I’m a girl and I like strip clubs, so what? Some people might think it’s weird, and come to think of it I can’t really come up with a reason why it’s not. I think they’re fun. Sometimes it’s a little sad to think that this is the only way most of these girls can make a living (and also scary–will I have to strip one day just to make it out there in the big bad world? Don’t make me graduate.) Overall, it’s a funny experience. There are men there paying ridiculous amounts to have girls who are not in the least bit attracted to them dance on their laps for about five minutes and then leave and dance on the guy’s friend.

Anyway, I’ve been living in the city for two months now and I realized last week that I had not yet visited an NYC strip club. And that was not acceptable. So my friend and I (she also likes strip clubs, not that weird) stumbled upon this place a few blocks from her apartment. It didn’t look that trashy (read: there were no crack whores visible from outside), so we walked up.

First things first: $20 cover charge? No thanks. If I really wanted to, I could go stare at my own boobs in a mirror for a while for free. Not as fun, but possible. So we refuse, and they let us in anyway. We’ll throw down some ones, gentlemen, I promise.

So as we’re going in, we meet this girl who’s walking in solo. Since she’s alone, we figure she’s on the same level of strip club appreciation as us. So we chat her up, and turns out she is a TALKER. She did not leave our sides the entire night. So the three of us skip downstairs hand in hand (just kidding, we walked) and they give us a table right in front of the main stage. Thanks boys, I feel like a VIP. But I don’t know what that really means in a strip club.

We sit down and this other girl (we’ll call her the talker) starts telling us about how she owns a massage company and a bunch of girls work for her that also work here and blah blah blah and at one point we start to feel like she’s some Heidi Fleiss-type madam trying to suck us into her world of strippers and cocaine. And massages. I don’t know if you get our motive here lady, this is seriously just an innocent trip to a club that happens to be crawling with topless women. But I don’t think she really gets it, and she ends up paying one of her “employees” (who is not topless, but wearing a tiny red dress) to give us both shoulder massages in our seats. Don’t get me wrong, it was fabulous, but I think at this point we had started to give off the wrong impression. Getting massages from a girl in a strip club? I can only guess what the ladies working there were thinking. Are these girls lesbians? Are they here to audition? Do you think I can get their numbers??

Why yes, strippers, you CAN have my number.

So after the massages and a few (very overpriced) drinks, a little blonde girl in teeny lingerie came and took the empty seat next to me. Oh great, the team of strippers has sent her over to investigate this table of strange girls. So we start to chat, me distracted by the fact that I had just seen her topless with her hands all over the fat man in the corner and her telling me about how she grew up in Florida and recently moved to the city and could use a few suggestions on where to go out.

Listen, girl, I am not from the city and I’m leaving next Saturday. I told her this, but she ignored it, took my phone out of my lap and punched in her number. Then called herself so she had mine. This was all happening so fast. Are we friends? Do I have a stripper friend? Why yes, you do.

Soon after, my new bestie got called up to the top floor to work a private bachelor party. Sadly, I will probably never see her again. But I did get a text the next morning that said “hey did you guys have fun last night?” And there was a smiley face. What a friendly stripper.

This was long, I know, but if you’re still here, I just want to let you know that we still text each other. I can only hope we go out together before I leave the city. Like, where do strippers go out? I just hope she doesn’t think I want to be more than friends.

Need more stripper fun? Check out our gallery of the hottest stripper shoes below

initiating the gallery...

Click on each photo to seen the next slide

Them's fighting words, Lindsay.

For those of you living under a rock (or in a cubicle thanks to that stupid unpaid internship deal) these past couple of days, Lindsay “Lilo” Lohan has been sentenced to 90 days in the slammer for….A LOT OF THINGS: cocaine possession, tampering with her SCRAM bracelet, driving drunk on the freeway…the list goes on. Sadness for Linds (and the paparazzi who will have nothing to do for 3 months.

Even worse, thanks to her nice little message (“F**K U”) painted on her nails in court, Ms. Lohan may be spending even more time behind bars for contempt of court. Buuuurn.

We’re all about punishing Lindsay for all of her less-than-flattering indiscretions, but if Linds is getting bonus jail time for writing F U on her nails, she better be getting even more for these crimes against humanity:

Her spread (eagle) in Muse Magazine

Not only was this pretty much the worst idea ever for “cleaning up your image,” but haven’t we seen enough of her boobage without having a professional photographer involved?

Her performance (or lack therof) in Georgia Rule

If I missed an entire day of my internship, I’d get the boot. Lilo should get an extra day in the clink for every hour she wasted on set.

I Know Who Killed Me

Daddy issues are a reason to be incarcerated, right?

One word: Ungaro

The entire fashion world was issuing Ms. Lohan fashion tickets for this hot mess of a collaboration. Making women wear this? Go to jail, Linds. Go directly to jail.

Her self-tanning spray

The only thing that should be that color orange is her jumpsuit. ZING!

Um. This.

This is 100% assault. On my eyes. She needs to be punished.

Her relationship with Aaron Carter

It’s bad enough that she dated one of the biggest losers in Hollywood, but she also stole said loser from good girl and major sweetheart, Hilary Duff. Thieves get jail time, yes?

Lilo really needs to stop crying about this whole “90 day” thing. By our calculations, she’s getting off easier than Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton combined.

I’m a stripper.

Well, not really, but I have done a good number of amateur nights. I’ve danced on stage naked for strangers, swung around the pole, and even given private dances. I was incredibly nervous my first time, but realized quickly that it was EASY and exhilarating.

I thought this week I would share some tips with you guys on how to give the perfect striptease – I promise it’s easier than you think! Even more, it’s fun and definitely something new and exciting for you and your partner to share. He’ll love seeing you in a sexy new light and you’ll love the power you have to turn him to putty in your hands.

Pick Music Your Comfortable With
Pick a song you know and make sure it’s something you’re comfortable moving to. You don’t have to be a good dancer to give a good strip tease, you just have to be comfortably with whatever you’re doing. If you’re unsure of  your dance moves, pick something slow. If you love to bump and grind, pick something with a faster pace. The song choice doesn’t matter; it’s how you move with it that does.

Take Your Time
The most important component of a strip-tease is the stripping; once all your clothes are off you’re just dancing around naked (your boyfriend will probably love it, but you’ll feel awkward). Take your time removing each item, and wear clothes with buttons or zippers that you can undo slowly…and without awkwardly pulling them over your head.

Be Sensual
Like I said before, you don’t have to be a good dancer to give a good strip tease. Move slowly and sensually. It’s corny but I have to say it anyway: make love to the music. Look like YOU’RE the one getting sexual pleasure from the dance, not whoever is watching you.

Be Interactive
Make eye contact. Give a sexy smile. Play with your partner’s hair or clothing. Sit in their lap. Basically, make your audience part of the experience.

Have Fun
One night I was on stage swinging my legs around and my shoe flung off. Mortifying, right? I kept my cool and laughed it off, joked about it to the few guys who saw, and ended up making even more tips. I assume most of you will probably be dancing for a special someone rather than a group a strangers, so it should be even easier to laugh off any act of clumsiness.

Keep Clean
Believe it or not, the shoe incident wasn’t the most embarrassing stripping experience I’ve ever had. Once I was on stage and realized I had bits of toilet paper stuck in my naughty-bits. I was MORTIFIED and still had to finish my set. Since then I’ve never gone on stage before examining the area thoroughly and I suggest you do the same.

Have a Drink
It’s common knowledge that you feel a little less inhibited when there’s some liquid courage in your system. If you’re extremely nervous or uncomfortable, have a drink before your man arrives. But only a drink; getting woozy and face-planting between his legs isn’t the sexiest part of a striptease.

There you have it, a few simple steps to the perfect striptease. And who knows, if you enjoy it maybe I’ll see you at amateur night some time!

Damn, girl. She’s lookin’ fiiiine.

And this is why you should never let your bf see a stripper.

Gwen Stefani’s had 2 kids?!

Rihanna doesn’t need a restraining order.

Everyone hates Jon and Kate.

Who’s nominated for a VMA?

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site.  We love a strong woman, so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like supergirls!) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

A few years back, it seemed like everybody and their mother (literally) was getting their workout by “workin’ it” on a pole (even here at CollegeCandy!). But now, even though the trendiness has faded away, a lot of these pole-dancing and strip aerobics classes are still hanging around. So is it still OK to work up a sweat exotic-dancer style, or is it just skanky?

On the one hand, most of us work out because we want to look sexy (sure, health is good, but let’s be honest; you don’t suddenly decide to be “healthier” around bikini season), but during most workouts we tend to look and feel closer to “recently dragged by a truck” than “sexpot.” So it makes sense to try and make exercise feel sexy – it boosts self-confidence and makes you want to workout more. And learning to give an aerobic lap dance is probably more fun than the elliptical machine (why do you taunt me, elliptical machine!?). Plus, in my extensive scientific research (AKA: asking guys I know) I have discovered that stippercising is the #1 workout your boyfriend is likely to support – you’re shocked, I know.

But isn’t the guy side of it kind of a problem? Sure, we all want to look and feel good, but shouldn’t we want to do for ourselves? And seriously, you aren’t going to use those pole-dancing skills to entertain yourself, which means that you end up taking the class for at least the fringe benefit of being able to turn a guy on (well, more “on”). Do we really want to encourage the idea that even the things we do for ourselves are really about guys? And do we really want to explain those inevitable pictures of us showing off our mad lap-dance skills after too many tequila shots?

So what do you think? Is strippercising a sexy way to get in shape (and acquire some fun new skills along the way) or an over-sexed trend that needs to die?

There are few topics in a relationship that cause more controversy than strip clubs. Many of us can’t understand why our man would need to watch some other girl strip it off and shake her ass in his face when he can have our naked ass in his face whenever he wants it (for free, I might add).  And isn’t watching some other girl get naked a form of cheating? He wouldn’t like it if I let some random dude come over and rub his crotch in (or on) my face for $5.

So why do guys do it? And what is the appeal of having some girl rub her boobs on him if he has to stick a few bucks in her panties to do so? I haven’t spent much time in strip clubs, so I turned to someone who does. Frequently. And loves it.

Here is the strip club lowdown from a dude who knows it (very) well.

A few months ago my roommate and I went to a strip club with some friends. I was expecting a trashy bar with dirty-looking girls, but it wasn’t like that at all. The club was small, clean, and felt safe. The girls were all attractive, not supermodels, but they looked real. And we had a blast.

We made friends with a few of the girls, and even got one’s email address. She told us how much fun she had dancing and how empowered and sexy she felt afterward. We left that night wanting to be strippers, and swore we would do amateur night some day.

Well, we finally did it.

Amateur night happens every Tuesday. The club is 45 minutes outside the city, and neither of us have cars, so it was tricky trying to find a day we both didn’t have homework and could get a ride. My roommate’s friend offered to drive us and we no longer had any excuse to put it off.

I was nervous as hell. I hate being on stage, and I’m not very confident in my dancing skills. I’ve never really been that shy about being naked, though. Still, when you combine the three together, it’s pretty damn frightening.

I had a few (much needed) drinks beforehand to kill my nerves, but was careful not too drink so much that I wouldn’t be able to balance in my heals. When we got there, the stripper who we had made friends with let us borrow some outfits. I was in a see-through lacy white outfit and my roommate had a see-through lacy black one. Typical stripper-wear.

We had both burned CDs with the songs we wanted, but the DJ told us we danced to two songs, not just one. We told him to pick a slow song for our second songs, because dancing to two fast songs would wear us out.

It was a pretty slow night at the club (only about ten customers) and we were the only two amateurs. All the real strippers got a turn before we went on. Talk about intimidating! But it did help to watch them and get some ideas.

My roommate went first. She was AMAZING! Better than some of the strippers in the club. She does Rocky Horror Picture Show, so she’s used to being on stage half-naked. This was just the natural next step. Her first song, the Toxic remake by A Static Lullaby, was awesome. She rocked out and everyone loved it. The song the DJ picked for her kind of sucked, but she worked it.

Watching her (and how much the crowd loved her) made me even more nervous, but I couldn’t back out now.

My first song, C’est Beau La Bourgousie by Discobitch started playing and I made my way over to the pole. I don’t remember much of what happened afterward. I tend to blank out when I’m on stage. I just focused on keeping moving, circling the stage and dancing for whoever had money out. I even spun around the pole the few times, which I had no clue I even knew how to do.

The song the DJ picked for me was Tonight and the Rest of My Life by Nina Gordon, which was great because I actually knew it. The second song is when you take your panties off, so I spent most of the song rolling around on the floor naked. I used to do gymnastics, so I pulled off a few splits.

Collecting my money when they song ended was the hardest part. There I was scampering around naked on the stage trying to collect handfuls of dollar bills while the next girl is trying to dance. I made about sixty dollars. Not bad for five minutes!

Overall, I had a great time. I left feeling pumped up and wishing I could have danced a second time! It was definitely an experience worth having. My roommate told me she felt a little guilty this morning, but I don’t at all. I guess it’s not for everyone, but if you’re confident in your body and can overcome the stigmas we all have about stripping, I would encourage you to try it. If a strip club isn’t your scene, why not put on private strip tease for a significant other? It’s a great way to feel confident and sexy.

What do you guys think, would you ever strip? Comment below.

Following in the footsteps of VH1′s The Pick Up Artist, comes a similar You-Suck-At-Dating-So-Let’s-Fix-Your-Flaws-Before-You-Start-Throwing-Birthday-Parties-For-Your-Cats show. This time, we watch as GIRLS get some harsh reality about what we do that turn off the MEN. Hosted by the ever beautiful and brutally honest Steve Ward, a master matchmaker and easy-on-the-eyes male, this show follows eight single ladies looking for love as they journey through a “Tough Love Boot Camp.”

Each episode will revolve around one theme and include a Dating 101 class, a field exercise (a date!), and end with a group therapy session where one girl is chosen for doing the worst. Unlike The Pick Up Artist, nobody gets booted off, but the worst contestant will get an embarrassing critique during therapy. This is good news for us viewers because we get to learn some lessons along with the girls (finally, a reality show that’s actually useful!), but thankfully don’t have to do it on national TV!

With issues ranging from trust, intimacy, communication, ex-boyfriends, and the infamous text-aholism, Steve works with these ladies to break their bad habits in hopes of finding The One. Each girl has a classic case of Chase-A-Guy-Away-itis and is nicknamed for their main issue. I’m sure we can all find one girl we relate to the most, so I challenge you to follow your sistah’s progress. Learn some lessons along with your favorite gal and root for her to find love. So, which girl are you?

Abiola (Miss Picky) – The self-proclaimed Princess whose standards are so high that she critiques guys based on a 10 point scale. Props to her for being an independant diva, but will she learn to give guys a chance or continue to write them off before even learning their last name?

Arian (Miss Party Girl) – A former stripper and hardcore partier who dates by a “two week” rule, this chica is dealing with some daddy issues. Claiming that all men are unfaithful, she protects herself by immediately airing her dirty laundry in hopes that a guy will stay with her despite her flaws. Her penchant for TMI and overly-sexual nature keeps decent guys at arms length.

Jacklyn (Miss Wedding Obsessed) – This 23 year old, small-town, wannabe bride is terrified that her “clock is ticking” and hopes to be married by 25. Having already chosen her wedding dress, centerpieces, invitations and photographer, this commitment-minded Southern Belle scares guys off like Jennifer Aniston!

Jessa (Miss Too Much Too Soon) – This insecure textaholic smothers guys with her obsessive nature. Taking pics of them in their sleep, over-analyzing every word and stalking their Facebooks have the men running for the hills. Will she take Steve’s advice and finally learn how to enjoy the moment?

Jody (Miss Lone Ranger) – This 30 year old has found total success in the workplace, but has no one at home to share it with. Too much focus on work and no play has left this hard worker alone and lonely. Although a wonderful role model for goal-oriented girls, can she stop obsessing about work and make time for a real relationship?

Natasha (Miss Fixing The Wrong Guys) – Suffering from the Nurse Curse, she is attracted to men with issues and hopes to be the one girl who can change him for the better. Being too nice and caring, she allows these hot messes to walk all over her.

Stasha (Miss Ball Buster) – This former Playmate’s alpha female attitude and constant bragging intimidates every single guy she meets. Her harsh, critical and upfront demeanor are her way of putting up walls to keep out “losers.” Can this self-proclaimed “sheep in wolves clothing” let down her guard and let in her match?

Taylor (Miss Gold Digger) – A get-what-I-want Daddy’s girl, this unapologetic bitch won’t settle for anything less than “the finer things in life.” Claiming that guys are intimidated by her looks and the attention she gets, she lets her shallow standards do the talking.

Can you relate to any of these ladies? If not, congratulations, but some of us may still be wondering why we’re single. Though these girls do have great things to offer, their issues are stopping them just short of finding true love. Let’s watch as they break down their walls, correct their mistakes and let Steve use an electrocution device to zap away their bad habits. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride…

(Show airs Sundays at 10PM, so watch and come back Monday morning for a recap!)

[Exercise, health and fitness are an important part of every woman’s life. But how do you know if you’re doing it right? And what new findings, tips and advice will help you reach your health fitness goals? Kelly, our fitness guru, will keep you updated every Monday with the latest and most beneficial news and advice for your health and body. Even if it involves some...er...alternative workouts.]

Now, I know what you may be thinking: I’m the same lady who, a few months ago, wrote a blog about how I felt about the ladies of the pole. You know – strippers. Now, while I voiced my opinion on how I felt about my boyfriend visiting them, I did not (and made it a point not to) bash strippers for what they were doing (their job).

So, when my girlfriend called me up a few weeks ago and asked me if I’d like to try a new workout class, which happened to be Introductory Pole Dancing, I was game. Hey, if nothing else I could get a feel for what it’s all about and maybe learn a thing or two… Plus, I had heard it was great exercise.

So, for $15 bucks, I signed up for my 90 minute (very long class!) workout around the pole.

When the class began, my girlfriends and I went into the studio and did about 30-45 minutes of intense stretching and warm-ups. Now, coming from an individual who barely stretches when she works out, this was something I wasn’t used to; I was using muscles that I didn’t think I even had! I cramped up quite a bit during the warm up, and I hadn’t even gotten near a pole yet.

Once we finally approached the pole, we started learning how to walk around it, were taught one trick, then eventually built up to a sequence combining sexy walking, the pole trick, and moving our bodies around the pole. It was different; I will admit I started cracking up a few times as the instructor told me to run my fingers through my hair. However, I felt like I got the hang of the simple moves and started to really get into it. After 90 minutes, I was bummed the class was over and anxious to sign up for more.

I enrolled in the six week Level 1 program.

This class is not as I pictured; I imagined lots of raunchy stripper moves, stripper heels and stripper hair. And it’s not. The Pole Dancing class was about strengthening your core muscles and your body, and learning how to connect with yourself as a female. It’s invigorating and empowering…and one hell of a workout!

Not only that – the class was fun! There is no better way to get a workout than in an environment that doesn’t feel like work (until you feel the aches and pains the next morning), and this class was definitely more fun than a 45 minute trip to the weight room.

Pole dancing may not be for you – though I do think everyone should try it! – but some alternative and new form of exercising will be. This class taught me to open up and incorporate something new into my workout routine, and you should too. Hip hop dance? Bike riding? Trampoline classes? Try something different. You (and your body) will not regret it.

(Photo courtesy of newsday.com)

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