The Best (and Worst) College Towns for Strip Clubs

For when you need a diversion from your studies.

Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

There's nothing quite like a college town on football game day weekends. The tailgating, the packed stadium, the alumni on trips back to their old stomping grounds, except this time with much more disposable income. That's why, whether you're working your way through school or wish to support those doing so, it's important to know which towns have strip clubs that are as good as their local university's athletic department. These are the 10 best (and worst) college towns for strip clubs.

Written by Susan Shepard (@SusanElizabeth), a career stripper who hopes her boss doesn't find out about her writing work.

Best No. 5: Morgantown, W. Va.

Legal Advantage: Alcohol and full-nude dancing are allowed to exist under the same roof.
Cultural Advantage: Coal Miners/Coal Miners' Daughters

It's a little-known fact that West Virginia is the state with the highest number of strip clubs per capita. A heritage of male-heavy mine worker populations is one of the reasons behind the state's proliferation of strip clubs. Morgantown alone, where WVU fans sing "Country Roads" on game day, has a healthy five clubs for a population of 30,000—and an additional student population that nearly doubles that number. West Virginia is one of a handful of states where dancers can strip completely nude in clubs that serve alcohol.

Best No. 4: Portland, Ore.

Legal Advantage: Low barriers to entry because liquor licenses are cheap and there are no special sexually oriented business licenses required.
Cultural Advantage: Oregon is the "Beaver State."

"College town" might not describe the totality of Portland, but with Lewis and Clark, Reed College, Portland State University, and more in town, along with 50-plus strip clubs in its city limits, and state laws that permit full nudity and full bars, there are few places with more options for adult entertainment. From a club famous for its steaks, The Acropolis, to one famous for vegan food, Casa Diablo, Portland caters to every possible customer base. It also benefits from Seattle's restrictive laws, which mean that there are always dancers and customers heading south on I-5 to enjoy the friendlier atmosphere in Portland.

Best No. 3: Austin, Texas

Legal Advantage: There is no vice squad in Austin, so oversight is left to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
Cultural Advantage: The University of Texas

University of Texas coed Renée Zellweger waited tables at Sugar's while studying acting, and she surely wasn't alone. Long before Austin was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, it was a busy college town with a steady flow of young women working at the Yellow Rose, the city's most storied club. The Landing Strip has been immortalized on screen in Varsity Blues and Friday Night Lights. Friendly staff and relative proximity of campus to seven of the city's clubs make it one of the best places in the country for dancing students and their fans. And unlike San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas, there has been no local effort to put pastie or dancer licensing laws into effect.

Best No. 2: Columbia, S.C.

Legal Advantage: Clubs are allowed to stay open as late as they like
Cultural Advantage: The patriotic duty to service servicemen

Fittingly, the fans of the University of South Carolina's Gamecocks wear gear that simply reads "COCKS." Columbia is home to a large and popular outpost of the Platinum Plus chain, Club LaRoice, Heartbreakers, and several other establishments that stay open until 6 a.m. on the weekends. The dancers have a reputation for being as friendly as you'd expect from Southern belles. Fort Jackson trains 45,000 fresh Army recruits annually, too, which ensures a supply of customers even when it's not football season.

Best No. 1: Providence, R.I.

Legal Advantage: Between 1980 and 2009, indoor prostitution was legal in Rhode Island, which meant there were few behaviors that could get a strip club in trouble.
Cultural Advantage: Do-as-you-like Brown University

In contrast to the bluenosed rules of nearby Boston, Providence's clubs are sometimes a little too much fun, occasionally making appearances in the news for legal problems. The Foxy Lady has near-landmark status: Heidi Mattson's 1995 memoir Ivy League Stripper chronicles her time there, and their Legs and Eggs Buffet is a Friday morning tradition. Cheaters and the Cadillac Lounge are also well-known local institutions. Brown University, the most liberal of the Ivy League schools, and RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) provide the city with an adventurous student body.

Worst No. 5: College Station, Texas

Legal Disadvantage: Aside from being on the edge of East Texas, none
Cultural Disadvantage: Baptists

It has Johnny F'in Football and Texas A&M, but College Station's lone strip club is the Silk Stocking, more often referred to locally as the "Dirty Sock." Since it's only an hour and a half from Houston and two hours from Austin, it's a safe bet that a majority of Aggies have their first strip club experience in a larger metropolitan area. The Eagle, Texas A&M's student newspaper, launched its own "undercover investigation" into the club's VIP room last year, uncovering sufficient evidence for prostitution charges at the club. That is to say, they discovered that you can touch the dancers during a VIP dance, which might make this the best of the worst, at least.

Worst No. 4: Provo, Utah

Legal Disadvantage: The Bay Area Center for Voting Research anointed Provo the most conservative city in the U.S.
Cultural Disadvantage: Mormons

For perhaps obvious reasons, the home of Brigham Young University is a strip-club-free zone. BYU is one of the largest religious universities in the country and there's little chance students there would dream of working in or patronizing such an establishment. Same with the young people at the Mormon Church's flagship Missionary Training Center in Provo. It's not just exotic dancing that's banned in Provo: The town tried to stop a Bikini Cuts from opening in the mid 2000s. It did open, but didn't stay in business for long thanks to a lack of patrons. Stay modest, Provo.

Worst No. 3: Cambridge, Mass.

Legal Disadvantage: A law that mandates a two-foot distance between entertainers and customers
Cultural Disadvantage: Catholics

Cambridge isn't home to the kinds of student bodies you normally imagine naked, and doesn't have any strip clubs. But even neighboring Boston only has three, and restrictive laws mean they're not the most fun around. The days of the city's storied Combat Zone, and its strip clubs, peep shows, and adult theaters, are long gone. Today dancers and clubs are ticketed for violations of the distance laws, which can be violated by the simple act of a stripper sitting on a customer's lap.

Worst No. 2: Grand Forks, N.D.

Legal Disadvantage: The 23-page city ordinance that forbids allowing alcohol on the premises of a strip club or allowing entertainers within six feet of customers
Cultural Disadvantage: Lutherans

The University of North Dakota fields a world-class hockey team and has a student body of 15,000, which is some two percent of the population of the entire state. But there's not one strip club in the entire area. In fact, there are only four in the entire state. You'd have to go an hour south to Fargo to get a table dance. North Dakota boasts the most churches per capita of any state and a very conservative state legislature, making it a difficult climate—both figuratively and literally!—in which to be professionally naked.

Worst No. 1: Cincinnati, Ohio

Legal Disadvantage: A long history of conservative activism against strip clubs led by Citizens for Community Values, who also crusade against pornography behind leader Phil Burress, a self-proclaimed recovering porn addict
Cultural Disadvantage: Catholics

Tragically, for a town with two professional sports franchises and several major college basketball and football programs, there is not even one strip club in all of Cincinnati. Over the course of several decades, a combination of local and state activism tightened the laws until the town's last remaning strip club, Deja Vu, closed in 2011. Which isn't surprising when you look at its history. Former sheriff Simon Leis was always happy to prosecute on obscenity charges: A museum director faced criminal charges for exhibiting work by Robert Mapplethorpe and, of course, Larry Flynt was convicted on obscenity charges here. Leis's father ruled Russ Meyer's Vixen obscene in 1969 and banned it from the city.