The depths of Dejá Vu

Not all guys at strip clubs are sickos. Some are there simply for the sport of it. I don't mean the sport of watching nude girls ride up and down a pole (though I'm sure they don't consider that a negative). I mean they think of it like a bonding experience with the guys. Like watching a football game or playing Nintendo with one another. They don't go to get turned on.

These guys are huddled together, usually in a corner, appearing shy and a little embarrassed. They are the ones with sheepish looks on their faces while getting a lap dance, which their friends surprised them with. Some are especially nice to the strippers; others try to avoid eye contact. In any event, they do not frequent the joint. They have only been a handful of times, either out of serious boredom or, more likely, because they have been roped into it by their friend - the one who takes it seriously.

Everyone knows this guy; I'll call him the rowdy one. God help you if you are he. He goes for the raw tits, ass and crotch of it. He sits front and center, hollering at every pole rider, cheering for his favorites. When he gets a lap dance that he gladly paid for himself, he is grinning with his hands behind his head, elbows akimbo, trying to control his salivation. At the end, he can't help but smack the stripper straight on her bottom. Sometimes the girls don't mind because of the tip he's thrown down, but sometimes they do, and a big man promptly throws him out. This doesn't stop him from doing it again.

Rowdy guy has a secret desire to settle down with Flame, stick her in his kitchen with some rug rats and a very tight apron, nothing else. Still, pathetic as he is, he poses no real threat.

There is an extreme to this character type who can. This guy is generally a bitter virgin or a disillusioned middle-aged man, but he can surface in all walks of life. You can tell him by the intense look in his eye, and by the fact that all of the servers and strippers know him by name. He takes it seriously. He thinks these girls were born to dance for him, so he can say whatever he wants to them. He mutters profanities at them, drooling. But sometimes he whispers promises of his love and affection. These girls are his addiction, his vice, so he treats them like an alcoholic treats his poison - with equal amounts of tenderness and disgust. This guy is certainly a potential stalker and should be watched closely by the staff. Those in the second category, watch out. This psycho was not always like this.

I saw one such guy at Dejá Vu, getting a lap dance. The part that he seemed to enjoy the most was the obligatory get-to-know-you five minutes. Let me explain for those of you who have not been given a lap dance at Dejá Vu. Before the dance starts, the stripper and the customer exchange pleasantries. So this guy seemed to already know her, asking her to describe her day. She did, and he closed his eyes while she went through the banalities of that morning. He interrupted her mid-sentence, ordering her onto the pole.

The shy customer forces polite conversation with her during these awkward few minutes while the rowdy one talks loudly about himself, referring to his stripper as "honey pie."

These girls don't mind most of it. I talked to one stripper, Cameron, who had a four-year-old and "a little one on the way." (She did not show.) Cameron appeared to be having a blast, doing booby shimmies in every face that she came in contact with - including one very disturbed looking female sitting close to the stage. Another girl, Destiny, is putting herself through school. She is a junior at Western Michigan, and she is planning on transferring to a university in Boston. Destiny loves her job, claiming to make up to a thousand dollars a night. She did mention that once in awhile, about every two weeks, there is some guy that ruins her day and make her question the whole thing. But the rest, she says, only make her feel good.

So I'm not worried, for the most part, about these girls. They took these jobs because they can handle them. What did bother me, besides discovering a particular brand of cretin, was the announcer. He introduces the strippers performing on the main stage, and between sets, he pulls female audience members to the stage and tells them to bare their breasts. He approached me and my friend Robyn right when we arrived. I thought he was going to put us on the spot by asking us questions or daring us to do a pole dance. When he asked us to lift our shirts, we both refused. He asked again, so I lifted his shirt. He wasn't too pleased. But then he started to grab Robyn, and so I threatened to sock him in the face. For the rest of the night, whenever some poor girl was taken to the stage and bared her breasts, he dedicated it to me over the microphone.

Now, I know Dejá Vu isn't exactly the place to be starting a feminist movement, but there comes a point when stripping turns to sexism. Sometimes it takes the shape of one sweaty bastard of an announcer who takes advantage of females who most likely got dragged there for one reason or another. I feel bad for the girls that did bare their breasts because they were drunk or just confused and caught off guard. Sometimes it takes the form of the strip joint addict who takes things too far and ruins a girl's night.

Is there a solution? Maybe strip clubs should make rules about repeat visitors, allowing them to come only a few nights a week. Maybe the announcer should leave unsuspecting audience members alone. Maybe feminists should just avoid strip clubs entirely.

- Gina Hamadey can be reached at ghamadey@umich.edu.

Gina Hamadey

Caught Provoking