I went to my first all male strip show last weekend. It was my homegirl C’s bachelorette party and we destroyed Los Angeles. Destroyed it.

The plan was to start the night by popping our male strip show cherries at Hollywood Men. I imagined Hollywood Men to be like one of those strip reviews like the Chippendales or Thunder Down Under. Except, from what I understand, the guys at HW Men are much better looking (it is Hollywood afterall, the land of the underwear model) and the show is much more pornographic.

I, like most women, always thought male strippers were pretty nasty. I imagined the least sexy thing a man could do was dance on stage while sporting a g-string and waving his schlong in my face.

I also imagined all male strippers to look like Fabio.

No gracias.

Well, well, well, I learned a thing or ten that night.

Quick backstory, after I graduated from college I worked in a strip club. (I know, another addition to my resume of absurdity.) It was the typical variety that only had female strippers. And no, I wasn’t one of them. I was a cocktail waitress.

Pinky swear.

Of course, my uniform did include heels, fishnets, and a g-string unitard, but that never came off. More on that insane experience some other time.

But one of the many things that I learned while working at The French Quarter Men’s Club was that men are not allowed to touch the strippers. Dudes must keep their hands to themselves or else there’s a bodyguard all up in their grills. If they go into the VIP room they have some leeway with a little grab and tickle, but for the most part, in every strip club I’ve been to, customers no touchy.

Not so at Hollywood Men. In fact, there appeared to be no rules, as hard as we worked to find them, and then break them. I suppose the only rule was don’t do anything (or have anything done to you) that you wouldn’t want your boyfriend to find a photo of.

Unlike a female strip club, the guys have choreographed dance routines, some solo, some in groups, and characters that they play. And to all of our surprise, they were actually great dancers.

Bravo! Bravo!

And they had quite compelling storylines such as, the best way to get rid of all the hot wax that’s been collecting from a burning candle is to dump it on your chest.

From the moment the first guy stepped on stage, dressed in a fireman’s uniform and jerking off his fireman’s ax (oh yeah, they went there) the audience (all women) went KUH-RAZY. I’m not talking, Barney’s is having a sale crazy, I’m talking Barney’s is giving away all their shit for free crazy. No, no, crazier than that: Barney’s is giving away everything for free, you get an hour massage from a male underwear model and you’ll lose 15 pounds type o’ crazy. The kind of crazy that only the subjugated half of the population can go.

I’m pretty sure I have permanent hearing damage from the screaming. And I may have torn my vocal chords from my own.

Oh, oh, oh, how could I forget—the waiters! The waiters look like this:

And this:

‘Nuff said.

I think all the ladies would agree that the best part of the show was when the Dippers (that’s a new word I just made up. dick + stripper = dipper) came out into the audience for lap dances.

My experience of lap dances are as follows:

1) Stripper approaches customer and asks if he would like a lap dance

2) Customer says yes and pays her said amount

3) Stripper performs said lap dance while customer’s hands are firmly planted by his side

4) The song ends and en fin lap dance

I was expecting a similar such transaction except instead of fake titties in my face, there would be a banana hammock. Actually, I wasn’t expecting anything in my face at all, because I wasn’t planning on having a lap dance. (I suppose there’s one thing in life I’m too prude for … alright, alright, it's cuz I'm too cheap.)

Little did I know that at Hollywood Men, you’re getting a lap dance (or 7) and that’s that. The Dippers come off the stage and decide (by picking you up and putting you in a chair, well okay then! oh my!) who they’ll be gyrating on. And I must say, we were quite the popular table.

Who doesn't like some dark chocolate?As for what I thought to be the universal “no touching” rule, apparently HW Men has a “must touch” rule … After one of our ladies’ lap dances, she looked up at us with JBF hair and said,

“I think I just got titty fucked. And I liked it.”

That’s sorta how the night went. One surprise after another.

"What? This old thing?"The best part (besides getting to ride the rollercoaster for free…) was getting to see all of these women, who live in a world where we’re not thin enough, sexy enough, pretty enough feel as though we were the hottest women in the world. Hollywood Men should be prescribed as therapy.

Even though the Dippers were being paid, my homegirls and I, who are critiqued everyday on our physical appearance, got to be worshipped by underwear models.

It felt good. It felt right, like making up for lost time. Like some deep, powerful place in us, that the world had tried to smother in feelings of inadequacy, had been reawakened. And we liked it. Viva la banana hammock!