STRIP CLUBS, LIKE THE HOT BODY CLUB IN EUGENE, OREGON, ARE POPULAR PLACES AFTER SUNSET. BUT FOR SOME MEN, GOING TO CLUBS ISN'T NIGHTTIME ENTERTAINMENT. IT'S WHERE THEY GO FOR LUNCH.
Lunchtime marks the start of fourteen hours of nakedness. Music pulses hypnotically and flashing lights beat a steady rhythm. Middle-aged men—laborers and businessmen, many unabashedly wearing wedding bands—are scattered throughout the room or bellied up to the stage. Most claim to come for lunch, business—or both. But that is pretense. They break from work to ogle naked women and get sexually charged before returning to their daily grind.
I'm one of the few sitting alone. To my right, a group of jovial businessmen in off-the-rack suits with unbuttoned collars and loosened ties knock back thin beer and toss jokes. It's as if they're trying to recapture their youth, when they used to party, meet women and take them home.
I'm amused by their enthusiasm but wonder why they're here. Why would anyone come to a strip club for lunch? The question perplexes me. That's why I'm here. I have come to get a glimpse of the daytime atmosphere—to see how it differs from the nighttime scene. But mostly I'm here to understand who finds lunch an excuse to look at nude women.
The four or five other times I've been to strip clubs have been in the safety of night. Though I was with friends and sheltered by darkness, I was uneasy—guilty. I have avoided going during the day. The daylight would leave me exposed, no longer a guy breezing through a novelty, but the kind of guy who frequents strip clubs.
Watching these men, I wonder what sets me apart. Why can't I relate? I assume they would come at night if they could, but family men have other obligations. At twenty-four and single, I can't see myself at forty, humping the memory of my college years, yet I can't shake the fear of a similar fate.
Right now, it's protocol rather than age that separates us. To acknowledge each other would be intrusive, the same as talking to another guy at a urinal. It's all machismo. Admitting we are all here together means that the women aren't dancing solely for any one man or group of men. It means admitting that we're sharing this experience.
I watch a man getting a cheap lap dance. Sweat shines on his bald spot. The dancer rolls her shoulders; her breasts rise and fall individually. She's probably close enough to smell his beer-laden breath. He stares without shame, his mouth slightly agape. He gets off on the attention.
For me, the dancer is the sideshow, the man the main event. Watching him, I can distance myself from the experience of watching her. While she is sexually stimulating in her grace and apparent sexual prowess, the outcome is predictable—like watching a movie when you've already seen the ending. It's all for nothing.
Still, the bald man basks in the fantasy, ignoring the truth. He is not alone. The businessmen's burgers get little attention as they watch a blonde spin around a brass pole. Many gaze longingly into the dancer's eyes trying to uncover the "real" person behind the act. I imagine they're committing the image to memory for the next time they're with their wives—or alone in the shower. They talk loudly: "My wife sure doesn't look like that." "That's a fiiine woman." Or just, "Damn."
Shifting in my chair, I see a guy in a striped shirt strut past to lay some bills on the veneer stage. He returns to his seat to watch the dancer's body from breast to buttock, head to heel. There is no escaping it: strip clubs are exploitative and objectifying. To those tossing out tips, the women are objects of desire, not people. But I know the dancers use their bodies as tools, as a means of power. They see the men as little more than wallets to be opened by a hip shake and shimmy.
The men are here to fulfill some delusion, and, for a nominal fee, the women play roles to meet those fantasies. They patronize the men, cooing sexually charged words in their ears and feigning longing glances. The men buy into it—literally.
In twenty years I'll be their age, but I can't see myself going to a club on my lunch break, parking in back to hide my car and paying in cash to avoid a paper trail. I'd like to think I have different values.
But if I'm wrong, and in twenty years you see me here, just shoot me.
