One of my good friends is getting married this week, so we had the traditional bull's party last Saturday night. As with all bachelor parties, the Bull should be taunted mercilessly by beautiful, naked women that symbolise the lifestyle he's chosen to give up, in favour of spending the rest of his days with the one he loves.

Being a bunch of guys that hold tradition close to our hearts, we felt obliged to head down to the 'ol Springfield Ballet (a.k.a. Teazers) to exert proper, formal punishment on our Bull.

Now I'm sorry to those who find discussion of this nature repulsive, but like it or not girls, it's a part of Durban life that at some point your man will be ogling over butt-naked women of questionable morality.

Firstly, here's how Teazers works: fifty bucks gets you in, and you get shown to a table where you have to remain seated for the entire time you're there, save for bathroom breaks. You have to commission at least one table dance, which costs R100, paid directly to the girl who performs. There's nothing stopping you from watching other table dances; and every hour or so, all attention is focused on the stage where one girl will do a routine for the entire club.

Part of 'the tease' is that the girls come around and flirt with you for a while, and then ask you if you'd like to seal the deal by paying them for a dance. That's how they make money: the more dances they do, the more cash they take home. Practise does makes perfect, and these girls are masters of the flirt, and will spend ages on your lap or with arms around shoulders, talking about your hopes and dreams while batting their eyelids seductively. If she's really good at it, she can make a happily married man feel like he's met an angel from his dreams. And while many guys enjoy this part, it's at this time that I feel the most uncomfortable.

I know deep down that despite her intense personal interest in every word that crosses my slurring lips, she's only talking to me because she wants the cash. She also assumes (rightly I suppose) that the only thing I want is to see her naked, gyrating her hips over my Windhoek. The entire interaction is completely for show, false, a gimmick.

The humanity is drained from the encounter, and something which most guys usually consider really exciting (meeting a pretty girl) becomes a cold, hard business transaction; transparently veiled in a fecade of flirtatious personal attention.

The thought of people playing my emotions like that, simply because they expect me to give them money is extremely irritating. It's my absolute worst, regardless of whether or not they will be providing a service in exchange.

Of course, not all strippers are created equal; they come in many shapes, sizes and ages. And let's face it, if you're going to be paying for a dance you want to get the best looking girl on the table! In order to do Teazers on a reasonable budget, it's likely you're going to have to reject a few of the less attractive girls that get to your table first.

Just don't show your wifeIt makes me feel like a such a bastard, because telling a girl you don't want her to dance, especially after flirting with her for a few minutes, is saying exactly one thing: “you're not pretty enough". How can guys do that with a clear concious? I'm simply incapable of rejecting a few girls in as many minutes for such a shallow reason! So on Saturday night I found myself making up excuses like: “um, we're about to eat some chips now..."? or “my friend is just in the toilet, maybe a bit later".

She knows exactly what you're saying though. The spiteful look in her eyes as she walks away could burn a hole through steel. But what does one do?

Guys have a weird reaction to naked women, which is best explained by an example. My mate found himself really concerned about the (small) bruises one of our table dancers had on her. “There's no way she could've got those by accident. Someone's done that to her." he said. He then proceeded to try wrangle the truth out of her, a topic she was clearly not interested in talking about. Despite the fact that she is a perfect stranger involved in a simple business transaction, my mate suddenly had this instinct to protect her from harm.

As soon as a girl gets her kit off for a guy, an instant bond is formed and this primal hormone takes hold. He suddenly feels that she needs to be saved, that she's better than this and inside the stripper there's a beautiful person that nobody understands, and if the world would just cut her some slack once in a while, give her a chance, she could tear away from this damaging lifestyle which surely must be destroying her soul and make something out of her life. You almost feel like the one to save her should be you.

Sometimes, while the girls are dancing, you can see in their eyes the boredom and contempt for their eager clients. What can these girls possibly think of the men around them? Of men in general! Surely they can't assume very much of a gender so obsessed with physical appearance, so consumed with lust and desire that they are willing to blow thousands of rands in a matter of hours, just for a glimpse of a naked girl.

The irony of course is that a man is the last thing a stripper needs. They are earning more money than most of the patrons at the club.

Still, you do learn a lot going there, and it's definitely something you have to do at least once in your lifetime. I could never see myself frequenting the place, because despite their motto “the tease without the sleaze"?, I still feel like a real slimeball when I'm there.