It’s Thursday night, and I am preparing to go where no Voice writer has gone before. With whiskey in my belly and a male friend in tow, I am off to Good Guys strip club.
The doorman checks our IDs and tells us where to sit down, in front of one of the three small stages spaced throughout the dimly-lit, noisy club. The tables lining the wood-paneled walls are packed with men staring intently at the nearest stage. There are preppy guys and leather-clad bikers; 25-year-olds and 60-year-olds; black guys, white guys and at least one guy from Dubai.
Movement is highly restricted at Good Guys. Patrons are allowed to go up to the stage and hand the girls money, but there are signs hanging over every stage: “NO TOUCHING THE DANCERS. TIP AND SIT DOWN.” Even when I try to walk back to the bar to order a drink, a husky bouncer tells me to return to my seat and wait for a waitress.
There are about 10 girls working on any given night, but only one girl on stage at a time. They rotate every 15 minutes. All the dancers wear matching platform shoes, but other than that they are free to choose their own clothing. Not that it stays on for very long.
For the first twenty minutes, I am in complete shock. I knew these girls would be naked, but nothing could have prepared me for the in-your-face reality. All I can do is stare bug-eyed and open-mouthed at the stage. There is no DJ, so patrons select the tunes from an old-fashioned jukebox. During my two hours at Good Guys I heard the Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” multiple times. And Nickleback. Lots and lots of Nickleback.
Dressed in a bikini, Candy takes the stage and showcases some serious upper body strength, managing to hoist herself up and gyrate against the ceiling while hanging upside down. Maybe it’s the cheap chardonnay, but this experience has gone from unsettling to positively mesmerizing. I’m strapped for cash but, under some sort of hypnotic spell, I sheepishly hand the alluring acrobat $3. I’m beginning to understand how people drop money on strippers.
I have a drink with Claire, a well-endowed dancer in her late 30s. She tells me about her three children, ages 18, 17 and four. The older two know what mommy does for a living, but the youngest won’t find out for a few more years.
Claire then introduces me to Cynthia, a bubbly 24-year-old with a nose ring. Cynthia is dancing to put herself through school. She has tried to keep her dancing a secret from friends and classmates. Last weekend she got quite a shock when a friend of hers wandered into the club to find her baring it all on stage. “It was awkward, but what’re ya gonna do?” the dancer said with a shrug.
I head back to my table and notice three rowdy girls in their 20’s sitting nearby. Curious about what brings them to a strip club, I approach them and introduce myself. Within a few seconds, one of the girls is running her fingers up and down my back and batting her eyelashes. Suddenly I understand their reasons for coming to Good Guys, and kick myself for being so daft.
Most of the patrons I speak to insist that this is their first time not only at Good Guys, but at any strip club. Please. I finally meet Mike, a 33-year-old business man who freely admits his frequent visits to Good Guys and to strip clubs around the world: “I have to take a lot of business trips,” he explains.
When asked how Good Guys measures up to other clubs, Mike puts it in his “top 25,” which he insists is an honorable distinction. The general sentiment among the clientele seems to be that Good Guys is a club on the classier end of the spectrum, meaning that there are no sketchy-looking carpet stains, and that the dancers are required to pass regular drug tests. Good Guys also has a little something for everyone. Do you like your ladies young? Nubile? Old? Visibly pregnant? “Au naturel” or surgically enhanced? Take your pick.
