A few days ago, I went for a lap dance. My wife actually encourages me to get weekly lap dances because I come home all hot and bothered and we have great sex. The dancer I normally use, one who’s very respectful of my limits, was on vacation, so I tried a new woman.

A few songs into the lap dance, the stripper grabbed my penis and started rubbing me through my clothing. I enjoyed the touch for a few moments. After a few seconds, she said, “Let me milk you.” The remark grossed me out. I asked her to stop rubbing me. She kept going. I wasn’t at all erect, and asked her to stop again. The dancer continued to stroke me off even after a third request for her to stop. I said, “I’m not enjoying this at all. Stop.” I was stunned at this point; as awful as the sensation was, I started to get erect. Noticing my erection, she said, “You’re just playing hard to get. I love it!”
Finally, she grabbed my hand and rubbed my fingers over her vulva, making this obnoxious noise that was probably supposed to simulate me licking her. I tried to pull my hand away, but she was stronger than me. She said she liked it when men fought back. I looked around for someone that could help me, but we were alone in the VIP area of the club. She had her knees on my lap, so I moved my legs and wrestled forward. She tried to hold on to me, but I finally got free.
The dancer had been quite friendly and polite before our dance and suddenly she was again. Maybe she misunderstood our whole exchange? Desperate to get out, I didn’t say a word to anyone. I’ve since had two nightmares about it. I’ve also had to leave work in the middle of a meeting when I recalled the event and started to panic. Am I over-analyzing this event? You’re a former stripper who’s probably more familiar with the nuances of lap dancing, and when it can become sexual assault, than I am. NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST

Sure, let’s start 2008 with a big fucking can of worms.
As someone who quit this business in order to avoid lap dancing, I have little personal experience with challenging an unwilling client’s physical boundaries — it always went the other way around. I grudgingly accepted the new regime and left to work at the Bovine, where I was permitted the kind of close contact I, poster child for a classic Dutch upbringing, was comfortable with: kicking people in the ass to get them out of my way and yelling at cheapskates.

After the way things seemed to be going in the peelers, the kind of extreme lap dancing you describe doesn’t surprise me, but I do know that customer objections are taken seriously at least at some places. For example, I once made a joke to a client that he considered inappropriate, he complained to management and I was taken to task. The problem you may run into with your particular issue is this dancer’s actions are illegal both according to Toronto’s lap-dancing bylaws and the community standards of tolerance determined by the Supreme Court of Canada, yet they do satisfy the demands of many clients. So not only may a club be reluctant to acknowledge shenanigans are afoot on their premises but you may, like many sex workers who file assault charges, be ridiculed for complaining.
It’s true the dancer’s actions seem to indicate that she thought this was some sort of consensual forced sex fantasy (and I guess, unfortunately, your erection confirmed that to her even though your behaviour did not) so I can totally see where you’re confused. You may want to visit www.trccmwar.ca, the website for the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre and Multicultural Women Against Rape. If you feel strongly that this was an assault, I hope they can offer you some resources. Perhaps also consider sending an anonymous email to the club.

Spastic about plastic
Do you know of any health concerns or toxic materials with regards to the Fleshlight (the insert and the casing)? Are there phthalates? CNC

This is what I get for writing about toxics. Now I have to field more questions to which I don’t understand the answers when I track them down. Is there a brainiac out there willing to be my go-to interpreter in exchange for dirty photos of me? Outfits galore, interesting boundaries.

A spokesperson for Fleshlight says it’s 100 per cent phthalate-free and that the insert is 80 per cent mineral oil, while the other percentage is “a trade secret.” If you go to the Fleshlight’s US patent page at www.tinyurl.com/3e462x, you’ll read that the Fleshlight is intended as “a device useful for collection of sperm from human males, preferably in a discreet and camouflaged manner” and that “the preferred elastomeric gel is formed from a mixture of plasticizing oil and a block copolymer selected from styrene ethylene butylene styrene block copolymers and styrene ethylene propylene styrene block copolymers.” Further down the page, you’ll read that a prior related patent might also “decrease prostitution.” Damn technology. Always taking jobs from people.

The Fleshlight actually looks pretty safe and is apparently PVC-free, too. Check out this Greenpeace article on PVC-free polymers: www.tinyurl.com/2g5a3p.

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