Lap dance research heats up: fertile ground for study

I'm not the strip club type. I've been about a half-dozen times in my life and only enjoyed it once. When I was 18, a friend of mine (who was obsessed with "straightening" out a mutual friend, so I never could get beyond the friend stage with her) stripped to pay her way through school. Since she eventually got her PhD and now teaches music theory at some uni in the flyovers, it seemed to work out for her. Anyway, I had fun the first time I went to see her dance, as a large group of us went and hung out. It was quite a social time.

The other few times I've gone have not been so much fun: a co-worker's going-away party with me sitting around watching others get lap dances and wishing I could just leave; the one time I went to an empty, skeezy bar by myself to watch my aforementioned friend strip; a couple of other times lost in the mists of time. I love women. I have NO problem objectifying women (I'm a pig.) I love porn (did I mention I'm a pig?) I don't like strip clubs.

Now, I think I know why. I think I've always had the misfortune of going when the strippers weren't in estrus.

A study shortly to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour found that lap dancers in their most fertile phase of the menstrual cycle earned much more than dancers in the least fertile phase. In contrast, dancers who took the contraceptive pill, which 'flattens' the hormone cycle, earned much the same throughout the month.