NCidity & money
Strip clubs aren’t
a-pole-ing to everyone
The world of strip clubs
has both fans and critics,
and it probably always will
Jessica Richelderfer
Managing Editor
The dancer waltzes onstage,
scantily clad but clothed nonethe
less. She teases her audience with a
twirl around the pole before de
scending on the crowd. She then
slowly begins taking off pieces of her
flashy outfit in tune to the music and
starts to make her rounds.
She catches a man’s eye, and he
responds with an eager nod. She
dances over to a table, flashing her
breasts as she gives him a lap dance.
He holds up a dollar bill from the pile
stacked high in front of him, and she
grabs it with her cleavage. The dance
is over, and he waits for the next.
For many college students, espe
cially men, a night spent at a strip
club is harmless fun. People get to
see naked women — live. The
dancers make money, and plenty of
it — sometimes to feed themselves
or their families, other times to put
themselves through school.
But historically, strip clubs have
also been a hotbed for sexual assault,
drug abuse and other dangerous
crime. While stripping is legal in
most states, women who work at
strip clubs are subject to many of the
same dangers as adult film stars and
sex workers.
Some people say adult dance
clubs in the Eugene-Springfield area
generally are much tamer and clean
er than clubs in bigger cities. Univer
sity senior Robert Collett, who goes
to strip clubs with friends a few
times every month, said in some
larger cities, he’s seen bigger prob
lems with drug addiction and what
he called “shady and perverted”
managers and patrons.
“The whole crowd is less dirty
here,” he said.
He added that he’d go more often
if he had the money — although he
does feel bad for the dancers.
“It’s degrading, for sure; I would
never let my daughter do it,” Collett
said. “They don’t like it, but they’re
doing it for the money. They do like
it when you bring girls in — they’re
more comfortable with you.”
And while he enjoys interacting
with the dancers, he said it’s hard
not to judge them, adding he would
never date a girl who strips because
she is essentially selling her self-re
spect for money.
“If you’re willing to take off your
clothes and dance in front of a
nasty, greasy guy with a mullet,
then how am I going to love or
respect you?” he said.
Freshman Anthony Warren said
he thinks stripping is a degradation
not only to the women, but to soci
ety as well.
“If girls feel it empowers them,
fine — but I think they could proba
bly show a lot more respect for
themselves,” he said. “It’s just kind
of a perverted sense of how you
should spend your Friday night.”
Turn to Strip, page 8B
Photo illustration by Adam Amato Emerald
Many college students frequent the small-town strip clubs in the Eugene-Springfield area on weekends.
Hentai amme serves up some dark fantasy, tentacles, violation
Pat
Payne
The return of
Captain Sensible
As anyone who knows me can attest, I
am an otaku — a rabid fan of Japanese
animation. Japanese animators have de
veloped a range of animated classics,
from kids’ stuff like “My Neighbor Totoro”
to poignant war dramas like “Grave of the
Fireflies” to slick sci-fi works in the vein
of “Ghost in the Shell.”
However, I’m not going to be talking
about any of these bona fide treasures. In
stead, this article is about anime’s slightly
saucier side, hentai (literally, “sexually per
verted”) anime. Where a film by Oshii
Mamoru or Miyazaki Hayao almost always
shows up some of the best stuff Disney can
offer, hentai is nothing more than low
grade whacking material.
I want to stress to all the zealous “fun
police” reading (yes, both of you) that not
all anime is hentai porn. Very little, in
fact. We’re talking here about a niche
market compared to the sales of main
stream anime. And, just to clear the air,
I’m by no means a prude and enjoy a little
“harmless visual stimulation” as much as
most. I’ll admit it: I’ve watched some of
the more talked-about titles, more or less
to see what all the fuss was about.
The best way to describe the idea of
hentai is to say this: Take the sickest fan
tasy you can, and then imagine it poorly
animated and sold for $30. Just make
sure your sickest fantasy includes
demons. You’ll see why in a second.
Just looking at the boxes gives you a
pretty good indication of the title’s con
tents. Take a look at the variety of hentai
plots: “Angel of Darkness,” where college
girls are violated by alien tentacles; “Ad
venture Kid,” where adventuring women
are violated by computer tentacles; “La
Blue Girl,” where a ninja girl is violated
by demonic tentacles. And here’s an oldie
but a baddie: “Urotsukidoji,” where
everyone is violated by all kinds of tenta
cles. Yes, for some reason, makers ofhen
tai in Japan are, for whatever reason, ob
sessed with tentacle violation. In other
words, the variety and scope of stories
that anime is famous for are nowhere to
be found in hentai.
Further, if you’ve seen these shows,
you’d know just how bad the production
values are — starting with the animation.
“Lupin III: The Casde of Cagliostro” these
Turn to Payne, page 5B
Tke Perfect 2
Way to
Begin or End
an Evening
ONSEN
Spa Rental* and Sale*
1883 Garden Ave. Eugene
(two blocks North of U of 0 dorms)
Call for Reservations
345-9048
675 Lincoln St
Eugene
541-342-6585
1425 Monroe St
Corvallis
541-738-7711
Bod vice/ v/. Good vice/
Hole in the
ozone • • •
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lung...
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