Strip Clubs & Brothels

Historically, there's a strong connection between music and sex work. The prostitutes of Cadiz, the oldest city in Western Europe, had a reputation for being skilled musicians and dancers. The Romans described their dancing as ad teram tremulo descendant clune puellae, which Ned Sublette translates as "shaking their booties down to the ground". They were also known for their singing and their castanets. Their singing and dancing teachers doubled as procurers or pimps.

After the rise of Islam, the Arab tradition of trained singing slave girls spread through the Muslim world. The best had a repertoire of hundreds of song, and were capable of improvising on a single song for an hour or more. And as slave girls, they were available to their owners for sexual purposes.

Listening to enjoyable music is associated with higher dopamine levels in the brain, particularly in the nucleus accumbens. (Cocaine does the same thing.) Higher dopamine levels in this area are associated with elevated mood. The increase in dopamine levels created by listening to music may increase sexual arousal, or it may make women seem more attractive. (This is speculation. I don't know of any research on this.)

Traditionally, the place where men could find both music and sex was the brothel. The connection between brothels and music is so strong that brothels are associated with the rise of both jazz in New Orleans and tango in Buenos Aires. Brothels offered a private place for men to relax, drink alcohol, enjoy entertainment, including music, and pay for female company.

As Priscilla Alexander has pointed out, an increase in the independence of women in a society is usually accompanied by an increase in the restrictions on prostitutes. Brothels, which were mostly owned by women, were effectively banned in the US by changes in the law early in the twentieth century. Although a some bars hired musicians and served as hangouts for prostitutes, there were no longer businesses that hired musicians in order to attract customers for prostitutes.

In it's current form, the strip club functions as a brothel without prostitutes. Strip clubs give men a place to relax, buy alcohol, listen to recorded music, and watch dancers. Customers can pay for lap dances or conversations with the strippers. Just as brothels had rooms where prostitutes earn money by having sex with customers, strip clubs generally have booths or special rooms where customers and strippers can interact with more privacy, and strippers can charge more money for their dances. And just as brothels earned money from the sale of alcohol and by collecting a percentage of the prostitutes earnings, strip clubs charge more than regular bars for alcohol, and collect house fees and a percentage of dance fees from their strippers.

The similarity between brothels and strip clubs is so strong that club owners have to be careful to avoid hiring strippers who are actually prostitutes. And many male customers view strip clubs as actual brothels; they expect to be able to buy the sexual services that brothels once offered. If club owners are careless about enforcing anti-prostitution rules, they may find that their club has become a de facto brothel. A few owners even encourage this because the prostitution brings in extra customers, although this tends to attract attention from the police.