Unbeknownst to us at the time, Saturday was a lucky night for my roommates and me. We might never have known this if it were not for the kindhearted souls at Madrigal’s exotic male strip club who informed us of our fortune.
We were lucky because Javier, the star of many c-list porn flicks, made an appearance that night. We were lucky, too, because the rumor on the street was that Javier might be straight. And we were very lucky that our boyfriends had not come with us — straight guys, we were told, totally kill the atmosphere.
For those of you unfamiliar with strip clubs, I should explain a few things. First, there are two types of male strippers: the growers and the showers. The growers are naturally endowed and tend to elicit the highest prices. The showers are not so, um, gifted. These men use other methods to get the blood flowing to their nether regions. Some use string to bind their package together, others use cock rings — round flesh-colored rings that they slip on the shafts of their penises. These methods help cut the circulation and make the penis seem both harder and bigger.
And to think some guys have problems with the Wonder Bra.
Most of the dancers can’t actually dance. One of my roommates, who is an excellent dancer, was extremely bothered by this. The rest of us didn’t care. But I couldn’t help wondering: With the supposedly positive relationship between dancing and sex, did their lack of rhythm have any effect on their performance in bed?
No, said the guy sitting next to us, who was about as straight as my hair (not very). A lot of these dancers, though, are purposely ambiguous about their sexuality. They are gay when they want to be, straight when they want to be. It’s not that they’re bi — they’re just “gay for pay.”
There are not many women at these places. When we came into the club, the bouncer asked us whether we were there for a bachelorette party or a birthday. If I had not been there for a birthday, I would have been offended. Instead I was just perturbed. Why couldn’t we have been there for our own pleasure? Why are men the only ones who can go to these things?
I harrumphed. Loudly.
But once inside, I quickly forgot my anger when I realized that strip joints, not Disneyland and Six Flags, are the real theme parks.
Every dancer at this place had a different shtick, a different gimmick. For instance, one guy took literally the analogy of his package as his crown jewel. His g-string sparkled — like chrome on a summer day. Another walked around in a pair of faded jockeys. I couldn’t help wondering, “Didn’t his mother teach him to wear his good pair out in public?”
Illinois law does not actually allow strippers to show anything below their hairline — so like limbo and low-rise jeans, the question is “how low can they go?”
Pretty far. A few times, we wanted to yell out, “put it back on,” instead of “take it all off.”
Which brings me to my last point. Among my roommates, the club received mixed reviews. Most seemed to appreciate its authenticity but none were particularly turned on by the dancers. “I consider this to be more of a cultural experience,” one roommate said.
The problem with the strip club, in my mind, is the same problem with meaningless sex: You simply don’t feel a connection with the other person. Half the fun of the act is the mutual appreciation of it. It is true that we had an immense appreciation for these men’s hard-worked bodies, and they, in turn, had an intense appreciation for our hard-earned money. But if all we were doing was appreciating art forms, we should have gone to a museum.
