I took a lap dancing class.
I tried to think of a better beginning but lets keep it simple. Facts up front. I did. I paid somebody to teach me, or I guess I should say, try to teach me, how to lap dance. Was I preparing for something? You might be asking. Did you have a specific audience in mind? Were you auditioning for a role? Career change? Nope. Nope. Nope. My friend invited me and I said yes. Actually, my friend was going with another friend and I asked if I could join. I want to give you the closest version of the truth that I can.
Let me just preface this by saying I have never even tried to perform a lap dance in my life. I am not prone towards strip tease acts as a form of seduction. I might put on a dance routine to get the attention of a man but a fully clothed Robot/Macarena combo or a messy version of the Hustle with an occasional pelvic thrust. A random pelvic thrust is my indication that I am doing a sexy dance, sometimes coupled with a verbal acknowledgement like "I’m dancing sexy style"
I had a vision of a room with a dozen women standing in front of chairs where the torso of male mannequins had been placed, a feeling on congeniality in the air, smiling ladies waiting to have a good time. The teacher turns on the music and playfully demonstrates a lap dance on her dismembered male mannequin. The students simulate her movements. Nobody breaks a sweat. It’s just a low key good old time.
Not the case. I arrived in yoga pants, t shirt and sneakers, as the class description had indicated “wear comfortable clothing”. I entered the room to see some attendees in stripper heels, bralettes and boyshorts. I’ll be honest, my competitive nature was triggered and I had to stop myself from raising my hand to complain to the teacher “This isn’t fair. I didn’t know we were supposed to dress the part” I bit my tongue. Just because they looked more like lap dancers didn’t mean they would be better at lap dancing than me. I had to get my sexy on and give these toothpicks a run for their money.
The teacher turned out to be a competitive pole dancer. She made money from being a better pole dancer than others in organized competitions. Once I heard that,I was way more interested in learning about that world than learning lap dancing. After I delivered 7 or 8 rapid fire questions, she shut me down “Let’s start dancing” she said. Now in my vision of the class, she would say that and the class would woo or clap and get hyped up but not in reality. In reality, people stood around, the energy was uptight rather than carefree. There were no fake men to practice on.
“We will start with a warm up. Everybody spread out” the teacher said. I had found a nice corner of the room spot to claim as My Spot. We moved around and listened to some music. The teacher tried to make funny small talk to loosen us up. In all fairness, I feel like she tried to make it feel more like a troupe than a bunch of singular students but sadly, it didn’t catch on.
After our warm up she said the most dreaded four word combination “OK, find a partner”
I have called yoga classes ahead of time to ask “does the 9 am include partner exercises?”
Yoga person “ummm, I could find out, may I ask who is calling?”
click
I resorted back to my “this isn’t fair” internal dialogue”. My friend who had invited me, had had a plan with another friend to attend the class before I tagged along so I was odd man out. I looked around the room to see people quickly pairing up. Then it was just the two of us. A seventy pound, Chinese girl about 20 years old in boy shorts and stripper shoes. When she realized I was the last partner left, she looked like it was her first day in the prison yard.
The rest of the class was thirty minutes of me and this tiny Chinese woman practicing moves on each other without making eye contact. I couldn’t look at her because, I could see from the corner of my eye, she looked scared and disgusted.
When the class was over, I got the information on the pole dance competition and told the teacher I would come and support. I never did.
It turns out there are youtube lap dance tutorials so you can practice trying to be sexy in the comfort of your own home.
example of youtube lap dance tutorial here
I never tried my lap dancing moves on anybody but I have wondered what happened to my lap dance partner and if she ever thinks about me. I’d like to hear her version of the story.
Thanks for listening!
Kisses-
Kendra
Kendra is a stand up comic living in Brooklyn where she owns a super comfortable bed. She spends most of her time wondering where the hell her sugar daddy is and hoping he didn’t settle.
www.kendracunningham.com
twitter @theotherkendra
