Red or Blue, the only color these ladies are worried about is GREEN!! Florida Strippers Believe Republican Convention Will Make Them Big Money Go-Go and Ezili are dancing cheek to cheek on a Friday night. That is to say they’re spinning, glute to glute, on a polished chrome pole at a strip club. A thunderstorm leaves puddles in the parking lot under a sign that boasts “OMG! These girls are hot!” The strippers try to “make it rain” inside, too: When patrons approve of their gyrations by slipping credit cards into machines that look like ATMs, the sound of recorded thunder rolls across the stage. Sure enough, $1 bills flutter from the ceiling onto the twirling twosome. The joint is all mirrors, throbbing music, flashing neon and spotlights. Voluptuous young women wearing G-strings, stiletto heels and not much else teeter over the spanking new, Day-Glo acid trip of a carpet. But there’s no liquor served here, because in Tampa they can’t offer both booze and totally naked women under the same roof. Speaking of the roof, there’s a spaceship up there that features $80 semiprivate “quick launch” lap dances. After the 10-minute show, which includes a gravity-defying “death lay” against the mirrored ceiling, Go-Go retires to another mirrored room, where she boots up a laptop and chats with fans online via a program called “Club Cam.” Ezili, who is studying to be a dental assistant, strolls in clutching two fat stacks of dollar bills — $85 for her and $85 for Go-Go after the house takes its cut. Not bad, but they’re hoping for a whole lot more when the Republicans come to town Monday. They’re counting on the GOP convention to make it rain for a whole week. These clubs aren’t just sitting idly by and WAITING for wealthy politicians, they are going after them! Many clubs have taken out ads inviting GOP delegates “to party like a liberal” in a city where the “poles are open all night.” City officials say the convention, expected to draw more than 50,000 visitors, could be Tampa’s biggest party ever. Imagine all those rainmakers. A strip club with a spaceship on the roof seems an odd place to expect Republicans. At first blush, one might not equate lap dances with the political party that wraps itself in buttoned-down family values. But at convention time, even upstanding men seem to seek out undressed women. When the Christian group Promise Keepers held a convention in Tampa a couple of years ago, attendees flooded the 2001 Odyssey, co-owner Jim Kleinhans recalls. They had such a good time that “they kept their promise to come back the next night.” Many male convention-goers, regardless of political stripe, are drawn to the sexual underground, according to a study conducted by Baylor University business professor Scott Cunningham. He examined sex ads placed online around the time of the 2008 conventions in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Denver. Ads for prostitutes and escorts jumped 25% to 40%. Cunningham offers a range of possible explanations — chief among them anonymity, or what he calls “the reduced likelihood of future shaming.” “Reduced likelihood” our a$$! It’s all fun and games until Xotica sends her story to a blog or newspaper. But play on playas, have the time of your lives, just make sure you wash the glitter off of your face before you go home. Image via Shutterstock Source Continue reading →
