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Thread: History of Strip Clubs

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    Default History of Strip Clubs

    I didn't know where this should go. I'm new and I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong section...

    My question is for anyone. Does anyone know the history of strip clubs? I'm doing a project for a class about them and can't find any info on how they started. I can only assume and I have no info to even base an assumption.

    Thanks for any help in advance.

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    Veteran Member dancinslifoxxx17's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    I think it started w/ burlesque(spelling?) dancers and went from there.

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    God/dess doc-catfish's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    You may want to start your search by looking under striptease and burlesque first.

    This wikipedia article is brief, but would be a good place to start (links to SW!).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striptease

    I soo wish we get some old time (and by old time I mean pre-1980) dancers to join SW. They would have a plethora of information about the way things used to be.
    Former SCJ now in rehab.

  4. #4
    madmaxine
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    In my routine research of parapsychology, I happened upon an investigation of a "haunted" strip club in England (1960's.) I mention this because the club had to resort to gimmicks to get around zoning/ permit laws & a disapproving general public- one club allowed patrons to do bodypainting on topless girls, others had custies "sketch" the dancers.
    Not too dissimilar to tactics some US clubs have to do to keep in business.

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    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Hopefully this will help...
    http://www.musicals101.com/burlesque.htm
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019...lance&n=283155
    http://suicidegirls.com/words/Stript...tlight+author/

    Hopefully these links will help. I don't know for sure but here is my guess why strip clubs are so pervasive today:

    Up until the late 70's- early 80's brothels were still pertty common in the US, although illegal, were allowed to opporate if they kept their noses clean and didn't cause any legal trouble outside of the illegal activity that went on inside. This was before the huge feminist movement in the mid 80's when American women really started to gain power politically and financially.

    If you already read "The history of Burlesque" then you know the back story to the original striptease shows.

    In the mid 1980's local, state and federal government agencies went on a crusade to "clean up" the brothels and to bust up prostitution businesses. It became very popular with the now vocal and active female voting community, and politicians went after the women's vote with gusto. Up until the 1980's the worst STD a person could get was herpes, as everything else was cureable. AIDs had hit the media by 1984, and just about every American was terrified that they would die of this awful disease by having promiscious sex. Of course, everyone blamed the spread of the disease on the sex workers (I could go on for hours on how totally WRONG this thinking is), so the witch hunt was on.

    Of course there were already a few businesses with nude girls (peep shows), and a few more with dancing girls. Back in the early 80's dancers were required to wear pasties and in some areas they had to wear panty hose under their costumes. Many dancers wore costumes with the hose sewn in. They were referred to as go-go dancers back then, but really they went as nude as was legally allowed in public.

    Then some club owner somewhere (probably Texas) decided that he would run a nude dancing show. I figure it was wildly popular with the customers in the area, and the owner was getting rich, the dancers were getting rich, and the customers were having a great time looking at live nude girls.

    I also imagine that the legality of such a place was probably challenged by local government, and was upheld by the (then) male dominated court system, as a first ammendment issue and the club was allowed to continue to opporate. Other club owners in the area lost business to this first club, so they decided to put on nude girly shows to cash in on the profits to be gained from this new trend.

    Some areas put in laws to prevent nude show clubs, but mostly due to the first ammendment, they could not make such things completely illegal. So Liquor Departments got involved, Zoning Commissions got involved, and you have what now resembles today's strip clubs.

    Many bar owners who could not cut it by running a "normal" bar, built a stage and bought some DJ equipment, and called their place a strip club. They believed that if they did that they would become rich instantly (and many still do). Everyone jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to get rich. By the late 1990's the industry was completely saturated, with even the smallest cities in America having strip clubs.

    Sometime in the mid-late 1990's dancers began doing lap dances. A couple of cities in Texas claim to have invented the entertainment practice. I remember in 1992 that "table dancing" was available in Oregon, but the dancers had to leave their bottoms on, and the dances were done on tiny stages referred to as tables. The price of a table dance in 1992 in Portland Oregon... $20.

    I believe we are coming full circle. Many clubs in the US today are basically just brothels. Men expect to ograsm from the intimacy of the "lap dances" and frequently do have sex with prostitute/dancers either inside the club or at some other location. Now many places allow the men to masturbate while the dancers perform. Dancers are not required to go on stage at many clubs, and just go from table to table seeking lap dance customers.

    There is a resurgance in burlesque shows around the US, and the strip clubs keep losing business to other kinds of venues as the entertainment offered by your typical strip club is just too close to being with a hooker for most people's comfort.

    Everything in this post is my opinion based on personal expierence, as well as conversations with people who have been in the business for a very long time. Nothing here should be taken as fact, and is merely conjecture.


    Promote yourself and earn more money! This is a business that is owned by strippers for strippers. Let's make that money!


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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    This is a really big help and I'm grateful to all who responded. I couldn't remember 'burlesque' so I couldn't look it up unfortunately until it was mentioned. Thanks again. ^^

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    Featured Member Gemini_Syn's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    actually it goes back further. dance of the seven viels was one of the original strip shows done in harems since biblical times. it was kinda a private party for the shiek on a regular basis.

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    I did a bit of research for a feature I wrote on the Windmill club in London for www.strip-magazine.com. The first commercial striptease was in Paris in the 1890s, Paris was very racy then compared to London and had lots of " arty " type nude dancers like Isadora Duncan and Josephine Baker anyway. In London the first nude place was The Windmill in 1934 { from memory} there is now a feature film on this called Mrs Henderson Entertains. The Windmill had nudes but they could not move so acted like statues when nude plus did things like fan dances to get around this. The first proper strip club in London was the Raymond Revuebar in Soho in 1956. Then there were dozens and in the 1960s stripping started in normal pubs mainly in the East End of London. The clubs mainly died out in the 80s and then came the table dancing/lap dancing boom in the late 90s. i have written a potted history of London strip pubs.

    Tyke

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    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Quote Originally Posted by Gemini_Syn
    actually it goes back further. dance of the seven viels was one of the original strip shows done in harems since biblical times. it was kinda a private party for the shiek on a regular basis.
    Oh, I'm sure women have been performing in this way since humans invented the concept of money. And even before that I'm sure women performed for men in a sexually seducive manner for some kind of material gain be it goats or chickens or whatever was considered valuable by humans in pre history.


    Promote yourself and earn more money! This is a business that is owned by strippers for strippers. Let's make that money!


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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    ^^^ I will blow you , Lothar of the hill people, if you will bring me the hindquarter of that freshly killed mastodon

    I'm gonna go with the 50s/60s for the nightclub with strippers--here's an interesting article on Jack Ruby's Carousel Club in Dallas. Trust Texas to be on the vanguard in this area.

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Quote Originally Posted by Susan Wayward
    ^^^ I will blow you , Lothar of the hill people, if you will bring me the hindquarter of that freshly killed mastodon.
    Sure. It's called "courtship feeding," and we're hardly the only animal that does it. Certainly the evolutionary foundation of prostitution...

    Sorry, I can't think of any good sources that cover the history of strip clubs...which is weird; I should have something at the ready.

    However, (on the Jack Ruby tip): I have heard that when JFK was a student at Harvard, he was in love with a stripper at the Old Howard in Boston called Peaches Strange.

    Oh, you could also look up Dixie Evans and the Exotic World Museum...There's a chapter on Dixie and the museum in Lily Burana's book, Strip City
    "Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row


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    Senior Member HairGuitar's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    I did a search for some stripping history and found this article. I love the British humor: http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/arlapd.htm
    "I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing."
    Robert A. Heinlein "They Do It With Mirrors"
    HairGuitar

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    Veteran Member LusciousLyzz's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    I did a report on this once, I didn't go too far back, but some of the research that i did was on burlesque, and how it kind of evolved into the strip club later on. i thought it was amusing taht early burlesque was a comedy show, the women wore risque clothing, but they were comedians, not dancers, then like 50 years later or something, it evolved into striptease and then strip clubs were born. Maybe everyone already knew that, I didn't, thought it was interesting.

    I wish I had my old computer, the report was on there and I never saved it to a disk or anything, good luck with your report!!

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    God/dess velvet's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    paris, lapdancing started in fl WAY before the 90's. as far back as the early 80's. in some city's it was only table dances, but quite a few had lapdances.

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Both Mitchell Brothers in SF and the Harmony Theatre in NYC have been said to be the birthplace of lapdancing in the 70s. In Texas it was dancing on a table in the early 80s but they definitely hopped off before the 90s.








    Blowjobs in a dark back room probably date back a lot further than the lapdance, though . . .

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    Veteran Member alicia0033's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Quote Originally Posted by Paris
    Oh, I'm sure women have been performing in this way since humans invented the concept of money. And even before that I'm sure women performed for men in a sexually seducive manner for some kind of material gain be it goats or chickens or whatever was considered valuable by humans in pre history.
    TRUE. Like in Bible Times.

    Look at this passage About the lady that requested John the Baptist's head

    "She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias's own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. "

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    Featured Member Wwanderer's Avatar
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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Quote Originally Posted by Susan Wayward
    Blowjobs in a dark back room probably date back a lot further than the lapdance, though . . .
    To the mid-to-late 1960s at least, in big cities in the US Northeast anyway.

    -Ww
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    Senior Member Widget's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Behind the G-String: An Exploration of the Stripper's Image, Her Person and Her Meaning
    by David A. Scott

    True, written by a man, but it had a really good chapter on the history of "strippers" and their many incarnations throughout the last maybe 150 years. There is some interesting stuff about how in the beginning nudity (read topless at that time) was only aloud if the "model" remained motionless, as in a living statue, while all dancers had to be fully clothed. It goes on to chronicle the defining moments that have brought exotic dancing to its current state, for better or worse. And there is this freaky historical account of ritzy "strip clubs" around 1930, I think, about men discarding milk bottles with raw liver in them after leaving the show.

    Other chapters have lots of quotes from burlesque dancers and from interviews with modern dancers. This book is actually an expanded version of his graduate student thesis, which probably makes it the most academically recognized book that gives a general overview. I thought most of it was interesting, but there are a couple chapters (which you can easily skip if you wish) where you can gets bogged down 'cause they get very intellectual on the "many faces of the exotic dancer" describing dancer's portrayals of goddesses, idealized women, fallen angel, etc. and their cultural context... I got it from Amazon.com

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    I might suggest poking around on Jo Weldon's site, too:
    www.gstringsforever.com

    LOTS of cool stuff on that site; all manner of great links....
    The "Genius Strippers" section is pretty awesome.
    "Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row


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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    ^^^ Yes, should be a required source for anyone looking for burlesque/club history; she is amazing.

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    There's a book called Striptease: From Gaslight to Spotlight, by Jessica Glasscock. You can get it on Amazon, I just checked. It has tons of information on the history of striptease, and also lots of interesting photos.

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Girl the lap dances were hot in heavy in the seventies in orlando daytona...
    even old hung up jacksonville

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    I've tried to do a worldwide dateline for strip , it's on http://www.strip-magazine.com/mmagaz...9000196&ucat=2 , not sure if it's 100% accurate. I'm not sure when the first topless shows came in the US and when the first full nude shows were in the USA. The UK and other dates are right.

    Tyke

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    Quote Originally Posted by Paris
    I remember in 1992 that "table dancing" was available in Oregon, but the dancers had to leave their bottoms on, and the dances were done on tiny stages referred to as tables.
    Table dancing was available in Detroit in the '70's. The dancers kept their bottoms on, but they did actually dance on tables. The dancer would climb up on the table, take her top off and hand it to the customer, do her dance, retrieve her top, and come down. (I remember this because my dad took me to the Patio on Eight-Mile somewhere in the 1973-1975 timeframe.)

    Be well...

    Lynn

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    Default Re: History of Strip Clubs

    We were tabledancing nude in Atlanta in 1980, but there was no, and I mean no really none, contact. The clubs weren't upscale at all, which may or may not have had anything to do with the contact levels, and stripping was much more unusual a thing to do at that time. For one thing, there just weren't as many clubs, and the ones that there were didn't employ many people.

    I posted this before--there's an article about lapdancing in San Fran, with some history, here:
    http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-...feature_1.html
    Blog:


    Burlesque classes and info:


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