ATOMIC DOG

The Atomic Dog is a weekly feature that isn't necessarily about weight training or bodybuilding. Sometimes it's about sports in general, sex, women, or male issues of some kind. At times it's inspirational, but it can also be informative, funny, and even a little weird, but hopefully, always interesting and a little controversial. We hope it reflects the nature of Testosterone magazine in that, just as no man is completely one-dimensional and only interested in one subject, neither are we. If it makes you think or laugh ? or even get angry ? it's served its purpose.

My mother was a stripper.

There. I've said it. After all the years of denial, all the years of lying. All of it, over, out in the open.

I don't know why it took me so long to tell you this but believe me, I was in the dark about it for the longest time, too.

Mom and I lived in Windsor, Ontario, in a run down clapboard house near the edge of town. Every evening, just before 9 o'clock, she'd put me to bed before heading off to work.

Whenever I asked her what she did she'd say, "I'm the Ambassador to France, honey."

I always took her at her word because, heck, I was only 18 at the time and didn't know any better. But in retrospect, the fact that she went to work wearing a trench coat and shoes with 7-inch clear plastic heels that had tiny plastic goldfish floating around in them should have been a dead giveaway.

And there were other clues, too, like the fact that she paid for everything — groceries, the rent, nipple rings — in dollar bills that were folded lengthwise, plus the 8-foot high metal pole she'd installed in her bedroom. A lot of times I'd walk in on her and catch her hanging upside down from it in her underwear while the stereo was playing Brick House by the Commodores.

She'd always say, "I'm just practicing in case I ever want to be a fireman, honey."

I always believed her.

Then came that fateful day when I heard the ice cream man coming around the corner, the speaker on his truck blaring out that happy Turkey in the Straw tune. I wanted a cherry Popsicle but I didn't have any money. I couldn't ask mom because she was at the grocery store, so I ran into her bedroom to search for some loose change.

I started rifling through the drawers of her dresser but the bottom one was stuck. When I managed to yank it open, mounds of sequined G-strings and colorful panties billowed out. There must have been a thousand of them jammed in that drawer.

Suddenly, I started to piece it all together.

Girls to Satisfy Anyone's Tastes!

When she came home, I confronted her. I sat her down at the kitchen table and asked her flat out, "Bubbles, are you a stripper?"

She broke down and started crying, taking some pasties out of her pocket and dabbing her eyes, explaining that she wasn't really the Ambassador to France, but what she did was sorta' the same thing because she was always negotiating deals and maintaining friendly relations.

I forgave her, of course, but tragically she died later on that very evening. She was on stage dancing to her signature song, which was Footloose by Kenny Loggins, when her frenetic jiggling shook loose an embolism that bumped and ground its way to her big stripper heart, where it lodged and killed her instantly.

She's buried out back next to the parking lot of the strip club under a big pink tombstone that reads:

Here lies Bubbles

Boy could she shake

But you shoulda' seen the girls,

Who came to the wake.

Given my upbringing, it's no wonder I feel so at home in strip clubs.

While there are no cookies baking in the oven, there are always a few HD televisions showing the big game. And then there are the girls, of course.

Girls to satisfy anyone's tastes! Girls dressed in outrageously short schoolgirl outfits! Girls dressed like some frilly Victorian fantasy! Girls wearing little Daisy Duke outfits with tattered shorts that expose more ass than most women have ass! Girls dressed like Carmella in accounting...holy shit, that is Carmella! Don't worry baby, just keep shaking it and I won't tell!

And there are girls who aren't dressed at all! That's right, naked girls, naked girls dancing to a 5,000-watt sound system!

Hey, carrot juice, I wanna squeeze you away until you bleed

(finding out true love is blind)

And your vanilla friend, well she looks like something I need

(finding out true love is blind)

I want miss little smart girl with your glasses and all your books

(finding out true love is blind)

Wind me up and make you crawl to me

Tie me up until you call to me

The bass is turned up so high, it's whumping right through me and my balls are swinging and clacking in my pants as though they're part of Newton's Cradle!

And for some reason, the girls all smell like vanilla, probably as the result of a single entrepreneur having cornered the strip club body lotion market. I tell you, I can't even open a tub of Metabolic Drive vanilla protein powder nowadays without getting a raging hard-on.

Is it any wonder I feel so at home in strip clubs?

A Harbinger of Good Fortune

Topless bars and strip clubs are universally thought of as disreputable, but I really don't see the problem. No one would give me any guff if I were on, say, a whale watching tour.

Likewise, no one would bat a judgmental eye if I had merely taken my folding chair to the edge of the forest and tossed some corn on the ground in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a fawn, and that's really all I'm doing anyhow, trying to catch a glimpse of a fawn, only I'm using dollar bills as bait and the fawn I'm looking for is wearing a 3-piece chap set made of a stretchy lamé fabric with hard core grommet detail.

And hey! Whadda' ya' know? This fawn's name is Bambie, too! What are the odds? Okay, about one in three, but still....

If the visual stimulation isn't enough, you can even pay one to sit on your lap and grind away! Try getting your wife or girlfriend to put on a skimpy outfit and grind away at your crotch while you're watching Sports Center on a big plasma screen. Probably ain't gonna' happen.

Yep, for about 40 bucks, some beautiful girl will put in a workmanlike effort to make you come in your pants in the time it takes to play 4 truncated songs. Actually coming in your pants is an extremely rare occurrence, but some cultures consider it a harbinger of good fortune and a sign from the gods that crops will be abundant that year.

Now if the girl was particularly gifted and the songs were longer, it might just happen; you could come in your pants. I once slipped the DJ an extra 20 bucks so he'd play Iron Butterfly's 17-minute long rock classic, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, as one of the four songs, but it backfired when the friction caused my pants to ignite and Giselle panicked and threw a Mai Tai on my lap.

That only made it worse, of course. They had to call in Red Adair and he managed to extinguish my pants three days later after using some dynamite.

You might have read about it in the papers.

Complete With Some Skyscraper Heels

Anyhow, I'm perplexed by the negative stigma associated with strip clubs. And I'm equally perplexed that most married men I know have to lie about going to them.

She likes looking at antique furniture and floor tiles. We like breasts.

'Twas always thus and 'twill always be thus.

Is that so wrong?

Women are probably worried that hubby is going to actually have sex at a strip club, or enter into some meaningful relationship with someone named Tiffany. Ladies, listen, strippers have to act sexy as part of their job. If there's another group of women more desensitized towards sex then strippers, I can't think of them.

Let's say hubby operates a punch press at work. You think he wants to come home and operate a punch press? Same with strippers. After work, Tiffany doesn't want anything to do with sex, music, or dancing. Instead, Tiffany probably wants to shop for antique furniture or floor tiles.

Let hubby go; he'll adore you for it. He'll adore bragging to his friends how you encourage his strip club excursions, and just between you and me, he'll probably come home so horny and virile that all that dispassionate roll on, roll off sex of the past few weeks, months, or even years will become a thing of the past.

If, however, you're still paranoid over him seeing naked women gyrating their hips, at least put on a schoolgirl outfit once in a while, or maybe one of those 3-piece chap sets made of stretchy lamé fabric with hard core grommet details, complete with some skyscraper heels. Then, screw in a red light bulb, crank up the bass, and swing and clack his balls.

I think even mom would think that's a good idea...at least mine would have.

The original version of this column was first posted on 6-30-06.