By Sidney Reilly
Pardon me. Public exotic dance club. But seriously, if the strip club part isn’t going to be okay with you, the public part sure isn’t. Because I’m not just advocating a pole dancing outfit that’s open to the public, I’m talking about a publicly owned sexy dance bar.
The funny thing is how obvious it is; at this point, morals codes preventing nudity aren’t even just quaint, they’re absurd. It’s the year 2014. We have Octomom, we have Duck Dynasty, we have Deion Sanders, and we have nudity. We’ve got it on TV, on stages, on our smart phones, and to prevent clubs where consenting adults buy and sell it from existing in a town like Corvallis, where they would clearly thrive, is to deny reality.
But here’s where it gets brilliant: why not have that club be owned by the City? It’s basically just a bar and stage. The only difference between the City owning the Majestic and a nudie bar is a bouncer. But think of the profits…
The potential revenue gets more robust if it was a regulated, City-run monopoly. It would be a money printing factory. We could call it The Beaver Mint. We’re going to be rich.
Not to mention it would be fun; imagine a strip club where you could sign up with the City, pay some fees, get registered, and get some stage time. Imagine a little bit of fun and a little less nannying in Corvallis.
Students would be a veritable bottomless pit of both onstage talent and paying customer base. And we already, as a town, exist as a sort of symbiotic organism sustaining ourselves on their parents’ money. Why not give a little more back (while also taking a little more…)?
Now here’s where it gets interesting.
It would have to be both genders. We’re talking males and females dancing at the same establishment. I know what you’re thinking: people are traditionally thought to be interested in seeing only one gender on stage at a time. Well, Corvallis, you’re going to have to start thinking outside the box.
We could arrange for a curtain or something to separate sides, but in order for the dream of a public strip joint that brings revenue in for the City, everyone’s going to have to come out of their sexual-economic comfort zones.
Things could definitely get sticky when we have to vote on things like mechanical bull availability, as well as hiring and firing authority. Plus we don’t want it to be too public—which is to say, nobody is going to the YMCA for a sex show. We want to keep it competitive and on the discerning side, while still opening it up for amateur and community participation.
These are all tough questions to deal with, and the Majestic is having problems with similar questions and they don’t even have to worry about expenditures like brass polish for stripper poles. But with the community’s entertainment and financial health up in the air, isn’t it time we rolled the dice on some spicier entertainment?
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