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Courier
Post (NJ)
"Show
your fiance you care -- learn to lap dance"
Tuesday, September
20, 2005 - Living Section
by Matt Katz
I hear all the time that marriage is
supposed to be the most sacred institution in America and crucial to the
protection of the family. If that's the case, here's my question: Why does the
most common socially accepted pre-marriage ritual involve naked women dancing in
front of, near and on top of men who are about to get married?
Does anyone else find this just weird? If we're really trying to protect
marriage, are bachelor parties with strippers really the place we want to send
men on the way to the altar? Shouldn't he be thinking about one woman in white
instead of 30 women in thongs?
(Not that the future wife necessarily cares, of course. She's too busy looking
at naked men at her bachelorette party.)
I don't have a moral problem with strip clubs. Unlike regular bars, women
actually approach you at strip clubs (the constant "give me a dollar" thing is
annoying, but you get used to it.)
And strip clubs can actually be fun when you go with a large group of guys. (It
is, however, awkward if you see someone you shouldn't see there, like a neighbor
or co-worker. When that happens, I say, "This is my first time.")
But, still, shouldn't strippers be more of a comforting distraction for the
lonely rather than a dangerous distraction for a man preparing to make a
lifelong commitment?
Unfortunately, I don't make the rules. I just complain, because it's easier.
However, two women are actually doing
something to take the dirtiness out of stripping. In a way, they're making
stripping less about sex and more about, believe it or not, love.
The women (www.metroplanners.com)
-- a stripper named Tigerlily and an event planner named Blaire -- hold regular
couples' lap dance classes in New York City for $80 per couple.
The lap dance is a common strip club routine in which a woman dances on the lap
of a man sitting in a chair. Other workshops have been inspired by strip clubs,
including a "Pole Dancing for Fitness and Fun" class held, of course, in
California and Las Vegas. But the couple's lap dance class is different in that
it's not about exercise -- or nudity, which isn't allowed -- but about bringing
couples closer.
To attend, I needed to prove I was part of a couple, so I brought my girlfriend,
Deb.
"This could be the most humiliating thing I've ever done," Deb said on the way
into the dance studio for the class. "I'm totally rethinking our entire
relationship right now."
I convinced her that she was there for the journalism, not for me. We were one
of eight couples. Tigerlily began with an icebreaker in which the women came up
with stripper names for themselves. (Deb was wearing shoes made in Brazil, so
she became "Brazil.")
Then, to a mix tape largely made up of early Guns n' Roses tunes, Tigerlily
demonstrated how to lap dance. The women imitated her moves and gave their men,
who were seated in chairs, lap dances.
Since Deb and I couldn't keep straight faces for most of the class, we spent a
lot of time looking at the other couples. Amazingly, they were locked in to each
other, as if they were sharing special moments. The women didn't act as if they
were doing something dirty or wrong and the men, surprisingly, didn't seem to
notice there were seven other women dancing around them.
Except for the woman whose boyfriend brought her to the class for her birthday
(she did not look happy), the couples truly seemed in love.
I guess if you're going to such a class, you probably already have a close
relationship with your partner. And when you learn to do something extra
intimate like this, that relationship can only get closer.
It's just ironic that such closeness can come from something that usually
involves a salivating man, a naked woman with a fake name and a $20 bill.
I doubt this will find any traction among the politicians in Washington, but if
you want to preserve the sanctity of marriage, ban strippers from bachelor
parties and instead fund lap dance classes. If the divorce rate drops because of
it, I deserve a lap dance from the president.
Matt Katz writes about dating in the 21st century in his column
The Bachelor Pad appearing Tuesdays in the Courier-Post's Living section
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