Imagine explaining this to your wife
You paid $241,000 for WHAT??
I guess if you're really rich, 1/4 of a million dollars is pocket change but isn't there some kind of limit? I mean really, how does a person run up that kind of bill in a strip club? I couldn't afford to pay that much for a house much less to have someone rub my dingus for a few minutes.
I'm still cracking up thinking about how this guy with too much money and not enough brains explained it to his wife...
I guess if you're really rich, 1/4 of a million dollars is pocket change but isn't there some kind of limit? I mean really, how does a person run up that kind of bill in a strip club? I couldn't afford to pay that much for a house much less to have someone rub my dingus for a few minutes.
I'm still cracking up thinking about how this guy with too much money and not enough brains explained it to his wife...
posted by Big Ed at 7:53 AM
4 Comments:
I would love to have the boards back. While I could probably do it, I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with it.
We could go hang out at the Ackadia boards but I doubt they would take to kindly to a bunch of non-players invading their space.
Anyway, here is the story:
The Lap of Luxury
Paris
IT'S happened again. Another innocent man who just wanted a few lap dances claims to have been victimized by an exclusive New York strip club, Scores.
This time it's an executive from Missouri named Robert McCormick, who, treating himself and friends, ran up a $241,000 bill at Scores on his corporate American Express card two years ago. American Express is now suing him for refusing to pay up. Several other unhappy customers have also sued Scores over large bills.
These don't seem to be cases of bill padding. American Express sought signed receipts from the club before bringing its suit against Mr. McCormick. In the most recent suit against Scores, meanwhile, the plaintiff's justification is simply that he was drunk when he signed his bills.
Nevertheless, the Manhattan district attorney's office is investigating allegations of overcharging at Scores. To which I say, as someone who has worked in strip clubs, you've got to be kidding - there's no such thing as "overcharging" in this industry.
Does Christian Dior "overcharge" when it sells a handbag for $13,000? That depends on how you look at it. If you see the handbag as a few pieces of stitched leather, the price is grossly inflated. If you see it as a source of heady self-worth - a passport to an exclusive club - then it's hard to say what price would be too high.
This is the economic logic relied on by purveyors of luxury goods. It's not about the utility of the product. It's about making the customer feel as if he has arrived.
Strip clubs, particularly high-end ones like Scores, provide a luxury service. That $3,000 price tag on a bottle of Champagne isn't just for the beverage; it's part of the price of the experience. Mr. McCormick probably didn't go to Scores strictly to see topless women, or even for the physical contact and potential sexual gratification of a lap dance. Both experiences can be had in simpler, cheaper ways.
Rather, he and his colleagues probably went because being surrounded by fawning, semi-naked, Champagne-flute-wielding women was for them a symbol of success. It's like hiring a chauffeured limousine: a taxi would get you there, but without the aesthetic experience.
When I worked in a Seattle peep show, I had a customer who told me his name was Excalibur and quietly slipped me his poetry. Part of my job, in that moment, was to make him feel like a Knight of the Round Table. This required only a show of curiosity and respect. He must have found those things hard to come by in the real world, though, because he paid me well to help spin the illusion.
With many customers, fawning is key. What a stripper sells is not her ability to dance or take off her clothes, but her ability to suspend the customer's disbelief.
If she is doing her job right, his bald spot and his mortgage cease to exist, and he enters an adolescent fantasy of sexual prowess, temporarily transformed into James Bond, Han Solo and Hugh Hefner all rolled into one. The dancers keep cooing and flattering until the money runs out. It's not duplicitous; it's what the patron signs up for.
I have little sympathy for these carping customers. Their complaints are the height of boorishness. It's acceptable to indulge your James Bond fantasies, but it's not acceptable, when the bill comes due, to remain convinced that you're James Bond. The dancers weren't in it for kicks.
Among strippers I worked with, the most dreaded customers were not the obese or the lame. Rather, we feared customers who thought they were exceptions to the rule. They were just handsome enough, or successful enough, to foolishly think that their own sex appeal was tip enough.
It's just this kind of guy who would backpedal on a strip club bill and go crying to the courts that he was hustled. Well, sure, the dancers hustled Mr. McCormick, but no more so than the occasional Mercedes dealer. Buyer's remorse is not an occasion to stiff the seller.
So, gentlemen, pay the bill. A reasonably priced lap dance is not a right.
Elisabeth Eaves is the author of "Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping."
I suppose I could set up some forums on jakedog.org
What do you want in your forums?
Should they be private/invite only or open to the public like Sun's board was?
Any opinion of forum software?
I was thinking of trying this one
http://www.simplemachines.org/
The forums are up
My preference would be open to the public but with a required registration to post.
I hate anonymouns posts with a passion. I don't care what people say but I want to know who said it.
That being said, I'm cool with whatever you want.
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