By Tom Collins
Arizona Daily Wildcat
January 17, 1997

The Unbearable Lameness of Stripping (Part 2)

But sometimes, a man has a want to see flesh. Naked flesh.

To buy magazines and movies you have to look at the clerk, and frankly, I'm too shy (which also helps to explain my celibacy).

To purchase a computer is too expensive, and looking at naked people while you're hunched over your mouse is not entirely socially acceptable.

But there is a place to go, an activity to do, a show to see, if you will.

Yes, we are lucky here in Tucson. Someone has created a place for kids to go.

Get them off the streets. Club 151 presents an opportunity for those 18 years of age and over to see real live women take off their real live clothing. Its only five dollars, man, it's like charity.

Yes, and so we went. I was nervous I must tell you. Off kilter, because, as I

said...

Dorothy and I wandered back and forth in front of the place wondering if we should, in fact, take this plunge. I felt like a 15-year-old fumbling with a bra clasp.

So we slip into the back of the club and sit down on this out of place couch, looking out of place.

The club has all the charm of an empty warehouse, especially the stuffed vagabonds on the walls. Well, that's a joke and a lie.

But this isn't.

When the show began the DJ was playing Closer by the Nine Inch Jerks. Yep, as these relatively unenthoused women came out to flounce, Trent Reznor rant on about his desire to denigrate.

Class, can we say "misogyny?"

I was already blushing at this point. I may also be able to lay claim to being the prudest man in a America, but I like to think of it as innocence.

Now, let me tell you this right up front, the barker was the highlight of the evening. Yeah, he cajoled his crowd to tip the girls. He extolled their virtues. He said they were working hard. He sung along with Prince's "Get Off."

Yes, imagine Richard Bey shouting, "23 positions in a one night stand." Makes me blush.

He said you could get a more personal dance for a certain price. I did not indulge. Fact of the matter is I wanted the girls to stay away from me , I don't think I could've looked them in the eye. But I could watch them on the stage, that was OK.

Class, try "objectification," can you say that for me?

I don't know what it was, but somehow I saw share of nudity fairly quickly. Maybe it was the soberness. Maybe it was the poor lighting and the poor music. I don't know.

What I do know is that this was far less entertaining than I thought it would be. Yeah, and, like a 15-year-old I felt like maybe in the end there was nothing that cosmic about breasts themselves. That is, they are very attractive feature, but they are just a part of the body. It's all in the anticipation.

Like with this girl I dated recently. She would never even see me. Man, there is something so erotic about love, Victorian style.

But not all the time.

I learned something that brief time watching whoever dance. That the Internet and the adult bookstore and the strip show cannot really fulfill that clamoring inside. No, I think I learned that when you need stimulation, you need another person. And when you need another person, you oughta be able to look them in the eye.