Free America, You Sexy Bitch by Michael Black Meghan McCain Page B

routines and exotic costumes. There seems to be a huge demand for it in America. I mean, let’s face it, America is obsessed with sex, porn, and exotic dancing. It’s a weird dichotomy that in such a conservative culture there would also be such an intense appetite for all elements of the
sex industry. Sex, porn, strippers—I think whether or not I approve of the industry, or partake in any element of it, all of these things will continue to go on. So from my perspective, I would rather have an open conversation about what the sex industry should be in America and how it should be better regulated than simply shutting down everything entirely.
    I think there are bigger questions at hand: why our obsession with sex and the sex industry only seems to grow, and why exposure to pornography through the Internet also only continues to grow and become more readily available. Instead of ignoring the conversation and having the attitude that all sex is evil and wrong, we need to have a more open and honest dialogue about the sex industry in America if we are ever going to really address its issues.
    As I write this I can already hear the bloggers firing up their laptops: “Meghan McCain supports the sex industry—this girl loves her some strippers.” This will be an easy thing to take out of context and use to somehow exacerbate the already “wild child” reputation that for many reasons I do not deserve; but I still am a Republican and the daughter of one of the most famous politicians in America, so anything having to do with stripping and the sex industry is heightened to an unreasonable taboo level. What I really find comical about this entire scenario, though, is that Michael seems ready to throw up even before we leave the hotel. Of the two of us, he is the one who seems to be losing it a little bit.
    I need to bring in more reinforcements, so I call my friend Josh Rupley and his boyfriend, Kasey Mahaffy. If you are an intense and longtime follower of my life and blogging career, you’ll know Josh is my confidant/hair fixer who traveled with me during the presidential campaign. Josh’s longtime boyfriend, Kasey, is an actor and one of the sweetest, most sensitive guys I know. He also loves whiskey as much as I do, which was an early bonding tool for us. I love Josh and Kasey dearly. They can also drink me under the table, which is what I need if I’m going to take these greenhorns out on the town. I think they will be perfect for breaking the ice with
Michael and accompanying us on our tour of the underworld of exotic dancing.
     
    Michael: Here’s something you might not know about Vegas strippers : they pay to take their clothes off. Strippers are not employees of any club but are rather “independent contractors,” who give the clubs a house fee for the privilege of taking off their clothes in front of drunken bachelor partiers and handsy conventioneers.
    Think about how genius that is for a second: the Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club, which bills itself as “the world’s largest Las Vegas strip club” (whatever that means), claims to have up to four hundred girls dancing there a night . House fees start at forty dollars and increase twenty dollars an hour from 7:00 P.M. until 10:00 P.M. That means a girl can spend a hundred dollars just to go to work, and with four hundred girls on the floor that means Sapphire is generating tens of thousands of dollars before they even turn on the smoke machines.
    Meghan’s buddy Paul has arranged for us to meet Sapphire’s own Daisy Delfina for an “X-rated tour of Las Vegas,” but first we go to dinner with my buddy Phil Gordon, an Internet entrepreneur turned professional poker player. Phil is far more active politically than I realized. He’s a libertarian, which makes sense for a professional poker player. They are a “live and let live” breed, and in fact he and his professional poker buddies are in the middle of a battle with the federal government over the poker