San Francisco, CA (Vocus/PRWEB) June 11, 2011

San Francisco?s premier exotic entertainment venue, invites those who appreciate the finer things in life to the Gold Club?s 7th anniversary celebration Thursday, June 16th at 6 pm. The party, ?A Night at the Gold Club Mansion,? is headlined by Playmate of the Year Sara Underwood, and features a bevy of beauties including TV personality and radio host Jessica Hall, Playmate Kimberly Phillips, Playboy Model DJ Roxanne Dawn, and over 100 of the Gold Club?s hottest entertainers in their sexiest lingerie.

?Our anniversary party is going to be incredible. Join us for the sexiest event in San Francisco, with beautiful entertainers, strong drinks, fine food and many more surprises,? said Gold Club General Manager Ken DeGori.

Guests of the Gold Club can get in with no cover charge and have access to an open bar from 6-7 pm, complimentary hors d’oeuvres and desserts simply by texting SFW6C to 35350.

Slim, sunny blonde spirit Sara Underwood has been featured as Playboy Playmate of the Month and Playmate of the Year. Voted one of the ?25 Hottest Playboy Celebrities,? she has made numerous appearances in Playboy Magazine and videos, as well as appeared on the television sensation ?The Girls Next Door? and in motion pictures, including ?Epic Movie,? ?The House Bunny,? and ?Knight and Day.? She is also a popular host of ?Attack of the Show!? on G4.

Blonde beauty Jessica Hall is an actress, model, reality TV star and radio personality. She is a co-host of the Playboy Radio show ?The Morning After,? and regularly appears on ?Kendra.? She has been Playboy?s Cyber Girl of the Week and featured as one of the Playboy Girls Network?s Sexy Wives.

The ravishing redhead Kimberly Phillips is a Playboy cover girl and Playmate of the Month. She was also featured on Playboy?s online publication, ?The Smoking Jacket.?

Roxanne Dawn, a multitalented model and DJ, is known as the ?Turntable Temptress.? Not only has she appeared in Playboy?s Natural Beauties, Exotic Beauties and Cyber Girl features, she has also deejayed alongside legends like DJ Skribble, DJ Rap, Dave Navarro and Tommy Lee.

Since opening seven years ago, the Gold Club has established its reputation as a world-class gentlemen?s club and restaurant that is popular with locals and business travelers looking to relax and enjoy San Francisco?s finest adult entertainment.

The exclusive San Francisco nightclub, recently voted ?Best Strip Club 2011? by SF Weekly readers, has earned its stellar reputation by providing a welcoming atmosphere and attentive service in a richly appointed and comfortable setting. The entertainers at the Gold Club are selected for their beauty and talent, and are known for being friendly but not overly pushy.

?Gold Club is one of the nicest [strip clubs I’ve been to in my life. The place is clean, everyone working there (not just the dancers) were very friendly, and the decor and layout is top notch,? said Matt E. from Brooklyn.

For more information about the Gold Club?s 7th anniversary party or any of the Gold Club?s products or services, call them at (415) 536-0300, view them on the web at http://local.sfgate.com/161128/, or visit the club, located at 650 Howard Street in downtown San Francisco.

Like the Gold Club on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/goldclubsf. Follow them on Twitter at @GoldClubSF. Check out videos on their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/goldclubsanfrancisco. Read visitors? reviews at http://www.yelp.com/biz/gold-club-san-francisco.

About the Gold Club

The Gold Club is a world-class gentlemen’s club conveniently located in the heart of downtown San Francisco. With over 200 of the most erotic and exotic entertainers, a fine dining restaurant, five fully stocked bars and VIP skybox service, the Gold Club is San Francisco?s premier erotic entertainment venue.

The Gold Club recognizes the value of customer satisfaction and consistently succeeds in supplying a highly entertaining and sensual experience to all guests. Outstanding special features include concierge services, champagne rooms, bottle service tables / booths, indoor cigar / smoking room, free secure WiFi access, limo services, and valet parking. The Gold Club is a popular destination for bachelor parties, business meetings, or just a fun time out with friends in a comfortable, upscale environment.

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Unlike many wedding customs, it’s not so hard to get to the bottom of the origin of the bachelorette party. It’s a fairly recent innovation, the result of the cross-breeding of the traditional bachelorette’s tea

with the idea of the bachelor party, with a bit of the even-more-traditional bridal shower mixed in.

The idea of the bridal shower goes back, perhaps, thousands of years; experts attribute it to the need for dowries. In European culture, it was expected that women would begin married life with a dowry – a gift of money or tools (or both) that would allow the new couple to set up their new household together. But women who lacked adequate dowries would be “showered” with gifts by sympathetic friends, which would enable the wedding to go on as planned.

The bridal shower was traditionally, and still is, a fairly staid affair, with older woman friends of the couple or of the bride’s family invited, and the bride-to-be accompanied by her mother. (Increasingly, as traditionally gendered divisions of labor continue to break down, men are involved in the showers as well – after all, if the man will do part of the cooking and cleaning, he has a stake in knowing what presents are received!) They serve a much-needed function, but they may not have the let-your-hair-down appeal of a last night out with the friends of your single years.

The bachelorette’s tea offered some of the peer-to-peer intimacy that may have been lacking in bridal showers, but still – a tea? The highly formal, characteristically Victorian custom of the tea ceremony holds great appeal for many people, as the recent popularity of tea shops and books on tea attest. Still, as women began to learn about the wild shenanigans historically associated with bachelor parties, over the last several decades, they decided they wanted in.

The Bridesmaidaid website compares them to Title IX, the 1972 law that mandated equal federal funding of boys’ and girls’ educational activities. Just as Title IX ensured that girls’ soccer teams and afterschool math programs would receive the same budgetary consideration as boys’ did, allowing young women to attain similar achievements, the new bachelorette party allows women to compete with men in pre-wedding-night partying. As the website’s anonymous author puts it: “Bachelorette parties are like the Title IX of weddings: they’re supposed to make the girls equal to the boys. If the groomsmen can take their boy out for a night of debauchery, so can we, right?”

Bachelorette parties have indeed become associated with bachelor-party-style antics, as illustrated by pop culture and personal anecdote alike. A memorable scene in the movie The Forty-Year-Old Virgin, in which the title character’s friends attempt to set him up with what they expect will be a can’t-miss romantic prospect – a drunken bridesmaid encountered at a bar, where a bachelorette party is underway – affirms the stereotype.

But this custom has changed with time, like its twin, the bachelor party. Bachelor parties have their own Bacchanalian reputation to live up to, but gradually they’re toning down somewhat (while remaining fun). Drinking has been moderated and honoring one’s future bride is a priority; in fact, sometimes the fiance’ and her friends show up, and the party becomes a celebration of marriage, rather than a lament for lost bachelorhood. These combined bachelor-and-bachelorette parties are sometimes called stag and does parties.

One custom that isn’t changing at bachelorette parties is the ritual smoking of cigars. In fact, with the increase in the popularity of cigars over the past fifteen years, lighting up a stogie at a bachelorette party is often encouraged! After all, one feature of the new popularity of cigars has been the fact that women are more often found, today, among the new smokers of cigars. At least half a million American women smoke cigars, according to a 2002 estimate by the Cigar Association of America. That number makes sense in a country where – according to demographic research by Cigar Babes, a nonprofit organization for women cigar smokers’ women make 85% of buying decisions, start 70% of new businesses, and buy 50% of the products classified traditionally as “male.”

Cigars, then, remain a staple bachelorette party gift. For those of you planning a bachelorette party, here are some cigar basics:

1) Choose good cigars. (A wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event!) Buy well-made, hand-rolled, long-filler cigars from a quality cigar outlet or online store. The better the cigar, the better the taste, and the more permanent the memories.

2) Speaking of taste: the outer wrapper (which gives the cigar its outer color) generally tells you how the cigar tastes. Darker outer wrappers mean sweeter taste; tan- or lighter-colored cigars are drier.

3) How to smoke: Cut off the cap of the cigar, then, using a wooden match or a butane lighter or other full flame (not a paper match), turn the end of the cigar in the flame a full 360 degrees until every part of it is lit. Don’t inhale – this isn’t a cigarette! Pull the smoke into your mouth and taste it thoroughly without allowing it into your lungs. Remember, it’s about the taste.

For those who do a lot of entertaining, it’s hard to come up with new party themes. But the recent popularity of cigars offers a great creative party idea for stressed-out would-be party hosts.

Putting together a good party is hard – and gets harder as you grow older. In college, it’s easy enough to satisfy your guests with, say, a bowlful of pretzels and a keg of beer, but friends burdened with adult responsibilities – a job to get up for, a child to raise – may not want to drive out to your place just for some stale salt-heavy snacks and a can or two of average quality beer. So you’ve got to come up with fun new ideas. But this gets stressful, complex, and sometimes expensive as well. After you’ve tried out your first two or three great inspirations, you may begin to burn out on entertaining all together.

But there’s hope. Try throwing a cigar-sampler party.

Cigars aren’t just your grandfather’s chosen indulgence anymore – they’ve grown increasingly popular during the past fifteen years or so. After bottoming out during the 1980s, cigars became the break of choice for a well-educated, younger demographic, even as other forms of smoking went into decline. They’re just luxurious enough to feel like the break you deserve, but, since they’re designed to be smoked slowly, one at a time, and in moderation (unlike cigarettes), they won’t break the bank. Their infinite differences in taste offer the pleasures of connoisseurship as well: experienced smokers learn to enjoy the differences between double claro cigars (light and generally dry-tasting, with very tan outer wrappers) and maduros (dark brown in color and sweetish), between the great cigars of Nicaragua and those of the Dominican Republic or Turkey. A cigar-themed party makes sense if your friends are smokers, and it also makes sense for those who aren’t (as long as, you make sure not to invite anybody who’s passionately anti-smoking or allergic to tobacco).

Here are some tips on throwing a cigar-themed party:

1) Buy a sampler or two of premium cigars, until you have enough to cover the number of planned guests. (Keep the guest list small – you’ll have better-quality interactions, and you’ll keep the party affordable.)

2) Cigar samplers are easy to buy online, but be careful. Some cigar stores “lead off” with a too-good-to-be-true deal – an inexpensive sampler labeled “premium.” Usually these cheap “premium” platters actually contain only a few top cigars, and are then rounded out with cigar pawns – cheaply-made knockoff cigars. Make sure that your sampler comes from a high-quality cigar shop or online store, and that you know what you’re getting.

3) Once you have your premium-cigar sampler, assign one cigar to each guest.

4) On the night of the party, serve simple snacks before you serve the cigars. (Cigars tend not to go well with ultra-creamy or rich foods.) Hard cheeses, dark chocolates, fruit, coffee, and fine red wines or beers are recommended. Remember – avoid anything too rich!

5) After folks have eaten and had a few drinks, bring out the cigars. Have everyone head outside with his or her assigned cigar and a drink; light everyone’s cigar, and tell them to smoke up. You’ll have given all your guests something new to talk about.

6) If desired, encourage your guests to bring their own cigars, which can be collected and served as part of a “second round” later. Guests could compare the tastes of their two assigned cigars. You could even encourage one of your guests to bring some non-premium cigars, even off-brand gas-station cigars, as a gaga – though only if you’re going for a second round of smoking!

Experienced cigar smokers will enjoy the chance to share their enthusiasm with others. New smokers and nonsmokers will be trying and enjoying something new.

Remember when lighting to cut the cap of the cigar, then, using a wooden match or a zippo lighter or other full flame (not a paper match), turn the end of the cigar in the flame a full 360 degrees until every part of it is lit. Remind your guests who haven’t smoked cigars before that they shouldn’t inhale – this isn’t a cigarette! Pull the smoke into your mouth and taste it thoroughly without allowing it into your lungs. Remember, it’s about the taste.

Satyajit Das: The Human Touch
By Satyajit Das, a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives – Revised Edition (2010, FT-Prentice Hall). Michael Lewis (2010) The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine; Allen Lane John Lanchester (2010) Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay; Allen Lane Roger Lowenstein (2010) [...]

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