My First Time at the Strip Club
There’s nothing like the strip club in real life because there’s nothing real about it: it’s performance, girls putting on a show to maximize tips; it’s not unlike waitressing in that regard. And of course some are better at it than others: they know how to arouse you, to coerce every single dollar bill out of your hand during their ten-minute set. To those not as proficient I still felt a weird obligation, some kind of guilt. Social conditioning—I didn’t want to make anybody feel bad.
But there wasn’t much to feel guilty about. Peyton’s brings its A-game on a Saturday night. The women were as diverse as the patrons: all ethnicities; tall and short. But they possessed a particular body type more often than not: small breasts, hard bodies covered in tattoos, and big butts. The club trades on booty shaking, set to a continuous hip-hop soundtrack. The women do other things, too: they perform all manner of tricks on the poles, like pulling themselves up, turning upside down, and sliding down (these are strong, fit women); they simulate sex, either on their hands and knees or by lying on their backs on the stage, kicking their legs onto the bar between your $8 bottles of Corona, and banging their crotches against the edge; or, with two fingers, they rub between their legs. But the signature moves all involve the ass: shaking, and squatting, and jiggling.
Some maintain a cool distance, eying themselves from start to finish, but others break the fourth wall. One of the dancers we saw that evening wanted to chat.
“You all from around here?”
“Bay Ridge.”
“Oh,” she said, and smiled—still dancing—as if she understood something, though I’m not sure what. She was from Brooklyn, too. “I never even heard of Sunset Park before I started working here,” she said, laughing.
“Really?”
