So, you want to see some breasts. Nothing wrong with that. Where in Wellington should you go to see them? For the purposes of scientific research, we headed to Dream Girls and Mermaids to find out what you can expect. We also had a chat to a girl who’s worked in both places for the inside goss.
First though, let’s brush up on your strip club etiquette.
- When a girl finishes dancing on stage, she’ll come around the room to collect tips. She may even give you a little dance on your table. If you want to tip her, get her attention politely, and tuck your Mermaids/Dreamgirls dollars into whatever she indicates – her g-string or her garter. Yes, you can hold the dollars between your teeth and she might pick it up with her boobs. No, there is no other touching at this stage.
- If you buy a private lapdance, there might be touching, or there might not. Our dancer friend says “Places have different rules, mermaids generally during VIP you can touch, and Dreamgirls depends on the individual dancer”. As with any other human being, you want to make sure that you ask before you touch, and respect their boundaries. But you know that, right?
- A lot of the dancers are students, or travelers. Some of them are professional strippers. Neither lifestyle is more or less valid than yours.
- Just because a girl is dancing in a strip club, and there is a brothel upstairs, does not mean that you can pay her for sex.
Mermaids is the big shiny place on Courtenay Place with the red carpet outside, and the terrible music blaring out. If you’ve seen the ads on the television for the Auckland branch, you might be expecting there to be a tank with girls swimming in it. You’re going to be disappointed in that case. Instead, there’s a central catwalk housing a couple of poles, with stools all around it, and around the edges of the room there are booths with tables with poles. Let me tell you this now: the ladies’ toilets are faaaaaaaancy. So are the back rooms where you go for the private lap dances. I’d actually like to throw a party in the back room with its starry-ceilinged courtyard and curtained-offed areas, even if there weren’t topless women gyrating on my lap. The central stage though is a bit more like a pit as it’s set down from the stools, and that didn’t sit well with the feminist in me.
Dreamgirls down the road on Dixon Street is much less fancy with its fitout, but the stage is raised, which makes me happier. The backrooms are not fancy at all, and the women’s bathroom is pretty crappy. However, at Mermaids, the cheapest bottle of wine is $500. Yes, you heard me. Fucking insane. You can buy crappy overly sweet bubbles for $50 at Dreamgirls. The admission price to Mermaids is usually $20 for guys, but entry to Dreamgirls seems to be free.
As for the girls themselves, from one visit to each bar, my impression was the girls at Mermaids are more “professional” – expect to see more pole tricks and less laughing – but that might have been because we were at Dreamgirls early on a Wednesday, and late on a Friday (peak time) at Mermaids. Also, the girls at Mermaids don’t get fully naked – g-strings have to stay on. On the whole, I’d say Dreamgirls is a more fun experience, possibly because it feels slightly seedier, but the management are nicer. Either way, I highly recommend you find yourself a friend who likes buying you lapdances before you visit either place, since they’re $180 per half hour at Dreamgirls and god only knows how much they cost at Mermaids.
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
“Just because a girl is dancing in a strip club, and there is a brothel upstairs, does not mean that you can pay her for sex.”
Yeah I don’t quite buy that argument. Its a valid and legal job, but would you encourage someone to take up this line of work. No.
Actually, pretty sure Emily meant that as an entirely value-judgement-free observation. There may be an overlap in a couple of the girls working both upstairs and downstairs, but the majority of them aren’t sex workers so it’s factually wrong to presume that they are.
Stupid me posted the wrong quote without looking. Quote should be:
“A lot of the dancers are students, or travelers. Some of them are professional strippers. Neither lifestyle is more or less valid than yours.”
And let me then requote Tallulah’s comment back at you:
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but many sex workers make a lot of money, doing something they love. Actually, yes, I’d encourage someone into that kind of career at the drop of a hat.”
“Its a valid and legal job, but would you encourage someone to take up this line of work. No.”
I know what you mean: I feel the same about corporate law and tax accountants. The difference being that the majority of people in the sex industry are decent and honest and meet a fundamental human need.
Actually any accountant not just tax. I’m one and I actively discourage my kids from following this sad, tawdry line of work.
I just emphasise that they will end up with bad eyesight from squinting at spreadsheets, overweight from being glued to a chair, and no interesting conversation.
Oh the shame. if only they took fat blind people in the sex industry.
Access to another person’s body is not a ‘fundamental human need’.
>Oh the shame. if only they took fat blind people in the sex industry.
There’s a market out there for all types.
This entire article would have set better with me if you didn’t say you were a feminist. I find it disturbing that the only problem you have is that the stage was low. Seriously?
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I love seeing a pair of naked tits bouncing around as much as the next guy. But condoning the specific exploitation of naked women for money and arguing for equality between genders seem to be mutually exclusive viewpoints.
That’s not the only problem Emily had, she also thought the drinks were expensive. Duh.
You have a disturbingly narrow definition of feminism, my anonymous friend.
“condoning the specific exploitation of naked women for money and arguing for equality between genders seem to be mutually exclusive viewpoints.”
Why? First of all, where do you get the idea these women are being exploited? Have you asked them? Or are you assuming that all sexworkers are too stupid to know that someone is putting one over on them? (So to speak.)
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but many sex workers make a lot of money, doing something they love. Actually, yes, I’d encourage someone into that kind of career at the drop of a hat.
And actually, that IS pretty compatible with feminism. Allowing women to safely do something that they like, and making sure they are reasonably compensated for it? I don’t know where you got your feminist learnin’, but that’s pretty basic.
If Emily Fatali would be so kind as to join in the conversation here, I would ask her: how is it that women dancing on a low stage is less feminist than women dancing on a high stage? Surely their mana would rise above the stage design.
It was a (drunken) gut reaction and a throwaway line – it just didn’t seem right to be literally looking down on the women on stage.
if a man wrote this post it would be viewed from a completely different angle ? Because personally I think the feminist perspective around stripping is not a straight line.
You can take the line that it’s empowering and a stripper is achieving economic equality and setting her rules.
The other perspective is that women who strip, perform for mostly men in public & thus reinforce gender stereotypes.
Add to that – Who is actually profiting from a stripper?
The person who makes the most money out of it all is the owner of the club, then the manager, then the stripper. 9 times out of 10 those owners are men. So until women are owning clubs, running clubs and performing clubs i think the issue is really fuzzy.
Surely no fuzzier than any *other* job where the lion’s share of workers’ production is snaffled by their employers? Paul Reynolds is certainly doing well out of the labour of Telecom contact centre operatives but that hardly means we should save them from phone-answering exploitation for their own good.
is using telecom the kiwi version of Godwin’s law ?
… Or you know, it could be a handy example of a capitalist organisation run for profit off the labour of its employees which one could assume readers of Wellingtonista are familiar with, but go right ahead and try to accuse me of demonizing a corporation (is it like a meta-Godwin to accuse someone of a Godwin when they haven’t even hinted at it?) while you’re busy trying to pretend that the profit-exploitation of strippers is a phenomenon unique to sex/sex-related work.
well i’ll bow out here, becuase i don’t really think an argument serves anyone, and my apologies if if created one.
I’m a bit confused, sue – what were you trying to do, if not “create an argument”, by implying that the poster’s feminist perspective on stripping is wrong, stating that the profit going to strip club owners somehow makes stripping more exploitative than any other work, and then trying to throw down a nice “ooh, Godwin!” silencing tactic to a person disagreeing with you?
I’m pretty sure that Sue was being cheeky about the Telecom/Godwin thing, QoT, not trying to silence you. And she was absolutely right about feminism around stripping (or feminism in general) not being a straight line.
I don’t understand this analogy. Are you talking about the Telecom call-centres in the Philipines? Have they been shown to be exploitative / unethical?
No more so than any other low-level position in a big company, necessarily. And that, I think, was QoT’s point.
I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that there isn’t problematic aspects to the sex industry. Of _course_ there is. It can be exploitative, dangerous and violent. However, that doesn’t mean we get to dismiss it out of hand – it means we have to work harder to make it better for the people involved.
My objection to the comments above was the dismissive tone of the actual women involved. It behooves us to consider them before making blanket statements about the sex industry.
I’ve always found it odd that strip-clubs catering for a female audience – ie having mainly male strippers – seem to have a great time. Lots of laughing, teasing, giggling, daring etc. And I’d have to say, from those that I’ve been to, a fair bit of touching is encouraged.
But the strip clubs noted here – Mermaids and Dreamgirls – catering for a male audience with female strippers, are a horrible, sad, tawdry experience. There should be nothing wrong with observing a body in peak condition (let’s face it – the pole-dancers are athletes of sorts, if not exactly competitive) and celebrating the wonder that is a beautifully sculpted pair of breasts or buttocks.
Instead however, the prospect of a bunch of men sullenly ogling the sumptuous bounty of female form on view, whilst sipping a beer, talking about rugby, and pretending not to notice that there is a naked being cavorting a foot away from their face – well it all seems more than a little sad and pathetic to me.
The men concerned seem to be exploiting their own stupidity and sexuality, let alone being exploited by the club owners with their ridiculous prices.
“But the strip clubs noted here – Mermaids and Dreamgirls – catering for a male audience with female strippers, are a horrible, sad, tawdry experience.”
Not always, and in fact I’d have to say that that’s often far from the truth. Dreamgirls tends to feel the more relaxed, but in both it often depends upon your own attitude. Most of the dancers seem to respond well if you treat it as a fun, flirty night out, rather than a desperate excuse to gawp. It also helps if you’re in a good-natured group, especially a mixed one. And if you engage with the dancers with good grace and humour (as well as tips, of course – it is their job after all) then it needn’t be sad or tawdry at all.
actually Max, you’re right – it can be a fun, flirty night out, and I’d never treat it as a desperate excuse to gawp – mainly because I’m not that desperate. Although, others are – or perhaps they get weeded out by the door staff or the price tag. I do have to lament the loss of the “pool” although that is too optimistic a word to describe the tiny fish tank that the swimmers used to cavort in. There’s something quite mesmerising about the sight of fish swimming around, and a larger, pinkish fish would also be interesting, in an aesthetic manner. Or perhaps they should just have a couple of large crayfish, in a pot.
I am a Dreamgirl, not gonna disclose my dancing name here.
And yes, i would have been there on the night you visited the club.
Here’s some inside info, at Dreamgirls, the house takes 40% of your earnings. There is no shift fee, unlike The Mermaid and there is no hourly wage at either club.
On a bad night, you can earn $40.
As a Dreamgirl, you hold all the power when it comes to men. Security can be there in seconds, if he tries to touch you sexually, you’re basically allowed to hit them.
VIP dances are the only instance where a man is alowed to touch, and nowhere near your privates.
We have a rule where your g-string must be off before the end of your last song, but depending on personal preference, you can choose how long you would like to be naked, 5 seconds even.
I’m studying, and I am not a sexworker.
Even though the drinks are expensive, we aren’t paid a cent out of the overpricing.
Anyway, enough inside information. Decided to share because people have so many misconstrued ideas of strippers and working girls.
All I want to know is…when will someone open a male strip club? ‘m sick of the guys getting to have all the fun.
Aware this is a really old thread but I only just found it.
I am a dancer from Showgirls in Auckland…I just wish that every guy that came into the club could read this article (as well as every other person who holds misconceptions about dancers).
The point Emily made about touching especially: guys often book a dance then adopt the notion that they should see how much they can ‘get away with’ i.e. touching pussy. Why should I, in my job (not a career btw – I study Veterinary Science in Palmerston North atm) be subjected to sexual abuse on a nightly basis? Just because I tease you and strip you of your money all night long does not mean that I want you/want you to touch me. There are even signs saying so.
Also, I’m so sick of people who come in and say things like that they _feel sorry for us dancers_…I love my job; dancing keeps me fit, gives me confidence and the self assurance to stand up for myself and a large income for a 20 year old – Saturday nights I average $1200 a night. Not to mention the amazing girls at the club who have developed into lifelong friends of mine.
Finally, we are hardly exploited by the club (at Showgirls, anyway). There is no ‘club fee’, and we keep _all_ of our tips. A small percentage of our earnings is taken from the money we make in lapdances but it’s not unreasonable. The club also owns an apartment which they allow the dancers to live in for free and provides free dance lessons for the girls should they want them (I realise the dance lessons are in the clubs best interests, but at some clubs you have to pay for compulsory lessons).
Hmm. Quite a rant. And I didn’t even cover half the things that guys misconceive regarding dancers. Maybe one day, people will stop holding dancers in such a stereotypical view and that would be nice.
Maybe one day pigs will fly, too.
i have worked at mermaids in wellington and i have to say after working in over 2o different strip clubs in australia, uk and nz they treat the girls like shit!
@Miss G: Have you worked in Dreamgirls? I’m thinking of getting a job there, and I’m trying to ask around and find out whether it’s a good environment to work in.
Hey Beatrice
I know your comment was from a month ago so might not be pertinent any more, but just FYI I have known a couple of people who have joined Dreamgirls and have been VERY happy with both the work environment and management.
Anecdotally it sounds as if you generally get treated better at Dreamgirls (at least by your employer) than Mermaids.
Now that Calendar Girls is opening, who knows what difference this will make.