Why Men Love Strip Clubs

Once you walk in and pay your $11 door charge, you're not a person anymore. You're an animal, overtaken by lust and desire. I am, at least.

You enter through a revolving door, herded through, really. Like cattle.

It's an assault of the senses, this club. Eyes have to adjust to the dimmed lights, nostrils flare to the cigarette smoke and stripper perfume, an entirely unique smell. My ears twitch as the DJ's voice booms through the speakers.

"For all you fans of big, beautiful titties out there, let's hear it for Alicia!"

He's got either the best job in the world or the worst, depending on who you ask. An x-rated carnival barker, a smutty wrestling announcer only instead of readying you to rumble, he's rallying everyone to cheer louder so that the girls take their thongs off.

He is our god.

Faux-velvet chairs speckle the club's floor. They resemble miniature thrones, promoting the idea that every man is a king. Every woman is a servant and the clientele buys into both ideas completely.

Waitresses wearing barely-there briefs and shiny corsets wander the room, refilling cokes. There's no alcohol served here, not with full nude dancers. That's just asking for trouble.

It's a busy night, a Saturday. Men sit in their thrones at small tables or up at the cash bar, the v-shaped row of chairs that outlines the stage, as they stare up at the attractive dancers.

Well, mostly attractive dancers. Kind of attractive. A handful is attractive. OK, not all the dancers are pretty. Some you wouldn't even look twice at on the street but in here, they are sex goddesses. Bastions of beauty to every man in here. They are actual angels with the black lights hiding bruises and pimples, poorly dyed hair and other imperfections. They are flawless.

The appeal of strip clubs seems obvious but I think it runs deeper than just wanting to see women naked and gyrating. There's a desire to be touched and wanted and loved, even if only for 3 minutes at a time.

A dollar at the cash bar gets a pair of tits in your face. Some men go the extra mile and put the bill in their mouths or collars so that the dancers have to bite it out or grab them with their bodies.

A $20 bill gets you a lap dance. I pick my girl: A short brunette with shoulder length hair and arm length tattoos. She tells me her name and I forget it instantly. She takes me by the hand and leads me to a private booth.

As I sit on the bench, arms dead weight at my side, I am actually nervous. It's like a first date but there's really no fear of rejection.

Her touch is warm, the familiar perfume not unpleasant and as she starts to dance, grind really, all the blood in your head rushes...elsewhere. Mine does, at least. You feel her hair across your cheek, a blanket made of thousands of strands of silk and lighter than air. Feathers. She is my messiah, a savior, something somehow inhuman and completely like home at the same time. In an instant, in that one moment, you can understand how some men spend thousands of dollars here. I can, at least.

She knows exactly where to apply pressure, how make you forget that I'm just some schlub to her, a non-entity, a breathing fleshy ATM.

"But no," you think. "I'm different."

I do at least.

But I'm not. And it all comes crashing down around you, this fantasy palace you've built, the moment the song ends and you hand over your $20. This is it, last stop, everyone off the bus. Unless you shell out more money, your letter to Penthouse is finished.

Still, I'm different when I walk back out to the main floor. I see everyone as they really are. The obese man "making it rain" on the stage, throwing crumpled up singles onto the dancers has no happy ending waiting for him. That waitress showering me with attention to go along with your caffeinated beverages can't be happy.

Some wisp of a bottle-blonde is sitting on the arm of my chair as I get back to my table. Sitting with my friend but saying nothing. Her name, she says, is Summer but she's anything but sunny. In silence, she's a wilting flower, young but prematurely weary.

"I've made a lot more money on other nights," Summer says and you want to cry.

She leaves, walks back by the private booths. My eyes follow her and she smiles and pulls her tiny top down, flashing me. This is how it is.

It's degradation everywhere I look. Some men heckle certain dancers, as if they could ever get a woman like that without paying. The transition is fast, from love-lorn to aggressive and offensive. Whatever the catalyst is , it skips me. I'm left with both euphoria and a little light-headed. I call it the "stripper coma." Think post-Thanksgiving dinner with the sluggishness of too much protein and carbohydrates working their slow way through your body.

Cold night air fills my lungs heavily as I make my grand exit, slinking out the door like the cat who ate the canary. No matter that the club is still filled with men just like me, my shame is individualized and completely my own. Like a film, it coats and leaves me sticky and dazed.

And immediately, I want to turn and go back.