I've never attended a male strip show because before last year, male strippers always seemed silly to me. I remember watching the Chippendales perform on The Donahue Show in the '80s and thinking they looked ridiculous. A few years later, Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley mocked a Chippendales audition on Saturday Night Live. To me, male strippers existed solely for the amusement of drunken bachelorettes. However, my opinion of male strippers changed last summer when I saw Magic Mike. Would I pay to see Channing Tatum dance and take off his clothes? Absolutely.
Justin Whitfield and Taylor Cole, seasoned strippers from Houston and co-authors of Take It Off: The Naked Truth About Male Strippers, told me the movie was fairly accurate. In fact, the movie could have been based on their lives and not Tatum's. Whitfield got into dancing for the girls. It was tough to make money at first, but soon he was successful enough to encourage his gym buddy Cole to join him onstage. They became sought-after performers and calendar and romance-book cover models (think Fabio without the long hair). And yes, they enjoyed an ample supply of eager women.
As a newly single woman, I felt it was my obligation to give the whole match.com thing a whirl. For a while it was fun. I wasn't shy about initiating conversations, and I met some great guys that I otherwise would not have crossed paths with. I even went out with an ex-NFL wide receiver a few times. (I have a thing for football players.) I hadn't been on the dating scene since college, so the ease of finding a guy online outweighed the potential pitfalls.
But if you've tried online dating, you are aware of the downside: people puff up their profiles to sound uber-exciting, when in reality they are as boring as everyone else. Therein lies the trap: Most people avoid being honest and go to great lengths to package and present their best selves. But hey, why wouldn't they? They only have a few seconds to capture someone's attention.