Chapter 10 — Overview of the Topless Pools
It’s a fact of life that in this country, female nipples are big entertainment. In Europe, no big deal. In America, big BIG deal. Now, I’m all for the idealistic notion that topless pools are about giving women the same freedom to bare their chests to the glorious sunshine that men have always enjoyed. But let’s face it, that’s not what topless pools are about to American guys. Topless pools are about us guys getting to look at girls’ titties. If we’re to pay the outrageous admission fees the topless pools charge, compared to the fees (if any) of the casinos’ regular pools, believe me, we’re going for the tit show.
Why else would men be charged $20 to $40 for admission to Mirage’s Bare Pool Lounge, while ladies are admitted free? How about the $50 weekend admission for men to Mandalay’s topless pool, while women pay $10? Just to go for a dip? I’ll tell you why these price inequities exist—because guys will pay a lot more to see nipples than women will pay to get sunshine on them. Women could care less about seeing other women’s tits. The casinos catering to the American crowd let women into the topless pool areas for a song, hoping they’ll provide the show we dudes are paying top dollar for.
Of the eight pools in Las Vegas that allow topless sunbathing for women guests, seven are located in casino hotels; one is in a non-casino hotel, the Artisan Hotel and Spa.
American-Style vs. European-Style
So first off, in order to compare apples to apples, I categorize the topless pools in Vegas as either “European-style” or “American-style.” Any pool I categorize as European-style probably won’t appeal to readers of this guide. At a European-style topless pool, there’ll be too many nipples you’d rather not see, let alone pay to see. I work from the assumption that you’re a guy who wants to get his money’s worth.
You go to a European-style pool to relax. You go to an American-style pool to party. At a European-style pool, the ambience is more serene than saturnalian. The music is subdued. Bathers lounge around the edges of the pool where the water barely shows a ripple. People catch up on their summer reading and even snooze in the deck lounges.
At an American-style pool, on the other hand, the air-rattling sound system is cranked up to encourage dancing, with a DJ spinning top hits. Lots of beach balls are provided to discourage bathers from lounging, beer is sold by the bucket, and cocktail servers in teeny bikinis make the rounds with shots and shooters.
I compare the entry fees and describe the pools and sunbathing areas, the drink and food options and prices, and anything else the various pools might provide. I don’t list all the prices for cabana rentals or day beds, which often change, depending on the day of week, expected crowd conditions, and whether you rent for a full or half-day. I provide phone numbers for the topless pools that you can call to inquire about cabana and day bed rentals and to make reservations. But all of these pool features are secondary. Far more important in rating a topless pool is the industry-standard ANEI (or the Adjusted Nipple Entertainment Index).
Counting Nipples
Male nipples don’t figure into the nipple count. Let’s face it, men’s nipples have no entertainment value. They don’t do any of the multitude of wonderfully amusing things that women’s nipples do, which I’m sure I don’t have to enumerate.
When counting female nipples in a pool environment, statisticians have determined that the Raw Nipple Count (RNC), in and of itself, is a very poor gauge of entertainment value. I discovered the truth of this on my first visit to a European-style topless pool, where the only female nipples on display were on the chest of an overweight fiftyish lady sunning herself in a deck chair with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in a rhinestone-studded cigarette holder in the other. She had a beautiful golden tan, but with her ample belly, her 50-year-old tits might best be described as fried eggs on a barrel. Not nipples I’d pay to see.
So, instead of using the RNC, or the Raw Nipple Count, I use what we in the industry call the SGNC, or the Stripper-Grade Nipple Count. If the female owner of the nipples I encounter at a topless pool would not, could not, or should not (in my opinion) be dancing in a strip club, then her nipples are assumed to have the same entertainment value as my nipples—which is zip—and they don’t figure into the count.
I must stipulate that any assessment of what constitutes stripper-grade nipples is necessarily subjective. My wife came with me to some of the topless pools I visited and she felt that my standards were rather strict in this regard. I had to agree with her that some of the nipples I discarded from the SGNC could, in fact, be entertaining to some men and that the females in question could probably get work in some of the Vegas strip clubs that hire dancers on the lower end of the body spectrum. But if I’m paying to see nipples, I want top-quality nipples only. So when I say stripper grade, I mean top-of-the-line stripper grade. That’s the only way a professional in this field ever figures out the CPN.
The CPN? It’s simply the Cost per Nip. When we divide the admission fee for gaining entry into a topless pool area by the SGNC, we get the CPN. The lower the CPN, the higher the Adjusted Nipple Entertainment Index x (ANEI). But the ANEI must also be adjusted for the NIM, or Nipples In Motion, factor. Static nipples haven’t nearly the entertainment value of bouncing nipples, so stripper-grade nipples involved in a titty-ball game will jack up the ANEI considerably.
Titty Ball—A New American Sport
If you’re not a topless-pool aficionado, allow me to explain “titty ball.” Some of the American pools provide beach balls for the guests’ entertainment. Typically, a topless pool has a fairly equal number of male and female guests in the water, some of whom smack the beach balls around. Not all the females in the water are topless, but if one or more are, you tend to find the men initiating the game I call titty ball.
The object of the game is to hit the ball in such a way that one of the topless females has to jump for it, thus exposing her glistening wet titties. The men keep score silently, as I believe the women don’t know that a titty-ball game is in progress. They seem to believe they’re simply hitting a beach ball around. But men never play a game unless it’s a competition and they often high-five each other when one of them pulls off a “double McGillicuddy”: a beach ball hit with such perfect timing, velocity, and angle that two topless girls leap for it simultaneously. A double McGillicuddy is an awe-inspiring thing to see. It’s the titty-ball equivalent of a hole-in-one or stealing home plate.
I’m not going through all the math on this for you. Suffice it to say that I have an Excel spreadsheet set up with a macro for figuring out each pool’s ANEI precisely and I’ve double-checked all my numbers. This is science, not guesswork.
Except, that is, for the scientific guesswork.
Here’s the problem. Every American-style topless pool—the ones we really like—needs a starter, the first girl to take off her top. Once one girl starts showing her titties, the other girls look at her and say, “Hey, my tits are at least as good as hers,” and tops start flying off left and right.
Fact is, most American girls have terrible body images. It doesn’t matter how gorgeous their bodies are (to us guys), they feel inferior. They think their breasts are too small, or one hangs lower than the other, or the nipples aren’t centered right. Talk to any American girl sometime about her boobs and you’ll see what I mean. These girls all grew up playing with Barbie dolls. How do you compete with that?
Once they see other topless girls, however, they suddenly realize that the competition isn’t all that great. Then they see how all the guys are now looking at the topless babe and they can’t wait to get their titties in the sunshine.
If you want to time your pool visit for maximum potential topless fun, plan to arrive at around 3:30 in the afternoon. By that time, many women have been at the pool since noon, knocking down piña coladas and margaritas and mojitos and basically getting pretty damn juiced up. All it takes now is a starter to get the titty action going. The play here is to just keep buying drinks for the girls in bikinis. Think of it as an investment in your immediate future.
Some of the best topless pools are the ones where the strippers go—I identify these in my reviews. Strippers, of course, don’t have the same kinds of jitters about not having Barbie-perfect tits as other girls. Even the ones who’ve had boob jobs look at their tits and see less-than-perfect Barbieness. But they also see other women’s breasts enough to know that no girls’ tits are perfect and that guys go nuts for them anyway. So stripper pools always have a starter as soon as the strippers show up.
The basic problem at most American-style pools, however, is that sometimes the strippers don’t show up. So unless you bring your wife or girlfriend—and she’s the kind of woman you can be sure will get her nipples out into the sun before the afternoon ends—you never know for sure if a starter will get the action going. You could be at an American-style topless pool all afternoon and see nary a nipple. You’ll see lots of babes in bikinis, sure, but all those entertaining nipples could be wasted. Unfortunately, despite industry standards, we can’t use the Adjusted Nipple Entertainment Index with full confidence. You have to realize that the ANEI, at best, can only indicate the potential for nipple entertainment. It’s up to you guys to keep the girls drinking and doing whatever you have to do to encourage one starter to make the afternoon worth the outrageous fee you paid to get in.
Also note that a number of the topless pools have specific days of the week when locals get in free. These pools don’t post signs that say, “Nevada Residents Free Today.” You either know this in advance, or you ask at the entrance, or you pay like everyone else. Again, one thing to remember if you live in this town and go anywhere with an admission charge—strip clubs, nightclubs, casino shows, pools—is to ask if there’s a better rate for local residents. In Vegas, we take care of our own and let the tourists pay top dollar.
One final note: Most topless pools, because they’re “adults only” and have full bars, have an age requirement of 21 or older.
The Party Pools
Many Las Vegas casinos advertise pools for adults only that aren’t topless pools. These are primarily party pools and they definitely get wild on hot summer days. Many have events, like bikini and girls-kissing contests, twister games, celebrity-birthday bashes, lots of drink specials, dancing, DJs spinning the music at top volume, etc.
The crowds for these pools are young, hip, and pretty drunk by sundown, and many continue after dark, sometimes in the pool areas and sometimes in connected nightclubs. If you’re just looking to have fun, meet people, and maybe get laid, and seeing nipples is not a priority, you might want to check out some of these party pools. Most are open to the public, some for an entry fee, some free. I don’t review them here, but you can find more information about these pools and their events at LasVegasAdvisor.com in the “Cool Pools” section, and on Twitter@ToplessVegas.
The most popular party pools (in alphabetical order by casino name) are: Aria’s “Liquid Pool Lounge,” Hard Rock’s “Rehab,” M Resort’s “Daydream Pool Club,” MGM Grand’s “Wet Republic” (bikini contest every Friday), the Palms’ “Palms Pool” (“Ditch Friday” the only day open to the public), Planet Hollywood’s “Pleasure Pool” (bikini contest every Saturday), and Stratosphere’s “8.”
Note: Most European-style pools are seasonal and close late September or early October until the following spring. The pools at Golden Nugget, Encore, and Wynn are year-round.
©2009 Arnold Snyder
©2012 Arnold Snyder
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For up-to-date info on Vegas topless pools, adult entertainment, and the best Vegas gentlemen’s clubs, peepshows, massage parlors and brothels, see ToplessVegasOnline.com.
