History of Strip Clubs

History of Strip Clubs

            Everybody knows what a strip club is even if you have never been to one. When you see the bright neon lights and the giant sign that says something like “Girls! Girls! Girls!” you know exactly what is going on behind the front door of that building. Knowing what a strip club is today, for most people, is common knowledge. The thing that most people do not ever think of is the history of strip clubs.

            Nobody knows who the very first person to begin stripping was, or where stripping began, but there is evidence that striping has been around for a long time. There is evidence that stripping has been around since the bible.[1] I find it fascinating that stripping has been around for so long because when most people think of stripping, they think about the modern form of stripping with poles in a club.

The 20^th century seems to be when the first actual dancing, or strip clubs began to pop up. Many of the clubs in the United States were not accepted and they may have been burnt down or the police may have raided them.[2] It’s obvious that opinions toward these types of clubs have changed because you can go to most big cities around the US and find more than one strip club. For example, Las Vegas has man different strip clubs to choose from.[3] 

            The 50’s is when stripping became more accepted. During this time, stripping was one of the main parts of the ever growing sex industry and stripping was also very marketable. For most of history stripping has been for females only but in the past 20 years or so, males have been stripping.[4] Pole dancing is pretty much what everyone thinks about when they hear the words “strip club” and that was not really a popular thing until about the 70’s and 80’s. Strip clubs have generally remained the same as far as the pole goes except some things have been added. The lap dances and contact dances are a couple of examples of things that have changed since the pole has been added to the strip clubs.[5] Stripping and strip clubs have evolved over hundreds of years and the modern strip club is much different from the clubs that were around many years ago.

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[1] "The history of stripping." Accessed March 28, 2014. http://www.montrealstriptease.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=28&lang=en.

[2] "The History of Exotic Dancing." Last modified May 14, 2013. Accessed March 28, 2014. http://www.busama.com/the-history-of-exotic-dancing.

[3] "The History of Exotic Dancing." Last modified May 14, 2013. Accessed March 28, 2014. http://www.busama.com/the-history-of-exotic-dancing.

[4] "The history of stripping." Accessed March 28, 2014. http://www.montrealstriptease.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=28&lang=en.

[5] "The history of stripping." Accessed March 28, 2014. http://www.montrealstriptease.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=28&lang=en.