Hooking up with: Strippers

It’s not the first time I’ve been to a strip club—I’ve accompanied two separate boyfriends for their birthday parties and spent time in one around the 2004 Republican National Convention, trying to catch GOP members in compromising positions. It is, however, the first time I’ve been inside Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, which is, according to the miniskirted bartender inside, “the No. 1 strip club in New York.”

I’m here to investigate why certain guys want to date strippers. For good measure, I bring along my intern, Kate, a Hayden Panettiere doppelgänger.

After coughing up $20 each to get in, we begin to ask men if they’ve ever dated strippers. A trader we’ll call “Vic” says he has. He begins talking about a stripper named Amber, “one of the hottest girls at Scores.” Of course she was. “But I’ve hung out with strippers before, and by Day Two, they’re usually spilling their daddy issues.”

So, we ask him what kind of guys only want to date strippers.

“You have to like to have fun,” he says. “And strippers are really hot, so that has to be important to you.”

How insightful. We give up on Vic and turn our attention to three guys grinning while receiving lap dances. When the song is over, we pounce and start asking them questions. They don’t know what to make of us—maybe because our clothes are on. Two are bankers, and the third is a lawyer who wonders aloud if we’re cops.

Have they ever dated strippers? “I might,” says one of the bankers, “but I heard they have real issues with men. How do you separate this from being intimate?” he asks, gesturing toward the stage.

A couple of days earlier, I heard the same story from a fellow (who wishes to remain anonymous) who dated a well-known stripper. “You end up telling yourself things like, Hey, it’s cool that other dudes think my girlfriend is hot!” he says, but admits that ultimately didn’t work for him. When his girlfriend first informed him of her decision to strip, he says he tried to play it cool, but in the long run it made him feel worse.

Calley, a 27-year-old former Vegas stripper and model who was pulling in $5,000 a weekend, tells me that guys who are drawn to strippers aren’t looking for a real relationship.

“There was no way they were going to get serious with me,” she says of guys who knew what she did for a living. “In the end, they don’t want to marry the girl who’s stripping.”

Back in the club, an enormous bouncer approaches our table and demands that Kate and I leave. He’s decided that we’re “hustlers.”

When we leave, the three guys we’ve been talking to follow us and offer to buy us a lap dance at the überclassy club FlashDancers.

On the way over, one expounds on the different types of guys who frequent strip clubs: “First, there are guys who don’t really want the dances, they just want someone to talk to. Then you’ve got the shy guys whose buddies have to arrange everything. And finally there are the guys who go for sex but pretend to want to date the girls.”

In the dark, dank pit of FlashDancers, I get my first lap dance, from a slim, soft Russian brunet named Anya. She’s 21 going on 45 and looks tired (but smells good), like she’s not quite sure that the work it takes to maintain the $800-per-night paycheck, uh, inspires her anymore.

Do guys ever ask her out here?

“It’s a strip club,” she laughs wearily. “Everyone wants to be your boyfriend.”

Want Julia to spy on your relationship? E-mail her at julia@timeoutny.com.