My work buddy David’s birthday party was at Zelda’s strip club, Rockingham foreshore. We met at David’s place and he introduced me to his friends; his uncle, his cousin, two heavy-set locals, and a stoned dude called Spence. His cousin Amanda was pretty in a Gillian Anderson kind of way (ie, the best way.) I was talking to her as we walked to the strip club.

The cover charge was only eight bucks, it being Thursday. That was alright. Inside, the walls were wood panelling and puke green, and thin waitresses walked around in tacky underwear. I immediately had to avoid the gaze of a feral from work who accosted David instead. We played pool for a bit. I went to get Amanda who was having chips next door and not sure if she wanted to go in. Once we’d finished the chips, she did come in. We were kinda clicking. I bought her a drink somewhere in there.

The strip show, to sum it up, was not in the least bit sexy. It wasn’t even funny or kitsch. Amanda and I ogled the strippers for cellulite and bitched about the music (who does a striptease to Michael Jackson? It’s just wrong) while trying to avoid the semi-naked women roaming about the room. On the main floor, you’re all seated in a circle, see, and there’s stage with a pole and the women walk along the rows and sit on people at random. They did some fairly weird stuff a few of the guys in the audience but we managed to avoid it. When you view these events without any real desire for the women involved, you get a sense of revulsion - but only a mild one because you’re not really participating. It doesn’t seem to matter what the woman is doing, you just wonder how much they’re paying her and speculate about the bar sales verusus the markup on drinks.

Let’s face it: tiny undies aren’t sexy, womens’ breasts aren’t sexy, without the right context - ie, an engagement on personal terms, conversation, eye-contact, something of the heart. Otherwise it’s all bodies, animate the routine of performance, but not human. Sexuality, at least as I’ve found it, cannot exist under such conditions.

Meanwhile, a different set of conditions were being set up between Amanda and I. They were sexual. When we arrive at the club, she takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor. Neither of us seem to be into it though, and her lack of communication makes it apparent that she’s scanning for people she knows and simply kinda wiggling herself. We meet up with the others and stand around for a bit, dance a bit more, then stand around again, while Amanda walks off. I should add that the Vibe nightclub in Rockingham is all about standing around looking bored. I don’t know what fucked-up kinda social behaviour can go on in a place so crowded, noisy and full of people who don’t want to talk. The air is a strict vaccum, like the surface of the moon.

When Amanda reappears, we get more chips and walk home. I don’t know what she was thinking at all; she exhibits a cute side that I don’t mind. We watch a bit of the Paris Hilton sex tape she’s brought along, then she calls up some guy and pisses off to meet him at her place. I hear she has a few boyfriends. Alas, the curse of Rockingham. She’s a nice woman but it surely is a curse she carries.

The Curse goes something like this:
“You will spend your time and money at Rockingham’s dive nightclubs.
You will have many partners.
You will defer to one-night stands readily if other options fail.
You will drive too fast.
You will drink syrupy alcohol.
You will blink and look stupid when hearing about places that aren’t Rockingham.”

In this town, your world is as small as you like. You’re only an hour from the city, but you can still run in a small community of like-minded young working-class people. You can be at the high school ball every Friday night. You can organise your life around the prospect of sex and relationships while mouthing the words to the latest R&B record and downing plastic test-tube shooters.

Amanda probably is nice, and I wouldn’t want to cloud my judgement with frustration because she went off with someone else, but I don’t think she’s worth being cut up about. I’m not sure whether I would have found any depth to her. I used to think that my being different from other people was a big deal, so I left Rockingham behind. Now I’m back and I talk, laugh, and most importantly dance like I come from different country. I still don’t fit in but now everyone else is acting weird, not me. David says I come across a bit gay because I’ve been to uni, but there’s more to it than that. The world is just so much bigger than people here are willing to contemplate. Rockingham is a tiny, synthetic, tame and profit-seeking little town that sustains a perverse, insular deadhead culture. Did I see more than that in Amanda’s eyes? We’ll never know. Adios.