My First Time

Last night, I went to a strip club for the first time in my life. My friends have friends visiting from out of town, and because Portland is so “open-minded and free-spirited,” strip clubs are aplenty and come in lots of crazy varieties. Finding a good one is often high up on lots of tourists' Portland-Things-To-Do-list. Portland does everything WEIRD; Portland prides itself on this. Why should strip clubs be the exception? The weird strip club we went to last night was called Devil’s Point, and Sunday’s at 9pm they host stripper karaoke, or Stripparoke (not sure of the spelling, but that’s not really the point, is it?).

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Is the focus going to be more on karaoke, or strippers? Amateurish, or the real deal? Is it primarily a bar, do they only have strippers for this one event, is it going to be kind of creepy like I’d heard rumors about from friends who’d been to strip clubs before? I didn’t even know what it was called, so I wasn’t able to prepare by looking at the website. Not that a website can answer these sorts of questions, necessarily.

Here are the answers. The focus was on the strippers, OBVIOUSLY. The karaoke was integral to the night, sure, but singers went up to the stage (a stage fully equipped with a pole, because it is in fact a strip club) and stood in the back corner singing while a dancer did her thing. These were not amateur dancers. There were four of them, and I thought the bar did a nice job of showcasing a variety that could appeal to any taste by choosing these four dancers for a particular night. What I mean is that their body types varied—big boobs and super curvy on one end and stick-thin, small-chested on the other end. Two were covered in tattoos, two with long hair, two with short hair, and different styles of dancing so the audience wasn’t watching the same thing all the time. The skinny-skinny one had some amazing acrobatic moves on the pole which were entertaining. One girl with lots of a tattoos and a punk-rock blue hairstyle was doing hand stands, as well as balancing her legs on some lucky shoulders, then flipping back up. Not that anyone would have cared what kind of dancing was going on, really. These girls were all attractive—not just their bodies, but cute faces, too. And they looked like they were having a good time, which makes for a pleasant atmosphere, as opposed to creepy and weird. I didn’t feel dirty being there because the dancers didn’t seem to feel dirty doing their job, and I think that’s important. Also, most of the people there were with a group of friends out to have a good time. Not saying there weren’t some guys who’d obviously come alone…but they were heavily outnumbered by the rest of us. I can’t speak for what this place is like the rest of the week, but for karaoke, it was a fun time in a semi-crowded bar. I call it a bar because aside from the stage with a pole in the middle of it, it looked like a regular, maybe even cool bar. Pool table, some walls were red which gave it a sort of rock ‘n’ roll feel, reasonably priced drinks ($2 pints of PBR, for example). Overall, just a chill place.

Something strange happened to me while I was sitting in this strip club, taking in the whole experience. The girls were so pretty and fit (ok, HOT) and confident, not to mention entertaining. I was watching all these guys ogle the dancers, and I think my instinct was to feel jealous. Not that I didn’t find them attractive and entertaining myself. And not that any of the guys, was my guy. But everyone knows that guys have fantasies about these types of girls, and what girl doesn’t want to be the subject of fantasies? Sometimes, I get carried away overthinking things, analyzing until I come up with some kind of logical sense. Never know when it's going to happen really, and amidst the sexy red glow and half-audible karaoke singers, I was lost in thought.

I thought about where my jealousy was coming from. For the last couple of years, I was in a relationship with someone who wouldn’t even call it a relationship. It follows, of course, that he never told me he loved me ( because he probably didn’t). That doesn’t mean that he didn’t act like he loved me, though. We did everything together, talked about everything together, like a couple, and it was amazing, enlightening, fun. We even moved to another country together for almost half a year, spending all of our time together acclimating, learning about ourselves and the world and each other. So, what then...? Why is this relevant to my strip club story?

I was totally in love with him. Imagine being in love with someone who won’t even acknowledge feelings for you, despite lots of actions that would seem to contradict that. Actions speak louder than words, right? Well, not exactly. I often felt uncertain, irresolute, maybe even scared. That uncertainty led me to a kind of overwhelming jealousy of every other girl he talked to, looked at, even the occasional sexy pic of a movie star as his laptop desktop background drove me crazy. I’m a confident person, so this jealousy that was growing in me felt so foreign and wrong. I hid it, I tried to fight it, reason it away, but it was still there. It wasn’t until last night at the strip club, as a superhot, tattooed & black-lace gartered dancer made eyes with me, pulled me against her, that I finally had the epiphany that I needed to wake me the fuck up. I wouldn’t feel jealous with someone who loved me, not only acting like it but saying it all the time, really being IN the whole god- damned beautiful thing, with someone who I could trust with those incredible and overwhelming love feelings.

This isn’t even about jealousy, but existing within the confines of an emotion that up until this point has been mostly vacant from my life, one that makes me feel neurotic and unhealthy, sucks, and isn’t worth it. Not for love, nor for anything. (Easier said than done, I know, but I’m trying…) At my best, I’m confident, I’m easygoing, I’m open-minded, I’m adventurous and warm and loving and well-rounded and fucking healthy. I don’t act like a psycho about some picture of a hot girl on your computer. If you love me, and I love you, we can do anything together. Including, but not limited to, going to Devil’s Point to sit at the rail and gawk at the girls together, giving them all our dollars before we go home and love each other some more.

I’m not completely blaming him for what happened between us, and what happened to me as a result. I have control over what occurs in my life, and I let it happen. For awhile, it really did make me happy to feel so much love for him, regardless of anything else. He was never dishonest with his words, but it’s hard to leave someone when you are so effing in love with him AND you have everything in common AND you spend ALL your time with him, when he still acts like he adores you, too.

Love is tricky business.  Some combination of the general strip club environment, watching some of my best friends, recently engaged and so in love, interact in that environment, and maybe sexy Sydystyc , too, dancing like a goddess above me, brought me to this long-needed epiphany. Life is so weird.