Photo Taken From:
http://vegasblog.latimes.com/vegas/images/2008/04/30/stripclub.jpg
Topless women! Jiggling jugs! Open legs! Sashaying hips! Tongue-wagging! Loud music!
Never seen none of that. At least after 10 months or so of staying in Australia, shuttling between the Melbourne Metropolitan Area, the Sydney Metropolitan Area, and some suburbs in between.
No, wait. I have seen the raunchy stuff onstage ( and offstage ) before. I even felt them with my bare hands ( and other protruding members of my anatomy ). But not here in the country where I am staying as a write this. I am a Pinoy in a foreign land. And other Pinoys I have met here--who've arrived here before I did--have told me stories of strip clubs and other places to visit that are supposed to raise the male blood pressure to testosterone-fuelled highs.
These stories all sound the same. Aussie strip clubs--or "gentlemen's clubs", which is how they are referred to by the enthusiast of the erotic with more discriminating verbiage--typically charge their patrons an entrance fee of, say, 150 or so Australian Dollars. This fee confers the privilege of entering the establishment ( it is, after all, an entrance fee, haha ) and partaking of two "stubbies"--two bottles of beer, available upon request. Of course, I wouldn't imagine anybody not requesting them for the price of admission. The patron is then allowed to sit amongst other gentlemen in the middle of a large gallery, arena, or some similar open theater, which is dimly-lit, fragrant, plush, and graced with luxurious velvet and leather.
There, in the center of everything, is a stage. And on that stage, a nymph of such seraphic, almost indescribable beauty, dancing and gyrating and undulating under the provocative glow of halogen lights. Yes, I know it is sleazy, and maybe almost unforgiveably tasteless, to have to watch a naked girl performing a striptease--but for the right person, even just watching can evoke sizzling white heaven. Some others in the audience will reach for their wallets--watching is not enough. There are those who say that a "lap dance" costs 50. Some others will say it costs 100. Parting with such money is not supposed to be a hard decision since a vixen grinding against one's lap presumably guarantees satisfaction and, well, let's say...a release of some delightful sort.
These are the sort of tales which friends of mine here, whether Aussie, Pinoy, or otherwise, frequently regale me with, maybe to make me envious. I mean, they actually experienced strip clubs here, and I haven't yet! And I've been here in Australia for 11 months! And I'm not exactly the type who would be attracted to people of the same gender as mine.
Photo Taken From:http://zeldalily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/stripclub.jpg
Now before anybody gets the wrong ideas about me, let me clarify that I am absolutely agreeable to waltzing into any strip club here, be they for gentlemen or not. If I am afforded the time, the convenience, and the money to spare, I would be willing to take a bite out of those shiny apples so enticingly forbidden except to mature, level-headed individuals like me. And why not? It's been a long time since I last had alcohol in one hand and smooth female skin in the other. It might also be quite gratifying to share my own sleazy anecdotes with the other guys ( or blokes ) I would encounter here. Isn't this Australia, by the way? Where there'd be all sorts of perky white babes in the right places?
Photo Taken From:http://iblackedout.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Strip-Club.jpg
Whenever a couple or more of us blokes/guys/dudes congregate together, our small talk somehow goes round to the subject of going to a strip club. It will always be about getting that lap dance and seducing the club girl.
And no matter how great it all sounds...I have to admit that the small talk and banter does not get me excited enough to want to forge right on ahead and actually barge into the nearest strip club--come hell or high water--and get to grabbing that pink ass onstage and pulling it down on my lap with the rapaciousness and appetite of a crazed tasmanian devil on steroids. If my motivations had been driven to that point, then I could have said right at the beginning that the contest is over--I came, I have porked and I have conquered. But no. I have kept a restraint and I believe that I can sustain it.
Back in the Philippines, I never had a lapdance and I could hazard that I haven't been to that many striptease performances. And yet I had indulgences that were more intense. And yes, they were inside clubs where the services of the hot chicks were for hire.
Why would they be better than what I could have in Aussie strip joints? Mainly because I was able to always excercise the use of the most erotic part of my body. Yes. My brain.
From what I hear, a customer would usually find it very very hard to carry a decent conversation with a lapdancer in an Aussie strip club while she would be doing her business. The customer is also prohibited from touching the lap dancer in the middle of the dance. The lapdancer, after all, is a professional--not your girlfriend. And so, the male brain is never engaged in the transaction. Merely the sensory organs. It is a matter of pleasing the nerve endings in exchange for dollars.
I know that many dudes would find a lapdance, notwithstanding its narrow possibilities, very pleasing. I, however, am the sort who finds it better to spend a few hours under the dim lights, inside the smoky room filled with tables and hushed conversation, in the company of a sweet and dulcet girl exploring all opportunities to penetrate the deepest, darkest, most well-kept secrets of intimacy. No simple striptease or lapdance would match hours and hours of good conversation. One moment the two of you would simply be exchanging names. The next moment you are already involved in each other's lives. In a few more laughter-filled hours ( or sometimes minutes ), both of you are acting as if there were no one else around you, and each of you would be free to do things that would stay in your memory for the rest of your lives--after that one night. It could stay inside the club, or it could carry on even after the club's closing time, in another place.
Just remembering it sounds even more satiating compared to a living doll's warmest body parts rubbing against mine.
Photo Taken From:http://images.askmen.com/top_10/travel/strip-clubs_1000002.jpg
Isn't it true that a genuine erotic experience goes far beyond simple touching or rubbing? I believe that an unforgettable experience would be one that approaches communion ( and I don't care if I sound blasphemous ). When you and the girl sing in a duet together in front of a karaoke audience, take drinks together, share jokes and laughter together, talk about everything from the mundane to the monstrous, and shoulder each other's emotions with sincerity...then the kinkier things which come afterwards assume a bigger significance. All of these have happened to me within a few hours, in one encounter after another. And it can sometimes be quite unbelieveable.
Which is why a "gentlemen's club" experience can be better back in my home country. And which is why I always have more stories to share with my buddies over here, in a foreign land.
Then again, maybe I'm just a bit haughty, harharhar. Maybe I just like the Philippines too much. Not just what is raunchy about it. I also think that, among a lot of other things, the beaches over there are some of the most beautiful in the world. The country is blessed with a tropical climate that can nurture the soul. The people have a capacity to be gracious and unremittingly hospitable when needed. When Pinoys throw a party, the atmosphere is overflowing with such good cheer and well-intentioned hedonism. Passion and romance abound everywhere in the barrios, in the cities, on the seashores. One can experience the most hair-raising thrills and chills, the most languid relaxation, the funniest, the most heart-wrenching, the grossest and the grisliest--the whole range of human experience, to put it more simply, all packaged in a few islands. I love the nation of my birth because of all its paradoxes and its surprises.
I am here in a foreign land right now. But there will come a time when I will return to the Philippines, and will have a chance to enjoy its seamier, raunchier side again. My search for the most outrageous strip club experience in Australia will continue, of course. However, I would not regret it at all if this same search leads me back home when all is said and done.
