The once vaunted and educationally-stimulating occupation of stripper is becoming an endangered career choice for sexy-babes from across the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). In a shocking expose on the state of the stripping industry the Toronto Star has uncovered the sordid truth; strip clubs in Toronto are in trouble.

I was deeply saddened by this news.

Apparently the stripping business isn’t as lucrative as it once was, having to compete with all things internet. The number of registered strippers has dropped to 1,254 from 2,834 in 1998. The ladies aren’t able to make as much money providing Gentlemen Of Culture with dancing lessons. Naked dancing lessons. Usually in the gentleman’s lap.

(I’m very offended by this picture!)

Although I haven’t been to a Toronto strip club in over fifteen or so years, I have fond memories of visiting bastions of Toronto culture, such as Zanzibar and Caddy’s, as a youngster.

I made it to my first strip club when I was seventeen years old. It was a different time back then. Kids in my day only stabbed each other once, not multiple times, and if you had to shoot somebody you made sure you hit your target, rather than shooting randomly into a crowd and hoping to hit the person you intended.

It was in Quebec City during Winter Carnival. A friend, Marcus, and I were separated from the rest of our group during a high-school ’skiing’ vacation. We wandered the streets of Old Quebec when, suddenly, we came across the entry to ‘Le Balzac’, which had pictures of half-naked women in the windows.

(Here’s one for the ladies. You can thank me later.)

Did we dare go in? Age of majority in Quebec was 18, so we were close to being legal, but we would have to rely on the good graces of the bouncer. Then we remembered an old saying: ‘When in Old Quebec, standing in front of Le Balzac, do as the Quebecois would do‘.

We decided the Quebecois would go into Le Balzac and have a beer or two and watch strippers. It ended up being four or five beers and we spent the entire evening in the joint. In retrospect it was a pretty stupid waste of time, but at the time it was great. Naked chicks ruled!

(Is this dog a stripper? Are you excited by the possibility, sicko?)

It was a grand evening, ending with my friend propositioning one of the strippers, being turned down, and then us being asked to leave by the bouncers.

That was the true story. The story that we told our friends when we made it back to the hotel was that we were invited into the secret stripper-room where strippers would perform weird and interesting acts of debauchery. If they liked you.

All of our friends, of course, wanted to visit Le Balzac first thing the next day. Eventually we had to fess up, but we had them going for most of the day.

We all went to Le Balzac again anyway, secret room or no.

And that’s my stripper story. Sure, my friends and I continued to go to strip joints afterwards, but it’s never the same as the first time.

While I was living in Eugene, one of my female co-workers liked to go to strip clubs and invited me to join her one day after work. I hadn’t been since college, about ten-years in the past at that point, and the prospect of going with a woman was too intriguing to pass up, so we went. Honestly it was a hell of a lot more fun going with a woman than with a bunch of horny teenagers.

Would I go to a strip club today? Honestly, I don’t have any desire to go to one. Besides the ethical issues, strip clubs are all flash and no substance. I would go again under the right conditions, with the right friends, who have the right attitude about it, but it’s not something that’s on any to-do list of mine.

Besides, there’s always the internet.

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