dear john

An Open Letter to the Strip-Club-Going Public About Some Things I Can't Beleive You Don't Already Know:

Dear Strip Club Customers:
There are customers out there who treat us like equals, pay us what they owe us, and respect our boundaries. Then there are sociopaths and anti-social personality types who make up 3.6 percent of the adult population -- probably a higher percentage of the strip-club-going population because these types have more trouble than usual forming the kind of normal, intimate, adult relationship that might lead to the removal of clothing, thus necessitating the purchase of service.

Then there's the rest of you. You are not sociopaths, but neither have you the strong inner compass that allows you to bring your personal ethics with you into unfamiliar environments. You look around you to gaugue appropriate behavior, and you do whatever other people are doing. If those other people are sociopaths, you go with the flow.

Take comfort, however. Going to a strip club is not nearly as confusing a moral environment as you may suppose. Girls are walking up to you and begging permission to take their clothes off, which doesn't happen to most of us much in real life, but space-time is not collapsing in on itself and all bets are not off. You are in America in the 20th century and the women walking around in their underwear are very possibly the same women you saw walking around in the grocery store earlier, and many, though not all, of the same rules and standards are in effect. So here's a reminder of some things you may not have thought about:

1. You have no idea how disgusting you are when you're drunk. Now I am no teetotaler, and a nice buzz is a fine thing. But there is nothing -- nothing -- as unsexy as a drunk. Maybe because with your incoherent speech and temper tantrums and flailing limbs, you are so much like a three-year-old. Not the cute kind that I want to pick up and hug. The kind screaming three rows behind me on a five-hour flight to Boston. You suck and you are ruining my trip.

2. Don't whine to me about how the last girl slapped you/bit you/was rude to you when you tried to grab her tit/ass/vagina/god knows what. Are you fucking serious? Think about it a for a second. Is there any other professional environment in the known universe where you would complain to me that you sexually assaulted my colleague until she was forced to take physical measures to defend herself and expect me to tell you that what you did was OK and that girl must be a total bitch? Maybe you think there are extenuating circumstances but -- as someone who just Saturday bitch-slapped a bachelor party attendee for pulling down my thong, and once dug my fingers so hard into a customer's wrist while struggling to prevent the forcible penetration of his finger into my vagina that I later found little flakes of his skin underneath my fingernail -- you are talking to the wrong bitch.

3. Don't touch me where I tell you not to touch me, because that's called sexual assault. Boundaries, people. Accepting $20 to take my shirt off doesn't imply that I will be doing any more than that, just like accepting a ride home doesn't mean I will give you a blow-job. If you won't take no for an answer in either situation, congratulations, you are a rapist. Now, I understand that sometimes you are not sure where you can touch and where you can't touch. Ask. When in doubt, err on the side of caution. Yes, you have money, and yes, that gives you leverage and yes, a girl might put up with more than she wants to because she wants your money and yes, that's technically "not your fault." But which transaction would you rather be involved in: compensating a professional to perform a mutually satisfactory service, or paying a hireling think about cheeseburgers while just barely tolerating three minutes of your sexual grotesqueries?

4. Wash your balls. Seriously. Wash your balls just like you would before you were going on a date. You do wash your balls before you go on dates, don't you? Never mind. I don't want to know. Just wash your balls. Sometimes I do this move where I kneel on the floor in front of you and look winsomely up through your knees. I do this a lot of you are ignoring #3, because it's a position in which you can't reach very much of me if you are being grabby. It's not like I have my nose buried in your crotch, but even from a foot away, sometimes it smells like you have a ripe fish in your pants. I'm not grossed out by wrinkles or warts or scars or confessions of bizarre sexual fetishes, but I am grossed out by this. Wash your balls. With soap.

I hope this been helpful. See you soon.

P.S. Did you wash your balls? Please double-check.