The Silent Truth About Why Men Like Strip Clubs

Let me preface this entire thing by saying that I used to hate strip clubs. The mere idea of them just irritated me. Men paying women to dance for them? That violated so many rules of the game - as I saw them then - that partaking in such activity was an absolute negative to me. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand the seeming contradiction between Poison Clan songs that were for giving women money (Shake Whatcha Momma Gave Ya) and against giving women money (pretty much everything else).

Then I figured it out.

Now, there are many reasons that men have for going to the strip club (note: for those in Tallahassee, I’m going to count Cheeks in this discussion on a “close enough” basis). The first and most obvious reason (we’ll call this 1A) is that men simply enjoy the female form. There’s no surprise here, and really no need to explain it. As such, I’ll move on.

Reason 1B is the “simulation” that can sometimes happen at such an establishment (or even the real thing, if you’re that out there). For whatever reason, things might not be working out on the home front so some momentary no-strings (almost) action might be the move. I personally think much of this can be achieved at…no, I know much of this can be achieved at a regular club. A “long time ago”, I was exceptionally privy to such situations…and yes, I’m just talking about regular dancing.

There are other factors as well, which we’ll list as Reason 2 and call ‘ambiance’. Are the drinks good? Does the place look nice? How big are the TV screens? Does the internet work (this is a KOD question)? Can you get a decent pool game? What do the non-dancing women look like? These are a few of the other things that can add to or detract from a strip club experience. Not saying I’m an expert, as I think I can still count the number of times I’ve visited one by using my fingers…okay, maybe not - but it’s close…but there are a variety of factors that go into making a strip club experience a good one.

None of those listed above is what I’m referring to in the title.

The silent truth about why men like strip clubs is (and I’ve mentioned this previously) that men get to be chased.

In most every other iteration of “this man/woman thing”, as Max Julien said in How To Be A Player, men have to be the hunters. We have to go through all that nonsense I mentioned in the Battle piece. At the club? Oh, we get to sit back and be chased. Women, who are usually reasonably attractive, come up to us and give us all the attention that we may not get at home (this partly explains why strip clubs with male dancers generally don’t work). I know what you’re thinking: “they just want your money”. Obviously, that’s true.

Here’s why that doesn’t matter too much: we know that going in. If we choose to play the game, we can play it. If not, we can go somewhere else - where the games are a lot more risky (literally and figuratively). If I spend $50 (just throwing an amount out there) at a strip club, I pretty much know what I’m going to get. If I spend that on a date - especially during courting, I have no clue. No, I’m not saying that I should expect anything: as a matter of fact, expectations are completely irrelevant to this (as they should be in most dating/relationship matters, but that’s another subject for another time). I know women don’t like to hear this, but men like cost certainty. We don’t like being held up while y’all figure out your feelings. I’m not even going to get into dishonest women, as honesty level is also irrelevant. We don’t mind spending money, but we just want to know that it’s going toward something. Otherwise, we’ll write you checks and let you go on about your business.

While cost certainty is (very) nice, that’s not the matter at hand. We like attention. We like being chased…even though most of us would rather not say it. Any thought or saying expressing the opposite is a bunch of nonsense. Between that and the forthright nature of the stripping/dancing game - something that no one can say women have when it comes to relationships and dating - there’s really a lot of win and not a lot of fail for men.

See, we’re simple creatures. We like processes to be simple and straight up. Because of that, we enjoy strip clubs for much more than the things we see with our eyes.