Living In My Own World

There’s nothing like good old spontaniety to brighten up an otherwise mundane stroll through the streets of Tel-Aviv.

It started with a friend of mine joking “Wanna go in?” and with me replying “You want to? Hey, maybe it’s free for women.”

Next thing I knew, we were grabbing each other and approaching the bored bouncer at the door of an Alenby Street strip bar.

“Can women get in free?” my friend asks him in her sweet, innocent voice and sexy foreign accent.

“It must be my lucky day,” he said, looking us up and down as he thought it over. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “Go in for 15 minutes and take a quick look around.”

“Great! Thank you!” (I had always wondered what went on in these places…)

“But there IS one thing,” he continued, then leaned in as if to share with us a secret,”Try not to talk to the men. The girls get upset… like you’re competition.”

“Um, Okay…” we looked at each other, slowly processing what we were about to see.

And so we went in.

Once we passed the bar (which was strategically placed near the front entrance so that passerbys could withhold their curiousity) what we found was a small, dark and smokey room, with some cheap sofas spread throughout and a tiny dance floor with a disco ball in the middle of the room…

I saw a handful of men spread out throughout the room, either leaning against the walls or sitting on one of the couches with a buddy as if they were hanging out in their own living room.

And then about a handful of half-naked girls in thongs or some other sleazy outfits, were simply walking around, talking to each other, checking themselves out in the mirror, occasionally stopping by one of the guys for a little flirting and in certain cases climbing on top of a lucky member for some more teasing.

We just stood at the doorway stunned as we tried to take in the surreal scenario.

Every so often I would ask her: “Did you see that one?” or (nudge, nudge) “Look at her.. what is she doing?”

“She’s humping him, getting him horny” my friend said, matter-of-factly. “And then when he wants to have sex with her, he has to pay.”

I looked around at the men and wondered what exactly made them come to a place like this? Couldn’t these guys find free sex if they really wanted to? Was it really that hard?

Every once in a while I would notice one of the girls glaring at us and I wondered what was going through their heads… Where they mad that we were here? Did they really see us as competition? Were they ashamed of what they were doing? Or were they really enjoying walking around in their underwear? And how old were they, for christ’s sake??? Did their parents know where they were right now?

Eventually we got the message… got bored… and left.