I’ve noticed a curious similarity between female strippers and military men. I mean besides the fact that they seem to mutually benefit from each other’s company. My roommate is a stripper, and my ex was in the navy, so I know what I’m talking about. I have outlined my findings below.
1.) Both jobs kill your sex drive.
When you simulate or perform sexual/erotic acts for money it cheapens the actual experience. I’ve heard from more than one stripper that it is sometimes difficult to enjoy sex with their mates because they have gotten so used to simply playing the part. Sex becomes almost unreal, dirty, and unsatisfying.
You get a bunch of men and throw them on a ship or in boot camp together for months at a time with no vaginally sound means of sexual gratification. They’re going to get frustrated and aggressive. They’re going to be distracted. Their judgement will fail. Not good in times of crises. Luckily the military has a solution for this, a sort of anti-viagra. I’m not sure what it is chemically, but they put it in the mashed potatoes, and it effectively kills the sex drive.
2.) Members of both groups tend to have bad reputations.
Everyone knows that strippers are uneducated sluts that do drugs and prostitution on the side.
Everyone knows that military men are uneducated sluts that do drugs and patronize prostitutes on the side.
3.) Both have “uniforms” which are regarded by many as sexy.
I’ve seen some of my roommate’s work costumes. Heels I don’t think I could walk in, let alone dance. G-strings in every conceivable color and textile. She has several 6x25-inch squares of diaphanous material, the purpose of which I can only guess is to tie around her fecund little ass. She also wears these bra-type-more-like-bullet-proof-breast-plate devices meant to lift and squeeze her tiny breasts into existence. The men must like it, because they keep coming back for more.
I know plenty of women who think military uniforms are extremely sexy. I think it’s the conveyance of power, the appearance of some higher code of ethics, the appeal to a notion of heroic chivalry that is attractive. Take the sailor’s formal whites, for example. A uniform that has seen little or no change in 60 years, conveying the illustrious history of the navy. The bellbottom pants connoting power and virility. The white cap asserting authority. The twelve difficult buttons in the crotch of the pants displaying the sailor’s indefatigable self-discipline in matters of the libido (see #1) and the bladder. Sexy indeed.
4.) Both are easy, brainless jobs.
If you have breasts and can walk, you can be a stripper.
If you have a pulse and can follow orders, you can be in the military.
But this also means that...
5.) When you finally get out, you can’t find a “real” job.
My roommate has been stripping for five years. She’s quitting in January. She has no practical experience and no skills. Once she actually starts looking for employment, she may be sorely disillusioned, especially in the wages.
When you get discharged from the military, you are offered classes on how to procure a civilian job. That these classes even exist speaks volumes about the nature of working for the military, and the government in general, I suspect. You give up some of the best years of your life only to emerge with no practical experience and no skills.
But the smarter ones at least enter into these fields with a plan...
6.) Both involve whoring yourself out in order to go to college.
Of course stripping isn’t the only alternative for funding a college education. You could go into the military.
Four years of primarily unrewarding committment to an institution that has to bribe its members to join (up to $30,000 with the GI Bill) and then regards them as primarily expendable.
Ironically enough, most college graduates also find themselves thrust into the “real world” with little practical experience and few skills.
7.) Two of the only jobs that encourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Who else but a stripper can drink on the job? It’s actually encouraged. The dancers usually forfeit what would be their wages in order to pay the fee to work the club, and they keep all their tips. So neither party makes money off the other. They just suck the patrons dry. The clubs make their money by selling drinks. If a man wants to buy a stripper a drink, or a couple of drinks, the club makes money.
Alright, so maybe the military doesn’t permit you to drink on the job, but they do encourage off duty consumption. Alcohol keeps them complacent. Their regret of ever listening to the mad ravings inside their puny brains which told them to enlist in the first place diminishes.
8.) Both sap the life out of you and leave you cynical: relationships dissolved, spirit broken, and body bruised.
Some people have difficulty accepting those who work in the sex industry (see #2). This type of work can sour romantic relationships and leave you emotionally scarred. When women finally quit, they are old beyond their years, used up. They are often leery of men, adjusting to hardening mammarian prosthetics, having contracted some mysterious disease from sources unknown for which no one will take responsibility.
I’ve seen relationships smashed by a partner’s decision to embark on a stint or career in the military. Sometimes things happen when a partner is absent for long periods of time. And when discharged they may be damaged, psychologically and physically; leery of the government, adjusting to prosthetic appendages, having contracted some mysterious disease from sources unknown for which the government will not take responsibility.
I’m not sure yet as to the significance of these similarities. Coincidence, or conspiracy? Got a theory? Email me and let me know.
Copyright 12/98 Jennifer Chung.
All rights reserved.
Humbug.