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Recently in Salon Health & Body

Column
Why doesn't anyone have dropsy anymore?
The 1899 Merck Manual is being released along with the 1999 version.   
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[07/02/99]

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[06/30/99]

Column
The invisible woman
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[06/29/99]

Books
"Living in the Lightning: A Cancer Journal"
One woman learns how to manage her fear.
By Natalie Robins
[06/28/99]

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From North Beach bars to the Mitchell Brothers' high-priced
bordello, she went in search of women to dance in her lap.

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By Annalee Newitz

July 3, 1999 | Nearly every woman has been called a whore, but we rarely bother to find out for ourselves why such an identity is supposed to be so threatening. Many men's sexual rites of passage involve sex workers, but women are rarely encouraged to visit strip clubs or prostitutes. Instead of actual experiences, women learn from news stories about the horrors of stripping and prostitution, or hear contradictory accounts from feminists and sex workers.

After realizing that our curiosity and ignorance about sex work could only be dispelled through greater experience, my women friends and I spent several weekends in San Francisco visiting strip clubs and paying women for lap dances.

Strip club row on Broadway runs through the middle of North Beach, a neighborhood famous for old beatnik happenings and Italian immigrant culture. Today it's an upscale nightspot and tourist destination full of swank bars, cafes and expensive Italian restaurants. The most famous strip club landmark has disappeared: The Condor, now a sports bar, once featured an enormous nude woman with red flashing light bulbs for nipples. Now only fancy neon letters remain.

After swooning over a plate of creamy tiramisu in North Beach, Annie, Lisa and I ventured up Broadway in search of the kinds of naked women that the Condor no longer advertises.

At the Casbah, two extremely female women barkers informed us that if we'd brought "a gentleman," we'd have gotten in for free. Suddenly we'd entered a world where, anachronistically, women were called ladies and men were called gentlemen.

We pushed through a heavy curtain and into a small, dark room. A low stage dominated the dim, mirrored interior, surrounded by a handful of men in chairs. Off to the right, a shabby row of doorways stretched down a hallway. "Lap dances $20," read a plastic sign.

Although all the club's patrons were male, they barely noticed us as we sat down. Music throbbed meaninglessly in the background as we watched several women do their acts. To show appreciation, audience members placed dollar bills on the edge of the stage. Everyone who stripped was available for lap dances.

Strippers crawled and writhed on the floor, spreading their legs and interacting playfully with the audience. Some dancers would allow their bodies to be touched -- usually in the context of tipping. The dancer would stroke her chosen patron's face, fold his dollar bill carefully, put it between his lips or thighs and slowly pull it out with her mouth.

We were drawn to the dancers who played with the audience -- they seemed more authentically erotic. When a blond calling herself Kiki rolled all over the stage in vintage leopard-pattern lingerie, we looked at one another and nodded excitedly: She was the one we wanted.

"Will you give us a dance?" I asked Kiki when she had finished.

"I promised that gentleman over there a dance first," Kiki said, looking across the stage where a clot of men were talking. "But I'll do you first. I'd much rather dance for ladies than icky old men."

We piled into one of the tiny wooden booths, barely able to fit, and closed the short curtain behind us.

Next page | Kiki had never done this before