Stephen Markley on 08.12.09 |


You know what I realized? Strip poker is a total crock.
Across the country, sexually riled teenagers, college kids and twentysomethings are eagerly engaging in games of strip poker, merrily laughing and drinking as they deal out hand after hand of Texas Hold 'Em or five card stud while claiming that a wristwatch counts as an article of clothing.

But while strip poker may sound great in theory, in practice it always sucks.

Whenever you play strip poker, there are inevitably twice the number of guys involved. If there are two girls who want to play, you'll end up with four dudes. God forbid if three women want in because you'll be sitting at the table with six other men.

Then you'll start playing and, of course, the men are just way more into it. Ninety five percent of the strip poker games I've ever been involved in have ended with five guys completely bare-ass naked and two girls coyly refusing to remove their underwear.

That's always the point when I realize these girls wanted the social cache of having "played" strip poker without actually having to sit around in their birthday suits with a bunch of creepy guys pretending not to look at them. It's also when guys typically realize that in their haste to see a woman naked, they have instead spent half an hour comparing naughty bits with other men.

Ladies, just to let you in on a little secret, this is how stupid guys are: Strip poker is one of the best ideas that we've come up with for getting women to undress. That's it. After 10,000 years that's still the best we can think of.

And as far as women are concerned, I'm totally on to you people. Even though most men still don't realize it, I've figured out that you're really only using strip poker as a way to embarrass us. You obviously don't really have any interest in seeing a bunch of regular, average-looking guys with strange chest hair patterns naked.

Of course, the irony is that we have no recourse. Women don't have to think of these complicated schemes to get us to take our clothes off. If I was somehow sitting in as a policy adviser in an Obama cabinet meeting and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told me to take my shirt off, I'd think "Well, that's highly unprofessional," and then spend the rest of the meeting flexing my bare chest in case she looked over at me.

So men of Chicago, I beg you, don't fall for this anymore! The next time you're at a party and someone suggests a game of strip poker, don't even bother. Just go find four other guys, go sit in a room naked and tell all the girls present, "There: we look like idiots. You happy now?"

Published in RedEye Column

funkpill said:

Me and my friends don't even bother with the "strip" part we just get naked and have at it.

lazycrockett said:

God, I remember playing strip poker back in the day and the girls would wear extra bracelets and earrings and shit and consider each of those an article of clothing. We'd all be naked by the time the girls took their belts off.