The World According to JP

Ok I’ll admit it, I’ve been to a strip club or two in my day. Yes, I know this comes as a total shock, but it’s true. I’ll even admit that I’ve dated two strippers in my lifetime. Dating a stripper is like trying to find a cure for cancer - it sounds like a great thing in theory, but it’s harder than expected and will leave you eternally frustrated. There are only so many vacuous conversations you can have before you start thinking to yourself, “Man, I need a woman whose IQ isn’t directly proportional to her g-string size.” I look at dating strippers like having a Porsche in the driveway. They’re nice to look at and fun to drive, but they’re not practical, get shitty mileage and are expensive as hell to maintain.

But that’s not where I’m going with this. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m heading out to the University of Oregon Duck - UCLA Bruins football game tomorrow. My friend Ben (who is a season ticket holder) gives me a ticket as a birthday present every year. Last year it was the Michigan game (the loudest fucking game I’ve ever been to), the year before it was Washington (in a downpour nonetheless) and the year before that it was Washington State (I don’t remember this game, I’m told that I was there). So, it’s become some sort of birthday ritual with us. Every year, we go down on Friday night. Every year, we eat dinner at his in laws’ house, go to a campus bar and then hit a strip club. Every year, I go back to his in laws’ house with a raging hard-on and a severe case of blue balls. Good times!

My strip club excursions with Ben are totally different than they were when I was in my 20's and living in Florida. First of all, I was nowhere near as confident as I am now with myself. I rarely made small talk or eye contact with most of the strippers I’d meet. The two strippers I dated were actually friends of friends and we were introduced outside of their respective ‘offices.’ Had I met them at their places of employment, I’d be willing to bet that I wouldn’t have went out with them. Even though I’m more confident now, it’s not like I’m a jerk to the women. Dating two strippers that I did taught me a valuable lesson about strippers in general - they’re just normal people. Granted, most of the ones I’ve seen are beautiful, have killer bodies and are personable, but they’re pretty normal. They just choose to take their clothes off to make money. When I go to a club now, I’m less inclined to get a lap dance and more inclined to buy one of them a drink and just talk for awhile. Just talk about their lives, hopes, dreams, etc. I’ve found if you treat them like real people, instead of sex objects, you send them away feeling a little better about themselves than when they first sat down to ‘talk’ with you.

Back in my 20's, if I was at a strip club I’d normally get a lap dance, not say much, smile awkwardly at them for awhile and then go home. One night, my friends and I were out at a very famous strip club in Orlando (that shall remain nameless). We were all drinking, laughing, getting lap dances and having a good time. My friend (we’ll call him John, mainly because that’s his name) found a woman that really seemed to love talking with him, in between lap dances. Fast forward about an hour. John’s already dropped about $50 on this woman and he’s gotten about 4 straight lap dances. In the middle of the 5th lap dance, he stops her. I look over at him with a puzzled look on my face as he stands up, untucks his shirt and sits back down. He looks back at me and says, “damn, she’s been grinding me for about 15 minutes, I’m starting to chafe.” Ok, good enough explanation. After that, he looks over at our other friend, Gary, and says, “remind me to tell you something when we leave.” Ok, seems like a John thing to say. He’s very cerebral that way. About 15 minutes later, John announces that he’s ready to go home. In all honesty, I was too. I was tired, my buzz was starting to wear off and I had a headache from the mishmash of perfumes clouding the building.

Once we get moving toward the front door, John is practically running to get out of the place. He gets out the front door, and is waiting for Gary and I to exit the building. We no sooner get out the front door when John lifts up his now untucked shirt to reveal a HUGE FUCKING WET SPOT. Seems that during the 5th lap dance, he wasn’t chafing, he was skeeting all over his Levi’s. It took a second for Gary and I to register just exactly what we were looking at, but once it did register, we all had a good laugh at John’s expense. Gary looked at him and said, “Remind you to tell me something later? Like you were gonna forget this?” John fired back at the two of us, as we were laughing hysterically, “yeah, you fuckin losers dropped upwards of $100 and have to go home and jerk off.” Touche, John, touche.

My strip club experiences since then haven’t rivaled that one in pure hilarity, but it still makes for a good story whenever I go to Florida and spend some time with John. Usually, within the first hour I look at John, who is now married and has two kids, and tell him, “Hey, remind me to tell you something later.” He threatens to kick my ass. Then I laugh my ass off. It never gets old.

With any luck, I’ll have a new story to tell Monday. And did I mention I just got a new camera phone? And I intend to use it, although it's never good to have photographic evidence of guys' night out! But we’ll all have to wait and see.


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