My Review of Cleveland Area Strip Clubs

Safely insulated by volumes of water and space, I sat in a double kayak paddling down the Cuyahoga River in the Flats. My partner and I notice a service practitioner, sitting outside on the patio of Christie’s on a warm summer day, still in her work attire. She sat cross legged in 6-8 inch see through high heels eating a turkey sandwich in her underwear. She looked at peace. It seemed a peculiar sight, but really it was just like anyone else on their work break (other than the G-string). Strip us all down and we are really all more or less the same. It made me think about a time before, when I also felt insulated, despite having a front row seat to the shenanigans unfolding. There was no river then, only a silent divide made of detachment and the faint sense that I didn’t belong.

It was a late night many years before, the kind of late that makes your phone battery give up and your sense of direction go a little fuzzy around the edges. I was ready to head home, slip into pajamas, and maybe eat a yogurt in bed. But then one of the guys suggested the former Lido Lounge. A quorum formed, as quorums do, and suddenly I was swept along by the current of group inertia.

Begrudgingly I followed along, apathetic about the offerings of the venue as a heterosexual woman but hopeful about the beer selection. We arrived and folded ourselves into a mafia style rounded booth. The bartender, clearly a woman who had seen some things, with no better offerings handed me a bottle of Coors Light with the resignation of a priest giving last rites.

The group, a loose coalition of men who seemed equally apathetic to the spectacle, began to settle in. Next to me was Calvin – he of the infamous Lord of the Rings marathon, a man who once insisted we watch all three extended editions in one sitting, pausing only for bathroom breaks and the occasional snack refill. Calvin was surveying the club with the wide-eyed terror of someone who’s just realized they’ve been cast in a play and forgotten their lines. This was not his idea. I suspected these were the most naked women he’d ever seen outside of a Renaissance painting.

Suddenly, the most raucous member of our party leapt from the booth and flagged down a service practitioner. He pointed at us, and I pretended not to notice, diving into a conversation about universal healthcare with anyone who would listen.

The practitioner approached Calvin. She was a marvel of physics and dedication. At one point, she placed her hands on the floor (which, I should note, was sticky enough to double as a fly trap) and sent her legs skyward around Calvin, a move that would have impressed both Cirque du Soleil and OSHA. Calvin looked as if his body was present, but his soul had retreated to the Shire, frolicking with hobbits far from the sticky realities of this world.

As she spun, a few bills slipped from her bralette, fluttering to the floor like confused butterflies. She didn’t notice, her face obscured by a curtain of blonde hair. I tapped her gently on the shoulder, her hands still planted on the ground, and said, “Excuse me, miss stripper, you dropped your money.”

She looked up, eyes wide, and yelled my name (and I mean, yelled) followed by a very, very loud “we used to work together!”

The booth fell silent. Every head turned. I could see them wonder, with suspicion and delight, had I, too, been upside down on this very floor? Was I, in some secret life, a practitioner of the pole arts? She ended her dance and leaned in, whispering that we used to work together, at Olive Garden, not here, and not, as far as I could recall, with our feet in the air. I wished she had yelled that part, and whispered the former.

Suddenly, memory: her joy at showing me her new apartment, her hurry to avoid her overbearing boyfriend, the way she’d whispered about escape plans. Now, here she was, fending for herself, feet in the air and all.

I looked around the club, wondering how many of the other practitioners were here for similar reasons. I looked around, and each stripper became a hobbit, spinning around the pole to destroy her own Sauron: an abusive partner, a dead-end job, hope for the future. And me? I was Gollum, hunched in my booth, not quite friend, not quite foe, clutching my precious Coors Light. A woman among men, never fully at home in the world of the watchers or the watched. An observer warped by my own contradictions: commodifier and feminist, empathetic yet complicit, detached but participatory.

I realized that maybe my imposter syndrome and evaluation of the moment was an oversimplification of complex subject matter. Maybe it’s naive to search for metaphors in a place bathed in blacklights and two-drink minimums. Maybe no one here was trying to destroy a dark lord. Maybe they were just trying to pay rent, buy groceries, or feel powerful in a world that rarely hands you that for free. SI thought less and less about the spectacle and more about the strange, blurry boundary between who we are and who we are pretending to be.

Some nights end with answers. Others leave you holding a lukewarm beer and more questions than you came in with. But sitting there in that booth, I started to see the spectacle for what it was – not a performance for us, but a stage for autonomy, survival, and maybe even joy. I stopped watching the show and started seeing the people.

In the end, we’re all just trying to make it through the night in one piece. Strip away the roles, the titles, the performances – and really, we all just want the same thing. A moment of peace, a little bit of dignity, and the time to finish a turkey sandwich outside on a patio on a warm sunny day.

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