Many among us have these grand delusions of the magic and glamour of a strip club (Myself included) but the truth of the matter is that is a business and businesses only exist to make money. Strip clubs in particular sell the illusion of intimacy, they'll make you think that a girl is in love with you so that if you buy "Just one more dance" she'll come home with you or that you're way more charming than you actually are cause you're a hot shot talking to sexy women who are all over you. It's kinda like those side view mirrors, "Objects in mirror are not as sexy as they appear". Well sorry to break the news to you, but you aren't "really" that attractive to strippers, you're just a way to pay the bills. With this post I hope to save my brothers a CONSIDERABLE amount of money so they can do something more productive with it... Like buy that totally awesome stormtrooper for their living room off ebay or that extra donut they *know* they shouldn't be eating but can't deny.
Without further ado, The inner workings of a strip club.
You'll often see the sign "Dancers Wanted" posted on the billboard outside of a club and make the mistake of thinking that a strip club is actually looking to hire dancers. That's actually a misconception, a strip club doesn't "hire" dancers per se. It's really more like a mall where each dancer (or store) has to buy a space (the strip club) to operate in. So the dancers are actually private contractors. For this particular club, it costs a girl $80 a night to work and they have to dance onstage unless they pay the club more money not to. So not only is the dancer paying the club, she also has to send some money to the DJ to get him to give her a good song because they are in no way shape or form obliged to cater to the dancers. The standard here was $10 per song, but the girl I was talking to said she tipped him $20. Oh not to mention the bouncers, they have to kick some money over to the bouncers who protect them, which probably is about the same as the DJ, but I can't say for sure because she didn't say how much she paid them. But we'll assume that it is also $10 to the head bouncer who will then split it with the rest of the bouncers. Keep in mind that this isn't the highest class establishment, it's sort've a dive. I assume that it costs much more the better a club is, but I can't say that for a fact.
So the dancer starts the night roughly $120 in the hole. The price of a lap dance here is about $25, which is cheap from what I heard, so it takes roughly 5 lap dances before the dancer breaks even. She still has to make the night worth it so she'll have to sell more lap dances to actually earn a profit. On a busy night, this isn't so hard. On a slow night, she'll have to compete with the other dancers for customers.
She didn't know too much about the shot girls, but apparently they get a small salary but the majority of their pay comes out of the drinks. They get a portion out of every sale. I imagine that life is actually harder for a shot girl at a strip club because all the guys there want to spend money on a girl who will actually "stimulate?" them rather than just buy shots all night. That pretty much covers the aggressive shot girls.
Oh, I feel like I should note the proper etiquette for tipping a girl if she's dancing on stage and you're in the stage seats. It's pretty simple actually. I dancer will go up and do her routine on the pole or whatever and then go to someone in the audience and do something sexy. Let's say she puts her legs around your head and starts to ovulate or whatever, you tip her a dollar. If she stays and does something else, like perform the miracle of birth, you tip her another dollar. She'll eventually move on to another member of the audience to get more money. Logistically, even if you're tipping $1 and all she gets for her efforts is $10, that's still $10 for roughly 3-4 minutes of work.
My friend dragged me to this club and didn't want to leave until 5 am so I got really bored (now that the glamour of the strip club left me) and just sat in a comfy chair nodding off or occasionally talking to other dancers who sat down next to me. I told them the truth and actually discovered a cool line that I could tell dancers that earn me brownie points (Although I recommend NOT dating a stripper)
"Look, I don't want you to waste your time. I know you're here to make money and I'll be honest, I came here with a 2 dance limit and I already got them so I'm not gonna spend anymore. It'll be cool if you just want to sit and chill with me, but I know you're here to work" -or something along those lines. Anyway, that said, I had a couple of girls just come over to sit and chat. I actually built some rapport by giving them some feedback on their dances and interactions. A good one is "I really liked how you came over to just talk first and casually brought up buying a dance later rather than coming up to me like I'm a walking wallet" These girls are businesswomen and any business advice that would improve their profit will make you look better by comparison to the average chode that goes "I like your boobs, give me a lap dance"
I haven't been to a strip club since. It's really not my scene and I don't like feeling like I'm buying affection. It's so much better to earn it through solid game and oh so much more rewarding.
Hope I brought some enlightenment to my brothers who have delusions about strip clubs
