Men & Strippers

The Swaddle has an interesting piece up on why men go to strip clubs that mentions my 2011 project: “Letters From Men Who Go to Strip Clubs.” The story is called “Men’s Preferences for Strip Clubs Stems from Vulnerability” and sheds some counter-intuitive light on what’s really going on in the half-light.

A brief glimpse into the psyche of the strip club-going man is offered by Susannah Breslin, who set up a blog titled “Letters From Men Who Go To Strip Clubs” in 2011. She collected and compiled submissions from men she deemed authentic and provided a window into their motivations to watch, in the company of other men, women take their clothes off for money. Their reasons included the need for company: “Who else can you talk to? Your business partner? Can’t afford to show weakness. A friend? His wife is friends with your wife so you have to be careful. A therapist? I’ve been trained to walk off a heart attack”; the need for control: “I’m 61 and I like to think this is my revenge for all the beautiful women in the world whom I can’t approach, whom I can’t get. [In strip clubs] I can have some young beauty dance and smile at me anytime I want,” and “Women hit on you all night. Everything is reversed. You, the guy, are pursued”; a need for attention and love: “[the girls] are genuinely interested in me”; and a need to prove their manhood: “to prove I could do it, sit in a testosterone-filled room and pretend the women there wanted to dance for me because I am a man.”

You can read more about The Letters Project here, and you can read the rest of the article here.

Buy my short story: “The Tumor.” It’s been called “a masterpiece of short fiction.”