Bachelorette Parties, Strippers and Self-Respect

I’m thinking about buying a domain name and moving my blog to it. Have you done this? Has it worked out? Blogger has had some outtages and it’s starting to annoy me.

Last night was the 2nd annual February birthday night out among my group of friends — there are three birthdays this month plus we had my one-year “divorceiversary” to “celebrate. Eleven of us went to PF Chang’s for dinner — YUM! — and we scored two free orders of lettuce wraps because we had to wait like five minutes for our reservation. It was during dinner that I became the de facto designated driver because I had one drink compared to, among others, my beloved friend Chris’s THREE. After dinner we drove to a club, which was absolutely tragic. We were there for a few hours, but even at midnight on a Saturday night, it was empty. So I hauled our asses to another bar, which was much more crowded but still tragic. Then Chris saw his ex, so we left.

We finally ended up at this seedy male strip club. In theory, it sounds like fun. Hey, let’s go see some naked boys. Oh my God. In all fairness, this was my second visit to the club, the last being the 1st annual Feb. birthday outing. It was seedier this time and there were way more straight women. The dancers looked so young — barely 18 or 21 or however old they have to be — except for one, who actually looked like a man. He danced once, though, then disappeared. Sigh.

Anyway, there was a bachelorette party at the bar. It was the saddest bachelorette party I have ever seen. As I have mentioned before, I am not a skinny little thing. The other two women in my group also are not skinny little things. But neither of us have much of a problem getting dates because we dress nice, we look nice, we act … well, we don’t act nice lol. Anyway, all three of us work with what we have.

But back to the story. The dancers are one a little stage, maybe 2 feet off of the floor, and it’s shaped like a rectangle and accessible on all ends. There was one woman in the bachelorette party who, if I had to guess, was between 400-500 lbs.This woman walked over with a dollar in her hand but instead of tipping the dancer, she decided to FLOP DOWN, ON HER BACK, ON TOP OF THE STAGE, waving the dollar bill in her outstretched hand.

I was horrified.

Her friends hooted. They were the only ones. The dancer, bless his heart, first mock-buried his face in her crotch then proceeded to hump her. Chris commented he was working hard for his money.

It would have been skanky for any woman to do that. But a larger woman — well, fact of life is, we’re judged more harshly. I am less than half that woman’s size and there have been times when I have felt like I’ve been treated like less than a person because my clothing size is in the double digits. (On the bright side, I’ve actually had to develop my personality AND I have big boobs lol.)

But it got worse.

A few minutes later, the aforementioned dancer who looked like a man took the stage. Sigh. We determined he was straight, as he very uncomfortable whenever a guy wanted to stick his tip in the dancer’s “bad touch” area. So a second woman from the bridal party decided to haul her ass onto the stage. This time, she put the dollar bill IN HER MOUTH. Once again, the dancer put on a show for her.

Like I said, I was sober, but I wanted nothing to do with the whole experience. The dancers come around and will do lap dances — no charge, like at the hetero male clubs! — and touching is encouraged. Strongly encouraged. In fact, one of the dancers told us he couldn’t “whip it out but you can touch.” I declined lol.

A lot of women don’t want to touch the label “feminist.” But I’ve never shied away from it. If being a feminist means that I’m uncomfortable with anyone being objectified, then what’s wrong with that? I have never been to a strip club with female dancers, but I can’t imagine I’d find that enjoyable either. Last night, all I could focus on was the youth of the dancers, their bored expressions and the sadness of the older men — like 50, 60 years old — who thought they had a shot with these boys. And maybe they did — as long as their money held out.