I’m thinking of going to day two of the Exotic Dancer World Championships tonight at the Pink Pony South, and it got me thinking about etiquette in strip clubs and some of the hang-ups I still have about them (which really are just manifestations of my general hang-ups with tipping, being in crowded places, and interacting with strangers).
I know from talking with and/or reading the blogs of many current or former strippers that generally when they see a woman in the club, they figure they won’t be making much money from her. Knowing this (and knowing some of the other bad behaviors women often exhibit in strip clubs), I always make an effort to tip well when I go to a strip club - but sometimes my own “issues” win out. I hate feeling stared at, and when I go up to the stage to tip the dancer I can feel eyeballs of drunken men burning a hole in the back of my head. (I have plenty of issues with drunkenness, too; as my personal baggage goes, those are the ones that are too large to fit in the overhead compartment.) Then, I never know what to say to the dancer when I put the money in her garter; small talk is hard enough without loud music and the fact that we’re only dealing with the space of about ten seconds. I feel like I should say something, because it seems like saying nothing would be weirder. I usually try to say something nice about their pole work. But often the dancer just winds up shouting back, “What?”
I also make a point to give more than just a measly dollar to the dancers who do advanced pole work (or any pole work, really) or other moves beyond the bare minimum. I wonder how much is too much during a stage set, though… or if there’s no such thing as too much!
So if any of y’all feel like chiming in with your thoughts/preferences/experiences, I’d be interested to hear them.
I might not end up going tonight anyway, because we’re leaving for a weekend road trip tomorrow morning and I want to get enough sleep, but it’s not like I’ll never go to a strip club again at some point.
Random unrelated thought (not self-deprecating, really, because I’m trying not to do that as much anymore; and yet…) : “issues” should be an item on Stuff White People Like.
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