Oops there goes her shirt (and my money)

It's going to be a hot weekend. Junior Mike Cozy is almost panting with excitement. He counts the money he earned from working at the library, carefully extracting $30. He's finally spending an evening with the girl he can't stop thinking about. Dinner, dancing, maybe a little more . . . Cozy grins nervously.

Stuffing his wallet into his pocket, Cozy climbs into his cousin's car and heads for a night of fun—at a strip club. There, the evening plays out just as he had hoped. "I grabbed a seat and watched some half-naked women gyrate," says Cozy.

Although some Blazer guys still get their kicks with girls who are fully clothed, others find this routine a bit too mundane. According to an informal Silver Chips poll of 100 male upperclassmen, 37 percent of Blair guys have gone to a strip club to see a little bit of the action that they feel girls their age just can't provide. "It was the best experience of my life," raves senior Jaron Aikens. "But it was probably also the weirdest experience I've ever had in my life."

The strip club industry, which appears in The Yellow Pages under the demure title of "Adult Entertainment," is prospering in the Maryland and D.C. area. Young adults under 21 years of age are generally not admitted, both because the clubs tend to double as bars and because many people feel that teenagers are not old enough for the club environment.

Young Chu, manager of the Legend Night Club in Maryland, feels that adolescents are simply not ready for the experience of a nude club. "They shouldn't be rushed to know anything," he says. "Certain ages should stay with certain things."

Law officials agree. According to Montgomery County sex crimes officer Mike Ruscher, Appendix D of the "Sexual Practices and Nude Dancing" section of the Montgomery County Code outlaws prostitution, nude dancing, pornography and other sexually explicit behavior, no matter how old the viewers.

In D.C., where many Blazers go to find accessible strip clubs, adult clubs are still legal. But according to Ruscher, they are being "grandfathered" out, which means that existing strip clubs may continue to operate but no new strip clubs may open.

Lap dances, according to the Montgomery County code, fall into the category of prostitution. "Let's say a dancer decides she's going to take you in the back, give you a lap dance, have you pay her," Ruscher explains. "Then you're crossing into straight-out prostitution."

According to Ruscher, lap dancing occurs mainly on the west coast and is largely a thing of the past. Blazers beg to differ. Senior Mario Bracamontes, who went to a strip club with a group of friends this summer, gladly paid $20 for a lap dance and feels that it was the highlight of his evening. He wistfully recalls his experience with that special stripper. "She was my girl," he relates animatedly. He reminisces about what he did as she danced. "Oh man, what didn't I do?" he says.

Junior Josh Richardson, who bought his lap dance with Christmas money he received from his parents, remembers the experience slightly differently. "I just sat in the chair," he says. Richardson was disappointed to find that the dancers were not quite as peppy as he had hoped. "They were all pretty sullen," he says.

Although Chu contends that the dancers love and respect their job, some Blazers are willing to admit that the dancers have reason to be less than happy. "It's so degrading," says Aikens. "How could a woman just stand up there dancing and not care? I don't think any woman would ever feel the same about herself after being to a strip club."

Aikens allows, however, that he would return to a strip club if given the chance. "I don't support degrading women, but I do support having a good time," he says. "Strip clubs are cool!"

Aikens and his fellow Blazers generally give vague reasons for attending strip clubs: there was nothing else to do, it was just a social thing, everyone's doing it. But according to Ruscher, everyone doing it could mean everyone doing time. He mentions the numerous hazards associated with attending the alcohol-saturated clubs. "Once they leave the bar, they're driving drunk," he says. "And in the bar itself there are fights, victimization of the kids, undercover cops."

Weird, degrading and dangerous as they may be, strip clubs still attract many Blazer boys. So ladies, next time you're wondering where the boys go on the weekend (and where all of their Christmas money goes), you know where to look.