Crystal tucked a wad of bills into my tiny black-lace bra. Coquettishly, she straddled my lap and pressing her body against mine, she took the money from my cleavage with her red-lipped mouth. As her teeth grazed my tits, goosebumps rose on my arms. With a sexy wink, she snapped the money into the gold string of her thong. On each side of me, one of my male-friends sat fully erect, their brows glistening and mouths gawking. The lustful daze of their eyes suggested to me that I had just landed a future role in their dirtiest masturbation fantasies. I wasn’t shocked to see them already failing to conceal raging boners only moments after arriving at the strip club. I was high on sexual power. I personified Rihanna’s “S&M.” I owned the male gaze. With a flash of boob and a lesbian kiss, those men were under my spell. At that moment, I understood and respected the fuck out of strippers.
Horny from the Ithaca summer sex-drought, I rallied two of my penis-owning chums, cashed out some billz, put on my pumps and paid a late-night visit to Kuma Charmers. Self-described as an “adult entertainment club,” Kuma Charmers is Tompkins County’s local strip club.
On that sultry Thursday night, the customers were a trick-bag of horny men: frat robots, truck drivers and several representatives from the age demographic that relies on Viagra. Everyone had a visible hard-on. I was the only female in the audience. We took our seats, the lights dimmed and that booty DROPPED.
I don’t know exactly what my innocent ass expected from this kinky hole in the wall, but I did not expect to see vaginas. Newsflash (and duh): several dozen vaginas were centimeters from my face throughout the night. Just as each stripper had a unique labia, each stripper had a unique persona. There was a slutty schoolgirl, a literal big titty goth chick, a save-a-horse-ride-a-dick cowgirl and everything in between. Ranging the beautiful spectrum of body types, each stripper could spin, twirl and hoist her womanness on the pole and make it look like angelic sex. I would bet my vibrator that these strippers’ athletic prowess had them NFL-draft ready. To further emphasize their beastly-ness, a stripper “air lassoed” me on stage and “taught” me moves on the pole. I was as clumsy and as lost as a teenage boy trying to find the clit. My arms shook; and when a customer asked me to take off my pants, I decided to retire. Not only did these women stun me with their acrobatics on the pole, spinning upside down by just the heel of their shoe, but I was also stunned by their showmanship and the grace with which they interacted with some of the dirt-bag customers. The strippers would circle the stage and interact with each customer individually, flashing a bit of her vagina or motor boating us with her tits. We’d thirstily await our turn to have the dancer perform a personal little sumthin sumthin. The sexy cowgirl would lasso and mount you, and with a lick down your neck, seduce the money out of your pockets before moving on.
When you look in the dictionary next to “girl power,” there is a picture of a stripper. By standing on stage and proudly showing off the female body, they are powerful. The strippers were magnetic sex magicians. They had full hypnotic power over these men (and myself admittedly) and complete and utter control and reverence. They used their bodies to mystify, excite, control and seduce. I was enthralled, handing out cash faster than I could break my twenties. The strippers made my male friends squirm because, for the first time, these particularly entitled men realized that the objectified strippers of rap songs and pornos are actual people. They are women whose hair smells like Pantene, who wear bandaids on their blisters, who look you in the eye and who asked your name. No longer are sex workers “bitchez on the pole.”
I don’t know what your preconceived notions about strippers are, but I had a humbling Flo Rida moment because my. head. was. spun. right. round.
Here were my big-dick-energy takeaways:
- Stripping is a service: don’t be a cheap ass. Pay.
- Keep yo hands to yo’self. They will touch you ya horndog, but don’t touch them
- Strippers are humans too (duh) they are not sex dolls or porn holograms. Respect them.
- Strip club customers assume women in the audience are also strippers and treat you as such. Go with a trusted friend.
- Strippers smell like rainbows and unicorns. How?
- You will see every house in boner city.
So with a naive gratitude I salute my hero strippers, and ask of my readers: Appreciate, respect and/or hug (with consent and proper payment) your local sex worker.
Goddess Horny is a student at Cornell University. Sex in the Stacks runs monthly this semester. Sex on Thursday appears every other Thursday.