Live, Nude...?
If you're a woman, would you rather go a strip club where women strip or men do...and why? (And please answer that assuming that seeing women stripping won't be a skanky experience -– the question really is whether women, visually, prefer watching stripper girls swinging off a pole to watching stripper guys.)
I'm a straight gal, and I would personally prefer watching women strip. ...But I think that might be because when men strip, it's sort of depressing, and makes just a little uncomfortable.
Possibly because the female strippers I've seen seem to have a better grasp of what they're doing.
may at April 28, 2006 2:13 PM
One thing I neglected to mention, is that the female form is on average way more appealing to look at.
I kind of hate men's legs.
may at April 28, 2006 2:18 PM
I would probably enjoy watching a woman work.
I've been in shows with male stippers and the mediocre ones are horrible.
I was the mistress of ceremonies-- get your mind out of the gutter.
Deirdre B. at April 28, 2006 2:21 PM
Why does it make women uncomfortable to see men stripping?
And do you think women who do go to see men strip do it because they find it sexy or because it's a bonding experience with the girls they go with. (My opinion.)
And Deirdre, you would deprive my mind of its natural home?
Amy Alkon at April 28, 2006 2:31 PM
Men. The male strippers I've seen really seem to be having a lot more fun. Plus, me like looking at the pretty boys.
deja pseu at April 28, 2006 3:17 PM
The man-strippers I've seen seem to think a woman will be turned on by their thrusting their wangs in her face. It was horrifying. Never did a long slow kiss to the neck seem to occur them. Just wang wang wang a-crotchity crotchness.
Gross.
rebecca at April 28, 2006 3:20 PM
Women, but I guess it depends on the point of me going in the first place. If it's a night out on the town with the girls, we might go and see the boys. But if I'm going for the excitement with a boyfriend, we'd go and see the girls. I've never actually been to a male stripclub and my girlfriends don't seem that interested. Probably because it's pretty easy to get good-looking young guys to take off their clothes if you're us.
Christina at April 28, 2006 3:24 PM
Being male, and generally inexperienced regarding stripclubs (once for an all nude women's stripclub, never for a male revue) (and I am not protesting, too much) those facts don't prevent me from having an opinion.
First regardless of sexual preference I think most women do find other women more interesting visually than they do men. They may not get 'turned on', but they feel more compelled when watching other women nude than they do men (outside of a situation where sex is imminent).
Also, women who strip are much more likely to be attracted to women, than men who strip are (I've known strippers of both genders, and only the women were interested in women), so the frisson of mutual fascination is more likely to occur if a woman visits a stripclub featuring women.
And there's the added exhibitionistic thrill of being a woman enjoying woman surrounded by men staring at women.
The only time I went to a stripclub it was for a going away party for an attractive female co-worker (at her suggestion), and watching her watch them was more fascinating than just the dancers alone.
(plus almost all the dancers keyed on her while dancing, and some even tried to give her their phone numbers)
XWL at April 28, 2006 4:27 PM
I notice that Lena hasn't said anything yet. I suppose some research was in order. I wonder if she'll be on CNN as a result!
Radwaste at April 28, 2006 4:41 PM
I would definitely have to agree with rebecca on . Male strippers, in my experience, have been more likely to cross the line between "sexily lewd" and "gross".
...I had tried to block out that experience.
may at April 28, 2006 5:36 PM
There seems to be something about overt male sexuality that's not attractive and even upsetting to women. For example, women tend to be horrified by the thought of a man in a thong.
Amy Alkon at April 28, 2006 6:50 PM
I think it's because we're conditioned to see "sexuality" as represented by the female body. In mainstream media, when they use sex to sell a product, it's almost always a woman's body doing the selling, even when they're selling to women. Sure, there's the shirtless guy in the Diet Pepsi commercial, but we remember that because it's an aberration.
As to thongs, well I think they mostly just look silly, but so do women in thongs, actually. I guess I've seen different male strippers (and it's been many years since I've seen any) than the other women here. The ones I saw were fun and flirty and not just about waving their schlong in your face.
deja pseu at April 29, 2006 6:26 AM
Can boys comment yet?
Crid at April 29, 2006 7:12 AM
Please do!
Amy Alkon at April 29, 2006 7:28 AM
> Please do!
Blowhard gasbaggery HAS BEEN AUTHORIZED! Repeat!: Deployment of dense rhetoric HAS BEEN APPROVED by central command!
> I think it's because we're
> conditioned to
No deep offense is intended, but whenever that phrase is heard in casual sociology from a Western woman (and it always IS a western woman), it's time to stomp the brakes and look around. I think there's a fundamental feminine presumption that at the deepest levels of human feeling, identity is not a factor. Males have this presumption too, but puberty corrects their misperception. Women --especially white, coddled, naive ones from the United States middle class-- just don't want to believe that some people are feel things that others don't.
> In mainstream media
This is another one that we hear a lot from teenage girls: 'It was on TV!' Or 'Cosmo said so!' As Raddy was saying about Flight 93 in an adjacent post, these media are commercial fables. Their first responsibility is to pander, not to lead.
> well I think they mostly
> just look silly, but so
> do women in thongs
Oooo! You are SO CLOSE! Keep going!
> not just about waving
> their schlong
Aw shit, it peters out... So to speak. The reason the women in thongs look silly is that you're a woman. Men who look at fertile women in thongs don't think they look silly, do they?
Think about gay porn. It was Camille Paglia or maybe Dennis Prager who pointed this out a few years ago. Men in gay porn do all the 'silly' things women do, including flesh-waving. But the men who look at it don't think it's silly. And gay men looking at gay porn can feel whatever they want: They're opbviously unconcerned with social conditioning, and happily oblivious to YOUR feelings. But they like it... Because they're MEN, and men and women are different.
Is there any such thing as lesbian porn? Pictures of lesbians for lesbians? Nope, that energy's fully subsumed in glamour photography, and nobody complains.
> conditioned to see "sexuality"
> as represented by the female
> body
First, beware the ironic quotations marks. Second, we don't need to be conditioned. Gay men rule the fashion world because they have a masculine admiration for femininity, even if it's not wholly erotic.
Women go to strip clubs to laugh. Men go to strip clubs to wear dyed hair, bad cologne, nugget rings, and polyester fabrics: They're not kidding around.
Crid at April 29, 2006 8:39 AM
I'm a gay man, and I'm not interested in any kind of strip club. I'm interested in naps.
Lena at April 29, 2006 8:42 AM
I think there's a fundamental feminine presumption that at the deepest levels of human feeling, identity is not a factor.
Never said that. My point was that if men were more commonly shown as sex objects in our culture, we'd be more comfortable with them as sex objects.
And how nice of you to assume I'm a coddled, white, middle-class woman and therefore someone you can feel free to condescend to.
deja pseu at April 29, 2006 8:51 AM
> if men were more commonly
> shown as sex objects
The reason they aren't is nature, not policy. Carts & horses.
> nice of you to assume
What, I'm wrong? Sorry.
Crid at April 29, 2006 9:15 AM
Hey, I treat men as sex objects all the time. It's just that I save the blow jobs for mornings with the ones I like, so I don't really need a simulated one from some oiled-up guy who thinks his thingie near my mouth will give me ecstasies.
rebecca at April 29, 2006 10:56 AM
Good sociologists aren't weenies, Crid. I had a conversation with a sociologist this week about porn (a real sociologist with a new book out from University of California Press, thank you very much), and she took the tiresome old position about porno leading to some distortion of healthy sexuality that subjugates both women and men, blah blah... I politely pointed out to her that sexuality is not necessarily about healthy positive feelings of intimacy, and that unequal distributions of "power" in sexual transactions are part of what makes male and female erectile tissue stand at attention. Only the half-wise would condemn folks with strong sexual imaginations.
She respectfully acknowledged my point, probably because I didn't indulge in the pleasure of hurling around words like "coddled" and "middle class."
You can be such a blue meanie sometimes!
But then again, so can I.
Never mind.
Lena at April 29, 2006 11:17 AM
> Good sociologists aren't weenies
Exactly! Your anecdote confirms the point.
> the pleasure of hurling
This claim ('It's because of our hurtful CULTURE!') is particularly grotesque to me due to personal experiences no longer of interest to anyone... It's not a tested, real-world belief that will yield to gentle discussion. (And of course there are masculine teenage fantasies about the heart that are just as insidious.) We should call a spade a spade.
And speaking of Blue Meanies, Martin's "Pepperland" is as lovely as any fully Beatle tune on that album. See? Manhood is all about appreciating beauty.
Crid at April 29, 2006 12:05 PM
The reason they aren't is nature, not policy.
I've never said that nature doesn't play a part, but it's a stretch to argue that nature alone shapes our preferences and attitudes. Black lace, bound feet, faces painted like a Geisha, necks elongated with metal rings, tatoos, high heels are all features that have been deemed sexually desireable by different cultures at different times, none of which are found in nature or particularly contribute to an appearance of fecundity.
deja pseu at April 29, 2006 12:37 PM
True, true. Someone once said bound feet and high heels are the same theme... ('The saucy little wench can't run away from me now!') Maybe captivity is fecundity of a sort.
Crid at April 29, 2006 1:56 PM
Hey, you erased Deja's lunchtime comment, which makes me look psychotic and obsessive and unbalanced! No one would EVER have thought so otherwise! Is it weekend site maintenance or are you fucking with me?
Oh well, time to go find a Tiki bar in El Segundo or someplace.
Crid at April 29, 2006 7:26 PM
Actually, thank you so much for saying that, and in the beginning of your post, because I just retrieved it. So sorry - I'm getting about a thousand comments spam a day now, and I'm trying to be really, really careful about not deleting any real comments.
If anybody sees a missing comment - please let me know, and at the very top of your post (ie, "Missing Comment" being the first words, so I'll see it right away.) Sorry to have to ask this, but the buttwad spammers are really getting out of hand...and I really, really don't want to delete any real comments.
The way it works is that I delete spam comments into a "junk" folder first, but I have to empty it about every day, or I start carrying around all the spam as weight on my site. We were almost going to have to move servers (a hideous endeavor) until Gregg figured out that I was carrying around about 75 megs of spam, and dumped it for me.
Amy Alkon at April 29, 2006 10:26 PM
I've enjoyed watching women stripping in Detroit and in nude shows in Paris (a long time ago). I agree with others that the female form is both beautiful and fascinating to me as a woman. Woman are beautiful dressed and undressed. I've only seen a male stripper in person once, and it was just kind of dumb and pitiful. And I have this thing about not wanting to be teased by something that I can't have.
Harris Pilton at April 30, 2006 8:41 AM
$17 is my going rate, or so it would seem.
and i got it all from women, which comforts me greatly considering my recent track record.
g*mart at April 30, 2006 10:54 PM
I am riveted by a beautiful woman but not on a sexual level. More of a fascination/admiration/harsh critique kinda thing. Male strippers don't do a thing for me. If I don't have a male that I love around to titillate me, then I endulge in elaborate detailed fantasies of men who look like Vin Diesel in Chronicles of Riddick.
chicknlady at May 1, 2006 11:38 PM
That’s where all the women’s studies ladies get it wrong when they wail about the “objectification of women.” It turns out, according to evolutionary psychologist Donald Symons, that everybody’s doing it. Men fantasize about women as sex objects, and women fantasize about themselves as sex objects; for example, if they go with a man to a strip club and see another woman stripping, they picture themselves as her. Symons writes in Evolution of Human Sexuality that women get off by “identification with the female participant.” In other words, in fantasies, men do, and women get done-to.
Amy Alkon at May 2, 2006 5:40 AM
I'm a coddled, white, middle-class (straight) woman and I love strip clubs! So there you go... The thought of cheesy Chippendales-types wriggling in my face is vile, but cute girls putting the make on me isn't. It's also funny as hell to watch the moron frat boys condescended to by the strippers themselves.
Shannon at May 2, 2006 8:13 AM