orchtrpt

Arthur Charleston, the man who invented lap dancing in the late 1950s, has died in his home in Pasadena.

The man who made it possible for middle-aged men to have intimate contact with sexy 18 year-olds, without cheating on their wives, claims he came up with the idea after visiting Finland's Lapland region, where he saw native peoples perform their traditional dances.

In a 60 Minutes interview filmed the year before his death, Charleston claimed "the phrase Lap dancing somehow got stuck in my crawl, and I began wondering if a 'lap dance', a dance on one's lap, could be feasible."

Years of experiments led to both failure and a six month prison term for public indeceny, but the dogged Charleston pushed on with his research, eventually perfecting what we now call the modern heavy-grind lap dance. Initially envisioned as an exercise regimen for shut-ins, the lap dance's potential as entertainment soon became apparent, and Charleston spent much of his time promoting his invention and training sexy 18 year-olds.

Paradoxically, Charleston never made any money off his invention, forcing him to retain his job as head of fluid dynamics at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory until his retirement at age 65. However, he was never bitter about this. "If I can help sexy 18 year-olds make $60,000 a year," he said in an interview, "that's all the reward I need."

trickg

Ok, is this a joke, or is this the real deal? It seems like a farce, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

dcstep

Maybe a day late?