Invited Essay Exploring the Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers in Relation to Legal Regulations1

Strip clubs are a popular form of adult entertainment in the contemporary United States. Strip clubs are also highly embattled entertainment venues, based on assumptions about their associations with prostitution, drug use, and “negative secondary effects ” in surrounding areas, such as increased crime rates and decreased property values. Based on participant observation in five strip clubs in one city and on qualitative interviews with 30 regular male customers of those clubs, this essay seeks to challenge assumptions about the kinds of encounters sought in and purchased in such venues. Instead of visiting strip clubs out of a desire to purchase sexual release with the dancers, I found that the regular male customers were seeking an atmosphere different from both work and home, personal and sexual acceptance from women and the pleasure of a sexualized encounter without the pressures of physical performance, and a form of leisure that offered a relative degree of “safety ” as well as “excitement.” Further, the men’s own fantasies of identity, their understandings of marriage, and their commitment to a particular kind of monogamy influenced their choice of entertainment and the pleasure that they took in their encounters with the dancers. The essay discusses these motivations and their relational aspects and assesses strip club regulation in light of these observations and findings. KEY WORDS: sex; masculinity; sex industry; strip clubs; consumption