Ambivalent on the Titty Bar Thing
I've probably spent more time in tit bars than Rob has, simply because I used to hang out with a drag racing crowd which was 99.9% male and when it was time to go out for drinks or play pool they always headed for a tit bar and I usually tagged along because I didn't find tit bars particularly offensive any more than I was bothered by all the smut magazines or nekked women posters in my friend's garages. I always found Amateur's Night pretty amusing, but usually I was more occupied by the workers who wanted to chat and tell me their life story. This isn't a something that only happens in tit bars, it happens everywhere I go and I apparently have "BARE YOUR SOUL TO ME, A COMPLETE STRANGER" written on my forehead in special ink that only the needy can see. Anyway, I learned a lot about exotic dancers at that time. Not all of them were there because of an uncle. A few, a small amount granted, knew exactly what they were doing and why, kept their nose clean, didn't "date" clients and were only there for a short time to get the cash they needed to achieve some other goal. Most of them were intelligent and articulate, but except for those few that were goal driven, many of them seemed to be there for what seemed to be less healthy reasons. The easy cash, the drugs, the ability to use and manipulate men, the hole in their souls caused by that uncle; the reasons were as varied as the person, but there seemed to be a common thread, an attempt to get one up on the world and this was the only way they knew to do it. And, in retrospect, is it such a bad way? I mean, if you need to get one up on the world, is that goal better satisfied working the call center at AT&T where you are on the bottom rung of the ladder and don't count for shit or shaking your titties in front of men who will fawn over you and stuff your g-string with dollars? I didn't think along those lines at the time, but I wonder about it now. Back then, I believed that you could get a bottom rung job with a legitimate company and work your way up. I believed that hard work and perseverance would always pay off in the long run. I know now that's not the case. So maybe the titty dancers had the right idea after all.