My perception of these places changed when I read an article in the L. A. Times Magazine (July, 1990 I believe) entitled "Taxi Dancers." It featured excerpts of interviews with dancers, customers, and then current and former club owners. The article mentioned about four or five clubs but mainly focused on the now closed Club Flamingo, which was then the most popular club. It said that you could dance with 19 and 20 year-old girls and that some heavy petting took place there.

When I finally went several months later I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of young, attractive girls working there, most of who were Caucasian. A lot of the customers did look like they may have been immigrants, but they were mostly middle class Asians instead of the working class Latinos I had expected. There were only a few old geezers and a surprising number of men in their 20's and 30's.

When I discovered hostess clubs I had been going to strip clubs on a semi-regular basis for about nine years. By the mid-80’s I had become jaded. The sight of a naked dancer on stage was no longer such a thrill; I needed something more “up close and personal.” By the late 80’s I was doing most of my clubbing at Fritz That’s It. Fritz table dances (they dance between your legs like at the nude clubs, but to call them laps is a misnomer) were $10 as they are now; and while they were relatively mild by nude club standards, by topless club standards they were pretty high contact. This was at a time when Fritz was known for having lots of beautiful, statuesque dancers.

While Fritz satisfied my desire for more physical contact, the magazine article intrigued me. I started my hostess clubbing at Flamingo and spent my first year there, then started splitting time between Flamingo and Dreamland in late 1991. For the first year and a half or so I mostly just danced and sat with the hostesses. My “fun” was confined to grinding and fondling on the dance floor. During that time the nastiest thing I saw was a guy getting a discreet stick shift at Flamingo once.

Then one night at Dreamland I clocked in a girl that I hadn’t danced with before. We went out on the dance floor and she started touching me very aggressively. I reciprocated by licking her neck and she got turned on. I suggested we go sit down, and no sooner had we done so than she pulled down her top to expose her boobs. Well, I didn’t need an engraved invitation to know what to do next. I started spending more time at Dreamland after that and the rest, as they say, is history.

This was back before the proliferation of all the nude strip clubs. At that time Tropical Lei was known as T&A and was still a relatively low mileage club, and Spearmint Rhino Industry didn’t exist. Jet Strip still had “couch dances,” which were done on benches near the stage and you had to place your hands behind your back. It wasn’t until I discovered Zbone’s site three years ago that I became aware of many of the nude clubs that had sprung up in the past decade. Only then did I find out that there were clubs like Hawaii Theater, Tropical Lei, and Spearmint Rhino, etc., that had taken SC mileage to a completely different level than what I had been accustomed to. But by this time hostess clubs were in my blood and I was an affirmed HC convert.

If you’re reading this you’re most likely either a strip club aficionado who stumbled across this while browsing Zbone’s site or perhaps you came here out of curiosity. The centerpiece of this site, at least until the new reader review board takes off, is the FAQ. The purpose of the FAQ is two-fold:

1. To provide you with an understanding of the basic dynamics of the HC experience. You need to understand that the HC experience isn't really about romance or even friendship with the girls. If you can have your fun and also stumble across romance or friendship then that is icing on the cake, but it is not something that should be actively sought out. I say this because it is one of the illusions that are constantly dangled in front of customers like the proverbial carrot on a stick. Their objective is to keep us moving in what they consider to be the right direction, i.e., giving them as much money as possible.
2. To educate you on how to deal with hostesses so that you make the most efficient use of your time and money. You need to understand that the girls collectively try to set prices and limit services so that you don’t fall into the same traps that are waiting for all newbies. Therefore, it is up to you to protect your interests and be focused on whatever your recreational objective is.

For questions and comments, email me, TenFree.