Good Vibrations Magazine

My friend Penny is a student of many things, poi, ropes, Burning Man camp lead, (“never again!”), and now, pole dancing. She had her almost-30 birthday party last weekend. Guess where we went?

We started at the Lusty Lady. Her booths no longer take quarters, just dollar bills now, leaving me with an entire roll of quarters.

“At least you’re good for laundry,” the birthday girl said. She looked fine in her backless top and black boots and silver collared coat like the cape of some adult superhero.

Pole Dancing Penny, that’s who she looked like – with her tailored silver cape and magic telescoping pole. Penny Jackson by day, Pole Dancing Penny by night; she can swoop in anywhere, raise her pole, and save the sexually desolate from their fate.

We went into our booths; our windows went up, the dancing girls cried out, “Ahhhh, its bitches.”

Dancing girls are always happy to see bitches.

They told us we could all pile into one of the larger booths. Four of us squeezed in, the window came up, and girls came over. The lighting was straight up, the girls very real, thighs and tummies and hips and wobbly steps on those impossible heels.

“The heels are weighted,” the birthday girl explained. “It makes it easier to hold your legs apart.”

Suddenly there’s a pussy in the window.

“Oh wow,” says Pole Dancing Penny’s friend Lulu. “There’s a lot on the outside. Mines all neat and tidy but that ones just….”

“Some girls are like that,” I said.

“Do guys find it attractive?”

“It can be fun to suck on, like a never ending jolly rancher.”

Lulu has gotten used to me, but that one still throws her.

Pole Dancing Penny turns to us. “I’m kind of bored.”

“Shhhhh,” go the other guy and I, god forbid we be rude to the dancing girls.

So we head out of there, watch a guy swab the floor of our booth with a mop. Make our way down Broadway. Short negotiation with a roving bouncer and we’re inside the all nude - no alcohol - club for 10 bucks a head, birthday girl for free.

All-nude clubs are always alcohol free. Something happens to straight men when we see pussy. Some of us go a little crazy, like reach out and touch somebody crazy.

Could be some primordial program to plant seed in an open field. Could be DNA algorithms, we see pussy; id hormones are released. Could be straight men really like naked women.

Lulu is worried for when her boy joins us later. What do you do when you’re no longer new she wants to know? How do you still entice? All the dancers are new, and hot; like Fuchsia, here.

A tiny brunette on platform heels, a ruffled mini-mini and wearing glasses, she was touching both of us; her lips to Lulu’s ear, then to mine.

“She’s so cute,” she cooed. “I want her. Bring her into the back. You can watch.”

I thought how sweet it was of Fuchsia to offer me to watch. That’s how good she was.

Domino sidles up to me. Her story, dancing for three years; first year, no relationships, heavy into drugs; second year, moved to Tempe, got clean, danced again with new eyes; third year, back here, drummer boyfriend, he doesn’t like her dancing, she doesn’t like his groupies. Would I like a dance?

I didn’t want to get in the middle of her drama.

We bought Penny an all-nude dance with touching benefits from Layla. Penny liked the way Layla leaned over the table. Penny came back trying to re-tie her backless top. They had lay down together.

“She has perfect boobs,” Penny said. “They’re fake, but perfect.”

Always go to a strip club with girls. Dancers are more patronizing to men alone, their act that they find you interesting is a little more blatant. They have more fun with girls; more joy to be found in a world we know is no one’s first choice.

Money was collected and Lulu headed off to find Fuchsia for a lap dance, topless only, if you please.

Lulu returned.

“She wouldn’t stop talking,” Lulu said. “Doesn’t she know she’s supposed to be on Sex island, not Conversation island?”

“John Stewart’s on my conversation island,” said Penny.

“I’m sure that’s just where he hoped he’d be,” I said. “He’s probably like ‘Is Colbert on sex island? Are you fucking Colbert?’”

Polly told us what Fuchsia was saying.

“She said you can’t really be sexual out in the world. Not sexual like this. She said working here has allowed her to be sexy in a way she never was before. Just walking around with it.”

“It’s kind of true,” Penny said. “I mean, I could be sexy, you know, thrown down, taken, but if I got asked to do a little dance I’d get all shy. Then I took this lap dancing class and it kind of forces you to be sexy in this whole new way, much more out there.”

Everyone’s ready to drink so we head across the street to the topless-only but liquored club. The girls are much better dancers. The energy is in a lower key, no pussy. And I’ll be honest. I was less excited.

Penny started explaining the finer points of the pole.

“See the way she used her hand to wipe the pole down. It gets really slippery. And it hurts your thighs when you’re using them to hold yourself up on the pole. I come out of class all bruised and sore. T’s amazing the sheer number of things you can do. There are so many moves. And it’s just you and the pole.”

The dancer with the most fans was the one with the smallest boobs. She had a way on the pole. A man walked to the stage and flicked his wrist just so sending dollar bills out in a perfect shower.

The club owners know something the fashion industry does not, men and women like all shapes and sizes of women. Big girls, small girls, curvy and stick figures, they’re all represented.

Pole Dancing Penny’s boyfriend shows up. So does Lulu’s. The boys were at their men’s circle. I’d tell you what they were doing but then they’d have to kill you. Drinks are had. Penny and her man wander to the back for a dance.

Lulu is ready to go home. Her man sees it. Rather than be enticed by the new he says to her, “We gotta get you outta here, huh?” Lulu nods her head.

We start to slip out, past the dancing girls who are armored, but sweet, past the male patrons who are happy in the moment but lost in the general, past the waitresses who are willing to wear skimpy outfits for bigger tips, but not take their clothes off. Who knows what determines that difference.

It was a happy birthday, a little tiring. It was nice to be surrounded by naked girls. But after a while their lack of context, the show they gave in place of themselves, was no longer of interest. I much preferred my time with Lulu and Pole Dancing Penny, even if they kept their clothes on.