Strip Tease Was About More Than Sexual Fantasy

This article in The New York Post, Fantasy-selling strip clubs must pay taxes: judge, reminds me of a similar case in upstate New York last year.

Women take the stage at the Hustler Club.                                   Photo: Getty Images

In both clubs, the management argued they shouldn't have to pay taxes because of an old law on the books, which allows establishments to not pay taxes for “live dramatic, choreographic or musical performance.”

I can totally see how a strip club would try to snake by on this law.

And as I have discussed before, there are certain strippers, who on certain days, really are "dramatic" entertainers.

But let's get real. Even when I had an amazing dramatic performance as a stripper, I knew what most of the men were there for.

Wait a minute. I can't believe I'm backtracking. A lot of customers were certainly not there for a "choreographic" performance, but they were there for much more than just "sexual fantasy."

The customers came to have someone to talk to. To have friends to hang out with. To feel like they were worthy of being talked to by others. To waste time. To find time. To drown their sorrows. To forget life for a while. To live. To be seen. To disappear.

Some of the same reasons I was there.

And, yes. For some of us, when we went up onstage, under the rosy lights when time stood still, we were there to perform. To become sexual fantasies. To become seen and loved and adored from afar. From near.

Sheila Hageman as Kirea at The Blue Angel, NYC

We were human.

The customers. And me.