“To the Sirens first shalt thou come...”

By Joseph L. Flatley

To the Sirens first shalt thou come, who bewitch all men…
– Homer, Odyssey.

It’s not too difficult to ignore the fact that there’s a war going on. Hell, society is predicated on the fact that whatever we’re giving our attention – whatever lay in front of our nose – is what is real, and whatever lay safely at arm’s length might as well not exist. This country will give you a war if you want it, and it will give you all the consumer benefits of a system that creates war, if you want it, while keeping the war itself safely stashed away. And if you’re not satisfied, you can always find a distraction. It’s not at all difficult to pretend that you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for at Anthony’s Lounge, if Anthony’s Lounge is all you got.

I was there last week. It was cold. The girl behind the bar was wearing a sweater and big warm boots. The other girls were topless, but the cold didn’t seem to bother them much. The bartender was the prettiest one in the room, “leaving something to the imagination,” as they say. The only customer was an African American gentleman in a “Bill Cosby” sweater.

I stayed for an hour or two, marking time by the song, by the drink.

Towards the end of my second Budweiser someone called “Lita” walked out of the back room. She had bare feet and a gym bag over her shoulder. The manager assured her that she would no longer be on the schedule. She just shrugged, disappearing from the security monitor above the bar as her co-workers checked to make sure their stuff in the back hadn’t walked off with her.
“Crack addicts will sell anything,” the girl behind the bar says.
That’s not very sexy.

The sexual impulse is the favourite child of nature; no matter how great the demands on a man’s energy, the sex impulse must have its share.
– Colin Wilson, Origins of the Sexual Impulse.

Everybody has their reasons for going to a strip club. Of course, it all begins and ends with sex… but how is that, when you’re not getting laid?

According to Skye, an author and poet that has worked strip clubs and peep shows on both coasts (including a stint at the legendary Lusty Lady in San Francisco), “the woman that makes the most money is often older, out of shape. She’s also caring, affectionate, nurturing.”

“For these men,” she said, “it’s not about idealizing a person’s body. The regulars are aping a domestic situation. These men are paying for a person’s time, paying to drink with them, make small talk.”

“Guys want to feel like women are interested in them... they just want someone to act like they like them,” says Scarlet, at Pittsburgh’s own Club Elite. “Saturday night is a much younger crowd. I prefer the weeknights. We get to know the regulars pretty well, and they definitely seem to be interested in friendship much more than any kind of sexual thrill.”

I would have touched it like a child
But knew my finger could but have touched
Cold stone and water. I grew wild
Even accusing heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch.

– W.B. Yeats, “Towards Break of Day.”

The most basic expression of the sexual impulse is the one that most objectifies sex. The adolescent male is Homeric, seeing life in the terms of the epic. There is always a Hero, a Villain, a Virgin, a Feat of Strength. This epic involves exploration but is ultimately self-centered and self-defined. Women are reduced to Playboy pin-ups.

Everybody passes through this Homeric stage.
But we do not live in a heroic age.

At Club Elite, somewhere around 10:00 p.m. a co-ed birthday party makes its entrance. This is a consumer crowd, the party as odyssey, the hero’s journey from the suburbs, the men in khaki pants and their women with the big ol’ “birthing” hips and bad haircuts. They all seemed to be quite pleased with themselves. The wives are having a real “Girls Gone Wild” and crazy night… one they’ll surely be talking about over coffee, come Monday. And the husbands will be given plenty (of other, younger women) to fantasize about, later, in bed with the missus.

A heartland-pretty blond girl takes a seat to my right. She’s an actress, she says. I’m a writer. I search those blue eyes for a connection, but between my confusion and her “cool” there is a language barrier. After a moment or two of awkward silence, she asks, “Would you like a private dance?”

I would. Of course.
But I don’t.
So I leave.

Finding expression for your sexuality is the burden of being a sexual being. The method of that expression is up to you, in the broadest sense; it is a product of genetics and accidental “imprint” in the strictest sense (see Wilson, “Prometheus Rising”; Leary, “Info-Psychology”; Hyatt, “Undoing Yourself”; and the other Wilson, “Origins of the Sexual Impulse” for a few interpretations).
But mostly, if you’re lucky, it’s a lot of fun.

I’m thinking about all of this, at a café, as the cutest blond doll keeps looking in my direction. Hers is a smiling, open face, not burdened by the detritus and dry dot of the sex business.
Of course, just because I am clutching a few dollar bills, it doesn’t mean she has to be nice to me.

I think I’ll go say hi.