The 2003 British romp Calendar Girls aside, movies and TV rarely play women stripping strictly for laughs — unless the comedy is mostly unintentional (see Showgirls and Striptease). Marisa Tomei’s exotic dancer in The Wrestler led a pretty grim life that perked up only briefly after the arrival of Mickey Rourke’s troubled title character. Natalie Portman’s Closer ingenue didn’t fare much better working the pole. The female exhibitionists-turned-grifters in Hustlers traded lap dances for luxury, but in the end, they learned an inconvenient lesson: Crime — and seemingly by extension, stripping — doesn’t pay... at least when you’re a woman.
Meanwhile, guys who strip onscreen seem to have all the fun. The ones in Magic Mike, the 2012 film about a circle of bros taking it all off for cash, faced their own challenges, but ultimately, the movie’s presentation of the art of stripping was positive enough to spawn a 2015 sequel and a touring show. The original cemented Channing Tatum’s stardom, launched the Matthew McConaughey “McConaissance,” and revived the Hollywood trend of glamorizing male strippers.
On TV, shows from The Jeffersons and The Golden Girls to Days of Our Lives and General Hospital have underscored the campiness and sexy hilarity of men stripping for big bucks. After General Hospital’s moonlighting mechanic Brando took it off in front of a group of respectable — and appreciative — mostly middle-aged ladies at a bridal party earlier this month, I flashbacked to Karen Wexler, a female GH character from the ’90s whose stripping storyline included a descent into drug addiction and an abuse backstory.
If only she’d been a guy. I call it the “Full Monty” effect, in honor of the 1997 film of that name about six working-class blokes in Sheffield, England, who formed a stripping ensemble. The Full Monty earned more than $250 million at the global box office, unanimous critical acclaim, and a Best Picture Oscar nomination. It also showed the world that you don’t have to be a stud to strip, and you don’t have to be miserable while doing it — when you’re a man.
When guys strip on TV and in movies, they are typically portrayed as being fully in control of their choice and fairly happy about it. Women who get naked for pay almost always appear to be victims of their circumstances, which are usually either destitution or desperation. Maybe the way I see female strippers vs. male strippers onscreen has as much to do with the kind of people who pay to see them. Male movie and TV customers, drunk on power, lust, and booze, might contribute to the dark aura permeating fictional female strip joints, giving them a vibe that’s distinct from the glittery energy sparked by a gaggle of gals enjoying male strippers during a girl’s night out. For female oglers on TV and in movies, it’s more about window shopping than sex.
Maybe that’s just Hollywood’s sexist take. I’ve been to American strip clubs featuring both men and women in Miami, Philadelphia, and New York, and although I couldn’t tell you the backstory of anyone onstage in any of them, the ladies on the poles, especially that one in Miami who gave me a lap dance on my college buddy’s 21st birthday, seemed to be as empowered as any Adonis I’ve ever seen disrobing and gyrating on the bar of a gay joint. They appeared to be perfectly in control of their destinies and more or less happy to be there. And if you’re familiar with the life and tragic ending of Chippendales founder Somen Banerjee, then you know the “Full Monty” effect doesn’t always apply in reality.
Unless you’re in Bangkok. While I was living in the Thai capital during the 2010s, I got to witness the Hollywood XXX double standard live and up close one night. After a total of 16 nonconsecutive months in Asia’s sin city, I finally agreed to do the ultimate double feature: I checked out both a male sex revue and a female “ping-pong” show in a single evening, at the request of a girlfriend who was visiting from America.
Once inside the ping-pong venue, we were treated to a procession of bored-looking naked women onstage. The one who appeared to be the veteran of the bunch did a stunt where she pulled a string with razor blades attached to it from her vagina. Then she used one razor blade to complete an arts and crafts project that she then presented to my friend and me, hoping for a drink in return.
Another attached a Coke bottle filled with water and then one filled with Coke to her vagina, occasionally positioning her body so that the liquid trickled inside of her. The least enthusiastic showgirl spent her entire time onstage just swaying to the beat like she didn’t have a care or a spectator in the world, apparently too shy to remove the bikini top and bottom she was wearing.
Just as my friend and I decided to leave, the climactic moment we didn’t realize we’d been waiting for arrived. One of the women started to emit ping-pong serves from her vagina, while a male customer seated in a chair in front of the stage tried to hit the balls with a ping-pong paddle.
In a city where hot females outnumbered hot males by a significant margin, I couldn’t believe the owners of this particular ping-pong joint couldn’t find one woman who could hold a candle (which, thankfully, wasn’t one of the props) to the guys we’d seen earlier at Hot Male. I drooled over plenty of attractive men in Bangkok, but I spent far more time gawking at genetically blessed Thai women. Hot Males go-go boys, though, were definitely the stars of that night.
It had been my second Hot Male experience and my sixth or seventh go-go-boy extravangaza in Thailand, but I still hadn’t gotten used to watching several groups of two having non-simulated sex onstage. That night a few of them even took the act into the crowd for some audience participation. One twosome stopped right in front of us so the “bottom” could rest his head on my lap while the “top” stroked my chest.
I can’t say I wasn’t a little turned on, which was the opposite of how I’d feel later on about the ping-pong spectacle. Both shows sold sex as a commodity, but one emphasized the joy of it while the other wallowed in a sort of titillating (if that’s your thing) masochism. Hot Male was filthy as hell, and I’ve never been particularly fond of porn, but the day-glo campiness of it all was as intoxicating as the shots of Johnnie Walker I did to keep up. The men onstage seemed to be having as good a time as the audience.
As extreme as the XXX display in Hot Male was that night, I recognized its entertainment value. It was a joyous celebration of sex and sexuality that, like the ping-pong show, almost seemed to be making fun of both — only Hot Male’s hot males were laughing with us. As with every boy revue I went to in Thailand, it served up a party atmosphere and kept the proceedings light and cheerful. In contrast, entering the ping-pong show was like descending into a dreary dungeon. It was dark, drab, and joyless, like a windowless one-star hotel room you can’t wait to check out of. The women weren’t smiling, and neither were any of the six customers (including my friend and me).
It felt like life imitating art, and that was the most depressing thing about it. As in Hollywood, the hot males got all the glory — bright lights and bigger tips. The ladies stripping for pay to the pop-rock beat of Maroon 5’s “One More Night” were stuck in a mood more worthy of Maroon 5’s “Misery.” Maybe we were just unlucky enough to wander into the wrong ping-pong show that night, but at least the women straddling the pole in Hustlers got a killer soundtrack.