Texas Can Tax Twerking Contests, And Other Pole Tax News

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May 16, 2014

This weekend, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Texas pole tax against an appeal that charged the tax was an improperly utilized “occupation tax.” Officially known as the Sexually Oriented Business Fee, the tax requires strip clubs to pay $5 per patron to a fund for victims of sexual assault. While similar taxes have been passed in other states, Texas was the first to pass one in 2007, though it’s been continuously challenged in court.

Just last week, Comptroller Susan Combs said she’d start aggressively pursuing clubs that weren’t paying the tax, although she did not mention whether she would be going after the other businesses it targets. The tax is supposed to be collected from the door of any premise hosting adult entertainment.

From the Texas Administrative Code:

(3) A business that holds occasional events described in subsection (a)(3) of this section, but does not habitually engage in the activity described in subsection (a)(3) of this section is liable for the sexually oriented business fee for those occasional events. For example, a nightclub that hosts a wet t-shirt contest is liable for the fee based upon attendance during the event.

The bar manager at the Palm Street Pier on South Padre Island said that while they’ve had wet T-shirt contests in previous years, they didn’t have one in 2014 because “no one showed up.” She said that they have never been asked to pay the SOB fee on previous years’ contests. I’m waiting on a reply from Austin club ND as to whether they were asked to pay it for nights they held “Twerk For A Stack” contests. One club that isn’t a strip club, Tony’s Corner Pocket in Houston, appears on the comptroller’s rolls as having paid each year the tax is in effect. They have occasional amateur strip contests and it appears that this is what they’re paying on, making them the most scrupulous bar in the state, since no other non-strip club appears in the payment records.

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Love and Frosting: A Conversation With Portland’s Cupcake Girls

By

Red

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May 7, 2014

The author with Cupcake Girls Bri and Amy (Photo by author’s coworker)

“But how should I address the invitations?” the young brunette across from me asked.

“Husband first, so ‘Mr and Mrs blank,’” advised the older woman next to her, and everyone nodded.

I blinked and made a note, tried not to look confused or judgmental. I was at a planning meeting for It’s a Cupcake Christmas!, a benefit for the Cupcake Girls. They talked about logistics, about raffle prizes, about how much money they wanted to raise, and I played with my mug of tea, not sure what to make of these nice ladies who bring cupcakes to strippers, all of whom were younger than me and married.

Their mission statement reads, “We exist to bring non-judgmental support, consistent caring, community resources and peace, love and cupcakes to women in the adult entertainment industry.”

It sounds simple, but I didn’t get it. That’s why I was there, because I didn’t know what to make of them. This was like a “behind the scenes with the Cupcake Girls!” deal, and we’d scheduled a real sit-down interview over tea the upcoming week and between the two of those I hoped to have a better grasp on what was up with them. In the meantime I wanted to make the most of my sneak peek into how they worked but I kept getting sidetracked by questions like “Who goes first on the invitation?” I didn’t even know people my age cared about such things outside of like, Gossip Girl.

The first time I heard of the Cupcake Girls I was really confused. “The Cupcake what?”

My friend tried to explain:

“They’re Christians, they bring cupcakes to the club and spread the message of the Lord.”

“They bring actual cupcakes?”

“I think sometimes they do hair and makeup too. But they’re trying to make church look less scary and win Christ followers.”

“No way!”

I couldn’t wait to meet these people.

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Sweat Pants Boner Man Speaks: A Tits and Sass Exclusive

By

Josephine

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April 2, 2014

Frost and Nixon. Cronkite and Thatcher. Amanpour and Arafat. O’Reilly and Obama. Today, Tits and Sass brings you what will certainly be remembered as another essential interview in the history of journalism. We all have met him. Every single one of us has been touched in a very special way by this storied individual. Who hasn’t wondered: What’s his side of the story? Now we’ll know. This is our exclusive interview with Sweat Pants Boner Man.

I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

By

Nikki

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February 28, 2014

I love Lindsay Lohan. When her issue of Playboy dropped I raced to the corner store to buy it. Who doesn’t love a Disney princess gone porno? In I Know Who Killed Me, released in 2007, Lohan plays a stripper who, through a twist of events, winds up an amputee. When LiLo accepted the role everyone was scandalized, but when she scored her first D.U.I. a few months before the film’s release, it seemed that everyone’s shock about the movie was overshadowed by her lezzie-make-out-drunk-driving-panty-flashing-coke-snorting antics that summer. The film also has quite possibly the worst script ever written. But, I can’t mention this enough, Lindsay Lohan plays an disabled stripper. I don’t know how I waited this long to watch this movie.

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My Awkward Sexual Adventure (2012)

By

Jessica Barry

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February 24, 2014

Most readers will not have heard of the low-budget Canadian movie My Awkward Sexual Adventure. I had to review it because a) it was filmed in my hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba b) one of the protagonists is a stripper (in fact, the club she works at in the movie is one that I work at regularly) and c) I found it infuriatingly filled with utter nonsense.

The film begins with pale, skinny, boring accountant Jordan (played by fellow Winnipeger Jonas Chernick, who is also the writer and producer) being so boring that his girlfriend, Rachel (Sarah Manninen), falls asleep during sex due to his being a completely dull lover. Just to be clear: accountants are very, VERY boring. Chernick clearly wanted to get this point across so that when we meet Julia-the-naturally-sexually-adventurous-stripper (Emily Hampshire) later, her life comes across as even more wild and disorganized in contrast to Jordan’s tedious and meticulous existence.

After Jordan’s girlfriend breaks up with him, he travels to Toronto (clearly Winnipeg’s Exchange District, but sure, I’ll pretend it’s Toronto) to visit his friend Dandak (Vik Sahay). Soon enough, Jordan moves on to the next stage in the heterosexual man’s break-up mourning cycle: get drunk as fuck at a strip club and get tossed out into the back lane by a bouncer. Enter Julia, who, after finishing her shift, finds Jordan passed out in a pile of garbage bags behind the club. She feels compelled to help him due to the fact that he lent her some spare change so she could purchase a bag of chips from the vending machine in the club. In real life, there’s no vending machine inside this club, and I’ll admit, I was extremely distracted by the little inaccuracies of the strip club setting used in the movie (hey, that’s not where the dressing room is! The private dance areas aren’t over there! That’s not what this club is called!). I was wondering the whole time why they bothered to alter it. I mean, it’s a real strip club, why not just let it be?

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