Stripping: “Desparate Measures More Acceptable”

image from Brisbane Times

I probably wouldn’t address stripper trends unless it meant drastic price reductions, but I had an interesting encounter tangentially related to recession’s effect on skin shows. Last Sunday I met a friend of a friend. It was 6 pm and she had woken up moments before, still drunk from her partying that had lasted until earlier in the afternoon. After ordering some Chinese delivery, she called her parents to tell them she had to work the door at a club at 10 pm. She lied. Not only did her shift started at 1:30am, but she was a dancer. She made some comment about 'œdoing it because of the recession'. Significantly, she is in her early 30s, not the late teens to early 20’s I had her pegged at.

Hard times can force people to reflect on the value of certain things in life. Deathbeds can erase feuds; during a house fire a husband might pass his wife to rescue the HD flat screen. Our leeetle financial situation here has had its impacts as well. Starbucks stock plummeted, restaurants are empty, movie rentals have increased. I’ve been wearing underwear inside-out and cutting my milk with water.

But not everything is given up so easily. Sometimes it is simpler to redefine mores than it is to readjust a standard of living. Take educated women for example. According to an Associated Press article, a lot more are stripping. In stark contrast, men rigidly adhere to their love of naked women by continuing to spend their truncated earnings. All this, despite the internet’s complete saturation with free porn, is surprising. For a second. Seriously, in the face of sex most men are helpless. We swagger like we aren’t, but we are. Forget the fact we’ll pay for cover charges, drink minimums, and lap dances, which is itself powerfully indicative; we thought a big tip might somehow help us bang the barista back when we went to Starbucks.