Sunday, January 20, 2008: But Nudity Is Illegal in the Philippines	Return to Journal TOC >>
Edwin and I go walking out, down Roxas Boulevard. The clubs are a ways off, but he and I both like to walk. Nudity is technically illegal here, but there are nude clubs everywhere. (Presumably, they pay some sort of lagay - bribe, loosely translated - to stay open. Apparently the place we end up was raided a few years ago when they missed a payment, but reopened quickly.) It’s still pretty early in the evening, and we walk past a few clubs that aren’t open yet. There are a few places that Edwin’s gone with clients from time to time, and eventually we end up at a place called Miss Universe. The search at the door is fairly cursory; they’re more concerned with making sure I’m not carrying a camera than keeping me from bringing in firearms. It’s still earlyish, so the place is only about half full, and about a third of the crowd is female at this point. (It gets more heavily male as the night goes on.) The crowd is almost all Asian. I’m told there are a lot of anglos here on Friday and Saturday nights, but Sundays and Mondays the customers are Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or from Hong Kong. I’m the only anglo in the place (with the exception of a few biracial dancers). The stage is about thirty by feet, and there’s a single seminude dancer swaying when we walk in. There’s no pole or other dancing props on the stage, just a cityscape mural on the back wall with exits for the dancers on either side. We’re brought to a table near the stage, and Edwin handles the conversation with the female manager assigned to our table. She comes by periodically to see if I want to order one of the dancers for the table, or maybe rent a private room. Maybe later, Edwin tells her. We just want to relax and enjoy the club; overall, the manager is a lot less obtrusive than I expected, but that may be because Edwin is here. I’m a little surprised when I feel hands on my back, but it’s actually male masseurs who come to each table and work for tips. (They also act as bathroom attendants, in case you want a massage in men’s bathroom.) We order drinks, which are surprisingly inexpensive (p75 for a gin and tonic, a bit less than $2; Edwin’s beers are about $1 each). We order pulutan as well - barfood, or more specifically, food that you eat while drinking, in this case a very good crispy pata (pork leg) accompanied by some kind of fish chips. They also bring out water and a bucket of ice. The dancers here tend to be thin and athletic, but not emaciated; you can’t count ribs, and they look generally healthy. All are light skinned and many are biracial, a few Amerasian, and a lot with Chinese blood. Mostly they wear long straight hair, styled and straightened (just the way Ro insisted she had to do) with their hair often hanging over one breast on the second dance. The dancers we see fall into three categories. Most dancers do two dances, the first in a bikini or boy briefs and halter top or something similar, and the second either in the bikini, topless, or fully nude. There up to ten of these dancers onstage at once, but usually three to five at a time. A lot of the dancers barely move, just swaying in place or taking a few steps, while others are very active. Many of these dancers seem relatively new to the field, and a few are having trouble standing in their high heels. Some of them are being coached by more experienced friends onstage with them. They never strip onstage, but remove clothes offstage between songs. The second category are solo dancers, who are the headliners, I suppose. Each of them does three consecutive songs - first dressed, then topless, and finally fully nude, and they dance much more energetically than the sort of rhythmic swaying of the other groups. Some of them are very energetic, with splits and headstands or various gymnastic moves, while at least one bases her routine on ballroom dancing moves. There are soloists intermingled after every few groups of dancers, and there are more of them as the night goes on. All of the women wear numbers, at least as long as they’re wearing anything, so customers can order them by number. The third group are stagefuls of women who may do a synchronized dance while dressed in a bikini or revealing gown, or may not dance at all . They’re brought onstage in groups and announced by “name” but they’re not regular dancers. They work in the “aquarium,” where visitors to the club can look through the windows and pick women for private rooms, VIP Karaoke rooms, or to take home. I’m told the fee is p2500 (about $60) for one or two women in a private room; p5,000 ($125) to take a non-dancer home or p6,000 ($150) for a dancer, presumably more for a headliner. (Anything extra you wanted the woman to do you’d negotiate payment with her separately - that’s just the bar’s take.) If you want one of the dancers, dressed, to entertain you and your friends at the table, snuggle with you, and laugh at your jokes, it’s p460 (about $12) per hour. As the place gets busier, many of the tables around us have two or three dancers sitting with the customers. I’m told that all of the most appealing dancers are booked up by 10:00 p.m. or so. (They get up from the tables to dance, then come back when they’re done.) The music itself tends toward light rock and pop, which shouldn’t be all that surprising given that it’s the Philippines where pop music and ballads rule, but is still a little odd. There are shout-outs to obvious song choices like the Black-Eyed Peas “My Humps,” which is also a little odd when danced by small-chested Asian women. And there are some truly bizarre choices like Guns & Roses “November Rain” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I don’t know who chooses the music, since there are usually multiple dancers onstage together. Presumably the solo artists choose their own songs. The quality of the dancing gets significantly better as the night goes on. The dancers also get significantly more risque, and play more directly to the audience. But there’s no stuffing bills in g-strings like an American club; the dances are strictly for looking at, but all of the dancers are for rent. I have mixed feelings about the prostitution. It’s not something that’s ever really appealed to me, and I know women who have been caught in abusive situations, but I sort of feel the same way I do about being pro-choice: It’s not my body, and I don’t have any right to tell someone what she should and shouldn’t do with it. And I bristle when anyone tries to restrict my rights in any way without a very compelling public interest. And as a writer, with the highly developed sense of voyeurism that all writers get, I certainly enjoy the show. For the drinks, massages, food, tips and four hours of hanging out at Miss Universe, we spend a total of about p1,000 - roughly $25. (Out of curiosity, I look up the prices other Americans report paying at this club on a couple of tawdry websites after I get back to the U.S. They’re about 50% higher.) Edwin and I leave about midnight and take a cab back to the room, where Ro and the kids are sprawled out sleeping, with the TV still blaring anime in the background. I have a 4:00 a.m. wakeup call for our flight. I finally get to bed around 2:00, but I’m planning to sleep early in the flight to readjust my sleep schedule anyway.
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