"Lap" Dancing

Before you go any further it's only fair to warn you that if you are of a delicate disposition or easily shocked, don't read any further. By all means check out earlier posts or come back soon. Missing you already.

Right you are then, still with me. I will try to be as delicate as possible.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the "lady friend's" bijou residence. After dinner, sated with excellent food and glowing with the heady warmth of good wine the inevitable question was raised........."what's on the box?"

Amazingly but not surprisingly, we checked out the eighteen hundred and twenty seven channels offered on cable and came to the conclusion there was absolutely nothing we both fancied. Although, I must admit a re-run of Top Gear on Dave+1 was tugging gently at my heart strings.

Not to be defeated, we decided to check out "Movies on Demand". As you can imagine exploding zombies, marauding Mongols and undercover assassins were off (see earlier post) and I was way too awake for an Eastern European odyssey of love and loss. Just at the point of submission we noticed what could be a little gem. "Irina Palm", the story of a middle-aged women entering the sex industry starring........MARRIANE FAITHFULL!

If, like us , you can remember the 60s this was the woman that every hippy guy wanted to shag and every hippy chick wanted to be. Hanging out with the Stones, Mick Jagger's main squeeze, "As Tears Go By", "The Girl on the Motorcycle". Oh Yeah Baby!

Prior to switching on your set be prepared for a plot spoiler. The most shocking thing about the film was the fact that Marriane spent the entire thing looking like one of the Nans that knit Shreddies. The gist of the story is that in order to raise the funds to send her grandson to the States for a life saving operation she finds a job in a Soho clip joint. You are probably thinking that if she looks like a babushka how does this happen?

Taking into account that the movies budget was about £47 and that the writer, director and producer had obviously never been to a clip joint in Soho, she accumulates the funds as follows. Men go into a room, plop their appendage through a hole and Marianne "pleasures" them manually. She becomes so good at this that men are actually queueing into the streets to sample the experience. According to the script she had the "best hands in London". Remember, these are meant to be straight men so any stories you may have heard about "glory holes" in gay clubs do not apply.

We actually watched this turgid rubbish to the bitter end, partly out of disbelief and partly 'cos it instantly became a great topic for conversation.

The fact of the matter is that for the sort of money these chumps were supposedly paying for the service, they could have gone to anyone of dozens of hookers in Soho and at least have seen what they were paying for (so I've been told). For all they knew the body that the hands belonged to behind the wall could've been mine!

This, of course, brings me neatly to the actual subject of this missive. Firstly, I have to make this very clear. I love women, their brains, their looks, their bodies, their smells, and the very fact they are the complete opposite of blokes. Secondly, I have absolutely no truck with the issue of a man wanting to or having to pay for sex , as long as it's not with some sex slave being exploited against her will.

What I don't understand whatsoever is.....lap dancing.

I sort of get the whole Dita Von Teese, camp burlesque thing. It can be cutesy and funny. I totally get the whole pre-sixties strip club in the days when a glimpse of stocking was something shocking but what the +@!* is lap dancing all about.

The first time I went it was out of prurient interest but since then I've been dragged (almost) kicking and screaming on stag-nights and corporate "jollys".

Wherever you are in the clubs you will see naked or semi-naked girls "dancing" or doing that silly pseudo gymnast thing on a pole. So, if the purpose was to see women with their bits out....job done. However, the minute you sit down it starts. "Wanna private dance darling?" Well, no actually I don't. For a start I'm exactly four feet away from the chaps on either side of me who have bothered to bung money in a garter and I can see almost exactly what they can without having to maintain a rictus grin whilst "Chantelle" or "Venus" is doing her thing.

Even more mind-boggling is that some of the punters keep depositing seemingly never-ending funds in the garters for more of the same. Why?? The law says you are not allowed to touch, the "legitimate" establishments won't allow contact off the premises and if they did why bother depleting the old bank roll when you must have been able to negotiate a fee for the whole enchilada during the first, or for really tongue-tied punters, second rhythmic liaison!

Maybe it is some kind of macho one-upmanship. " I can afford more dances than you, so there!". If that's the case I would like to quote the best description I've heard of lap dancing. "it's all hors d'oeuvre and no main course!".

As for me, I'm off to dinner.