At her Kansas City blog, my pal Christa made a point I had wanted to write about for a while. (In fact, I kind of did a little here.)

Her TV station aired a report about a controversial strip club siting that repeatedly called stripping \”adult entertainment.\” So sayeth Dubill:

A typical adult could do any number of things for entertainment: basketball, knitting, cooking, reading, kayaking, thumb wrestling competitions…

So why does a business allowing strippers, selling unmentionables, upsetting neighbors and city leaders alike, become what we describe as \”adult entertainment\”?

She then goes on to quote \”a guy\” who e-mailed her with some more outstanding observations:

It just seems strange to me that the words we use for looking at naked women always equate maturity with prurient desires. In fact, it\’s the exact opposite. Think about it – movies targeted to \”mature\” audiences. Going to a \”gentlemans\’ club.\” What is so mature or gentlemanly about stuffing dollar bills into a naked woman\’s garter?

In fact, I think it makes a lot more sense to consider those things \”immature.\” I understand a teenage boy looking at pictures of naked women a lot more than I can understand a grown man doing the same. Then, it just gets a little…creepy.


As it turns out, that \”guy\” is me. I don\’t understand how we ascribe \”maturity\” to things that would be more befitting of teenage boys than adults. Are we teaching kids that being more \”adult\” means being less in control of our desires? If that were the case, wouldn\’t 80 year-olds be entitled to the best lap dances?

This controversy illustrates one of life\’s fundamental truths, which has been said about alcohol: Boobs are both the cause and solution to all the world\’s problems.

(I\’m not sure how that relates to the rest of the post, but I thought it was funny to say out loud.)