Rehwyn
Engaged Member
- Apr 10, 2024
- 2,602
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I actually think the strip club setting is perfect for what Heaven’s Door is trying to do, and the “no full nudity on stage” constraint makes it even more appropriate.
This story isn’t centered on “how fast can the MC get in their pants,” it’s centered on grief, intimacy, boundaries, and how people let someone into their life when they’re used to being treated like a transaction. A club where dancers are still working, still flirtatious, still sexual, but not automatically “on display” at full intensity gives the writer room to build real relationship beats. It keeps the club from turning into a constant porn loop and lets the emotional dynamics breathe. The club also works because it’s a liminal space, not fully public and not fully private, where people are already halfway out of their everyday roles, which makes real conversations feel natural instead of contrived.
Also, the non-nude setup helps the world feel grounded. It creates a believable reason for why the MC can keep showing up on slow nights and actually talk to people without every scene being “private room or bust.” The erotic content can still exist, but it has to be earned through trust and choice, which fits the tone of the MC’s arc a lot better than a setting where everything is instantly maximized.
And on the “target audience / dating sim crowd” point, I think that’s the whole point of the framing. The game is pretty clearly filtering for readers who can handle sex work as a job and still see the characters as full people. If someone needs their LI to be sexually “untouched” by the world, a strip club story is obviously going to bounce off them.
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