I remember the very first time I went to the strip club. I was about 18 years of age and me and my friends needed to find a place to smoke cigarettes.
Yeah, really. I mean, I’d always been fascinated by the strip club — at least ever since that consent was manufactured with movies like Showgirls and Striptease becoming pop culture phenomena when I was a kid. I honestly don’t think I would have ever been intrigued had I stayed in my little Banana Republic. Still, I was hooked.
Demi Moore and Elizabeth Berkley made stripping look empowering, sexy, sensual, and glamorous. I know Showgirls wasn’t going for that, but that’s what my little teenaged brain got from it. That’s why, when we found a strip club not too far from our base, we jumped at the chance. I mean, what kind of military leadership is going to get caught at the same strip club their enlisted peons are smoking, drinking, and buying lap dances at? I called it leverage if they showed up. Luckily, they did not.
