’t an appropriate time to figure that out.
“If [women on dates] aren’t asking dancers to do the entire Cirque du Soleil routine for $3, then they’re looking upset, sad and dumb, wondering why they went there,” says Simone, a dancer who runs the website and Instagram account WomensWhork. “Some girls even cry because they feel bad for the dancers, which is sad because they literally could have just went to dinner and spent time with their man and avoided that whole situation.”
Logistically, too, the strip club isn’t an ideal place for a first date. Wouldn’t you rather get to know each other over a meal someplace quieter, where your attention isn’t constantly being directed toward a stage of nude women? Odds are, your date would.
Early In The Relationship
Basically, the same logic is true here: She’s gotta be the one to ask, or have otherwise indicated that she has an interest in attending. Plenty of women love the strip club. It’s fun! Beautiful women being nice to me? I’ll pay top dollar for that. But that’s the thing… you have to pay top dollar for it. And if you’re not willing to do that, then you don’t belong in the club, regardless of gender.
“The clubs are centered around male entertainment, so most women aren’t going to understand or enjoy the club,” says Simone. “They end up coming for a novelty factor and are there more for amusement, which gets in the way of the hustle. Men who spend in the club are affected usually on an emotional level because of a bad or nonexistent relationship. So women who come in the club with their men are confused and don’t get it,” she says.
Even in situations where a woman seems all gung-ho about the club, it might not go as planned. “We’d been dating a few months. She suggested we go. She got jealous real quick and made things very awkward,” says Dan, a 30-year-old from L.A. “The kicker was she demanded I buy her a lap dance. I was annoyed by then so I declined; she made us leave.”
On another occasion, however, Dan went with a new partner, with whom he had previously been friends. “We went drunk and spontaneously,” he says. “The girls loved her, she got herself extra attention and I was able to watch.”
In this case, both had a good time because jealousy wasn’t an issue. Even then, though, in Simone’s opinion, the strip club isn’t a good place for a date — or straight women in general. “Women are just trying to work there and their target customers are not other women. Women customers think we’re showgirls, not businesswomen,” she says.
Here’s some evidence to corroborate that theory, per Brendan, a 35-year-old from Boston: “I was living with my college girlfriend when an old friend, the literal girl next door from home, came to visit. We decided to help pay down the debt of some beauties. The three of us go and are having a good time when my friend decided she wanted to get a private lap dance. After she was gone for half an hour, me and my girlfriend started to wonder what was up. She came back to us all apologetic because she claimed to not have understood the rules of the road, and had mistakenly enjoyed about $250 of intimate attention which she couldn’t afford.”
Long story short: Brendan’s girlfriend ended up paying the tab.
Spicing Up Your Long-Term Relationship
“One of my best nights ever was because of a married couple,” says Hunter, a dancer in Florida. “They were regulars at the club and spent thousands of dollars every time they came. They enjoyed watching each other get dances. They were pretty handsy, though, like they felt like they could get away with more because they were together. In general, though, couples aren’t really worth the time.”
“I’ve seen couples come in for anniversaries or their man’s birthday, again for novelty purposes,” says Simone. “They usually won’t spend more than $100 on dancers. But that’s better than the people who are early in their relationship or dating or just like to follow their man around. That said, I’ve gone to a club with my ex-boyfriend — we were together for seven years. His ex was there dancing. Honestly, I thought she was the cutest one so I tipped her $20. But again, if my man was there alone, she probably could have got him drunk and made a bag off him. So in that capacity, I kind of stopped her bag. She couldn’t hustle him with me there, for obvious reasons.”
This is one of the primary reasons that, as a dancer, Simone doesn’t think couples should go to the club: In her experience, dancers make more money when their customers’ wives or girlfriends aren’t present. “Now, I’m grateful for every dollar, including those spent by women, but the club isn’t really for girls who don’t work there,” she explains.
Regardless, Simone is fine with women coming to the club as customers with their partners, so long as they aren’t rude or upset. As for the men, she has just one piece of advice: Give your girl some real money to throw.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
