So, the Superbowl is coming to town this weekend. For months, reports have been trickling in on what we can expect—mostly we all expect to buy new cars. Most of the tickets are corporate, and so apparently we can expect hot and cold running expense accounts. Despite the influx of corporate cash, we paid attention to the playoffs (I looked at a NFL bracket for the first time in my life. The games were on my google calendar. For shame, for shame). We strippers were rooting for Chicago and New York because those fans presumably have more money. The Jets played the Cowboys a few months ago, and I walked unsuspectingly into a late Sunday night shift (usually dead, but fun) and was greeted by a club packed to the gills with New Jersey. I screwed up and asked, “so what part of the city do you live in?” and got “fuck you, I'm from Jersey!” twice before I caught on, turned the bitch-o-matic meter up to eleven, and banked. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Those guys are all used to the eastern european girls which populate the clubs out east, so if you sit with them for like, a song, before asking for a dance, they feel special. God that was a fun night. But alas: when the Jets lost last weekend, we heard that half the scheduled charter planes flying into Love Field were canceled. Stupid Jets. Stupid planes. Gah.
Price gauging is getting crazy. The La Quinta in Arlington is charging $500/night with a five night minimum. Parking spots at the Death Star are going for $900. Seriously? Is football really this awesome?
We had a strategy meeting a few weeks ago. The club opened early on a Sunday, served us brunch, and we discussed what sort of changes we could expect in the coming days. Apparently we're the only club that's not raising our prices. They're cracking down on the rules, mainly the ones in place to maximize club capacity and efficiency. They quit hiring out-of-towners a few weeks ago, and now have stopped hiring altogether (thank fucking god—you know those new girls will work every night, because they're, well, new. We had 120 on the floor one night last week. I expect over 200 strippers will work every night Thursday/Friday/Saturday. SO doing my makeup before I come to work this week; that dressing room is going to be a clusterfuck).
Despite the general hype around town (it feels like the Olympics are coming, I swear), we don't need to advertise. We get press instead. We were written up in the New York Times a few weeks ago, and were back on the Rachel Maddow show AGAIN, because Newt Gingrich is an idiot (but we knew that already). D Magazine has listed us as their pick for superbowl-related titties. So you could say, boys and girls, that this shit is ON.
I had a customer a few months ago (who goes to the superbowl every year via various corporate-gift related activities) tell me that we could expect people to start trickling in the Monday following the last playoff game. That was a week ago. And you know what? The club has been dead, people. Dead. And to make things worse? IT'S SUPPOSED TO SNOW TOMORROW. I've been saying for weeks that the only thing that could ruin this fucker would be an ice storm. Well, you can all blame me. I jinxed it.
To make matters worse, there's this bullshit story (started by TMZ...naturally) that the local FOX station started circulating about how Dallas is in supposed “dire need” of 10,000 strippers. Don't listen! It's a vicious rumor! Fucking outsiders need to quit coming in and poaching on our big week! Here's what went down: some jackass club manager in Kenandale (I don't even know where that IS) said his club needs 100 more girls and the metroplex as a whole probably needs 10,000 more (and let's face it, the clubs in Arlington and the outlying cities probably do need more girls. All the hot ones work in Dallas. Everyone knows this), and BAM! Instant sensationalist crap. It's all over everywhere. I've got customers from around the country texting me saying, “Oh hey I was listening to sports radio this morning and apparently Dallas needs 10,000 more strippers?” I swear someone sends me a version of this story via various social media every fucking day, and each time, just a little bit more steam comes out of my ears.
My coworkers are starting to post stressed-out “this better not all be hype” comments on the FB feed. If we don't all pay off our credit debt this week, come next Monday, the general morale of Lodge employees and entertainers is going to be somewhere down around the 5th circle of hell.
1/30/11
"I'm just me, in sluttier clothes."
The Aussie and I are sitting at the front bar, enjoying a tasty adult beverage at the beginning of our shift. I rather like chatting with her, she's in the 99th percentile of exceptional women in that club. She's an incredibly serene and old soul, one of those people who has stories and wisdom that seem to surpass the years of her current lifespan. I like to talk with her about sex (she's got similar predilections to mine, and is never shocked by my stories, just happy for me), work (she's been doing this longer, and is far more skilled than I will probably ever become), and sex work (wicked smart, this woman can wax theory and keep up with my ivory-tower-educated ass). On this particular evening, we're discussing our strategies for relating to customers. We're both very similar in that we find it downright impossible to employ personae; instead, we feel as though we simply highlight and/or suppress certain aspects of ourselves in order to form emotional/intellectual/sexualized connections with various clients. Actually, those are my words, which makes sense, because that's basically half of my master's thesis topic in a nutshell. What she said was this:
“When I'm connecting, I truly believe in people, like I am giving, and that people are truly good. If I can project and make it a better day for them, then fine. My kindness isn't only presented to people who will pay. Other girls reserve that kindness for the paying customers, and that's why you and I aren't starving to death.”
She's touched on a few issues that are absolutely central to our work: the ability to relate to almost anyone, and the ability to give (or sell) love. She and I have similar strategies for interacting with customers and potentially extracting money from their wallets: we just talk. If I don't feel a connection with someone, if the conversation doesn't flow smoothly, I don't ask them if they'd like a dance; if the chemistry isn't there, I tell them to have fun and I leave. You'd be amazed at the random shit you learn from people with this kind of game plan. Last night I learned about golf. And how walmart killed a small town in Oklahoma. Four nights ago, I learned that a married man desperately wanted to be fucked in the ass, but had never told his wife (definitely not the first time I've heard that one).
But the Aussie's point is that we don't have to be paid in order to listen, at least at first. Our job is to connect, relate, engage. We'll do that for a moment for free before we decide we need to move on (a classic rookie mistake is to do this for too long and then lose insurmountable sums of cash along the way), we don't simply walk up and ask someone if they'd like a dance. I absolutely have to feel like I could sit down for a meal with someone before I'll offer them my more corporeal services. My rules become even stricter with potential “regulars.” The Aussie and I are of the opinion that this makes us highly exceptional at what we do; there are always bits and pieces of our “real” selves included in the relationships we form with customers, no matter if that relationship lasts for five minutes, five hours, or five months. Even years. We sell companionship. We are Texas courtesans in trashy outfits. We are ourselves, only in sluttier clothes.
Case in point: the other night I was very mentally distracted by the awesomeness that had just transpired in my bed with a darling new boy. I couldn't really engage, I was lost in my own head. Sometimes after a vacation or a particularly-entralling break from work, it can be very difficult to “fake it” after being so “real.” Sometimes realness can't be suppressed for the sake of show. On nights like this, I prefer to do a dance here, a dance there, not converse a whole lot, to sell more of my body than my personality. So I'm wandering around playing the who's-going-to-make-and-hold-eye-contact game, and I happen across a Pakistani gentleman in a corner. He seems interested, and I wait <1 song to ask, “So, would you like me to dance for you?” Two things are of note here: First: I normally don't approach middle eastern men, because I generally find them to be both handsy and cheap. They'll grope the shit out of me for a song or two but not plunk down enough cash for subsequent dances to make my efforts worthwhile. Also, usually they either smell bad and/or wear too much cologne. (Yes, I know, that's racist. But we're strippers. We profile. Deal with it). But in my distracted state, I hadn't made much, and I was getting kindof desperate, and he held my gaze, so I approached. Second: the manner in which I transitioned from smalltalk into dancing was a bit odd for me. As aforementioned, I normally wait until I have a mental/emotional connection with a customer before moving into money-extraction mode. But I didn't have a connection with him, rather, I didn't have a connection with anyone that night because I was so distracted, so I figured I'd just play it simple and go for dances right off the bat. Also, the way in which I asked, would he like me to dance for him, was rather submissive, which I also figured (in my racist profiling mindset) would play into his culturally-imbibed patriarchal tendencies.
I got what I asked for. I got approximately three and a half minutes of groping in exchange for $20. I felt like a cheap whore. Then I left. Normally I leave a customer feeling as though I've actually made a difference in their day, their mood, or perhaps (and ideally) changed their mind about what they consider a stereotypical stripper. I didn't feel anything but dirty when I walked away from Pakistani dude.
The Aussie says that my “truth” shines through in a more effortless way than hers, that she has to work at it more. Maybe that's why she makes more money than I do, because it's easier for her to hide.
“When I'm connecting, I truly believe in people, like I am giving, and that people are truly good. If I can project and make it a better day for them, then fine. My kindness isn't only presented to people who will pay. Other girls reserve that kindness for the paying customers, and that's why you and I aren't starving to death.”
She's touched on a few issues that are absolutely central to our work: the ability to relate to almost anyone, and the ability to give (or sell) love. She and I have similar strategies for interacting with customers and potentially extracting money from their wallets: we just talk. If I don't feel a connection with someone, if the conversation doesn't flow smoothly, I don't ask them if they'd like a dance; if the chemistry isn't there, I tell them to have fun and I leave. You'd be amazed at the random shit you learn from people with this kind of game plan. Last night I learned about golf. And how walmart killed a small town in Oklahoma. Four nights ago, I learned that a married man desperately wanted to be fucked in the ass, but had never told his wife (definitely not the first time I've heard that one).
But the Aussie's point is that we don't have to be paid in order to listen, at least at first. Our job is to connect, relate, engage. We'll do that for a moment for free before we decide we need to move on (a classic rookie mistake is to do this for too long and then lose insurmountable sums of cash along the way), we don't simply walk up and ask someone if they'd like a dance. I absolutely have to feel like I could sit down for a meal with someone before I'll offer them my more corporeal services. My rules become even stricter with potential “regulars.” The Aussie and I are of the opinion that this makes us highly exceptional at what we do; there are always bits and pieces of our “real” selves included in the relationships we form with customers, no matter if that relationship lasts for five minutes, five hours, or five months. Even years. We sell companionship. We are Texas courtesans in trashy outfits. We are ourselves, only in sluttier clothes.
Case in point: the other night I was very mentally distracted by the awesomeness that had just transpired in my bed with a darling new boy. I couldn't really engage, I was lost in my own head. Sometimes after a vacation or a particularly-entralling break from work, it can be very difficult to “fake it” after being so “real.” Sometimes realness can't be suppressed for the sake of show. On nights like this, I prefer to do a dance here, a dance there, not converse a whole lot, to sell more of my body than my personality. So I'm wandering around playing the who's-going-to-make-and-hold-eye-contact game, and I happen across a Pakistani gentleman in a corner. He seems interested, and I wait <1 song to ask, “So, would you like me to dance for you?” Two things are of note here: First: I normally don't approach middle eastern men, because I generally find them to be both handsy and cheap. They'll grope the shit out of me for a song or two but not plunk down enough cash for subsequent dances to make my efforts worthwhile. Also, usually they either smell bad and/or wear too much cologne. (Yes, I know, that's racist. But we're strippers. We profile. Deal with it). But in my distracted state, I hadn't made much, and I was getting kindof desperate, and he held my gaze, so I approached. Second: the manner in which I transitioned from smalltalk into dancing was a bit odd for me. As aforementioned, I normally wait until I have a mental/emotional connection with a customer before moving into money-extraction mode. But I didn't have a connection with him, rather, I didn't have a connection with anyone that night because I was so distracted, so I figured I'd just play it simple and go for dances right off the bat. Also, the way in which I asked, would he like me to dance for him, was rather submissive, which I also figured (in my racist profiling mindset) would play into his culturally-imbibed patriarchal tendencies.
I got what I asked for. I got approximately three and a half minutes of groping in exchange for $20. I felt like a cheap whore. Then I left. Normally I leave a customer feeling as though I've actually made a difference in their day, their mood, or perhaps (and ideally) changed their mind about what they consider a stereotypical stripper. I didn't feel anything but dirty when I walked away from Pakistani dude.
The Aussie says that my “truth” shines through in a more effortless way than hers, that she has to work at it more. Maybe that's why she makes more money than I do, because it's easier for her to hide.
5/1/10
lecherous death-eaters
So, there’s this girl who’s been getting on my nerves lately. On the second night that I knew her, she made the mistake of coming up behind me and poking me in the ribs. I yelled and threw an elbow without thinking about it—this is what happens when you come up behind me and poke me in the ribs, without fail. I turn to shoot her a look, and instead of apologizing like most people do when I inform them of exactly how much I hate that and how uncontrollable my reaction is, she goes, “Wow, you’re really high strung, aren’t you?” Oh man. Not the best foot to start out on with me. It gets better. She’s really loud and obnoxious, and never seems to have anything nice to say. Every time you hear the unmistakable sound of her storming into the dressing room, she’s whining about something at full volume. It’s really fucking annoying, to the point where I’ve had whole conversations with other women about it, and actually went so far as to say to her last week, “Girl, you don’t seem to be having a very good time at work lately. When was the last time you took a few days off work? Do you think you might be burned out? You might consider taking a rest.” She just stared at me. Or fired off some excuse, I don’t remember. But seriously, negativity turned up to eleven with vocal projection to match? It’s not something I want to be around every day, but I don’t really have a choice. Doesn’t help that her locker is about four away from mine.
Now I’m pretty sure she’s on drugs. Two nights ago she crashes into the dressing room doing her “Whhyyyyy doesn’t anybodyyyyy like meeeee” (Seriously, this is what’s coming out of her mouth—can you say ‘self fulfilling prophecy’? I knew thatcha could!) routine, but I’m in such a good mood it barely touches me. I’ve just spent three lovely hours messing around with someone I would date if he wasn’t married (I only get to see him about twice a year, and it’s always a treat. He can see the future. And he has fangs) and playing concierge to the rest of his roomful of work colleagues up in VIP. Naturally, my hair got a little messed up, so I’m redoing it: about twice a week, when I don’t feel like washing/drying/straightening my hair, I put it in a bun and throw on these hair pieces instead. They look like tribbles: they’re color-matched, mostly braided, hair “scrunchies” (no, not that kind of scrunchie). They’re an instantaneous updo, and the end result is rather messy and irreverent looking, and it accentuates my neck. I love them. Anyways, they got messed up (to the point of falling off) when I was upstairs having my neck bitten by a wise person, so now they’re laid out on the countertop for reapplication. I return from a bobby pin excavation excursion to my locker, to find whiner girl leading a team of two other women of color in making fun of my tribbles, literally pointing and laughing and throwing out comments about how only black chicks can wear those things. Whoa. I’m not a very confrontational person by nature, and I’m really not interested in spending two minutes applying my tribbles in front of these women who were just mocking them and me, so I grab my things and head over to the other side of the dressing room. A while passes, I can’t shake that feeling, and the incident is kindof gnawing at me. So when I’m talking to this really awesome fedora-and-three-piece-suit-wearing bar fixture, and whiner girl elbows her way in fishing for a drink, I confront her. I tell her that what I thought she said was rude, and it made me really uncomfortable. Now, if the situation was reversed, even if I didn’t mean it or give two shits, I would most likely have acknowledged the other person’s feelings and apologized and explained the miscommunication if one existed. She does no such thing. “Aw, come ON, we were only JOKING, and besides, that’s not what we said.” And I’m like, “Dude. You were making fun of the shit that I wear, right in front of me. Not cool.” And she persists: “Oh, come ON. Lighten UP. Here, let’s kiss and make up” and then, she grabs my head and slimes the lower half of my face with saliva and lipgloss for about ten seconds. I’m trying to pull away the entire time, I’m completely revolted (hell, even fedora guy walks off—and he’s one of the most perverted people I’ve ever met), and when she finally lets me go I shoot her this look of total disgust and stomp off to the dressing room to clean off my fucking face. I think she actually sexually harassed me. And that, my friends, is a really difficult thing to do.
So I did something I’ve only done once before in my four year career as a slutty independent contractor: I told on her. I talked to the house mom, who was horrified, and fetched the dance manager and made me repeat my story. I felt really weird, doing that. Flash forward to last night, and who do I run into at the back door on our way to sign in for the night? Yeah. I avoid her for as long as possible, thinking she probably got in trouble and she knows it was me, but I guess not, because she goes “sup bitch” and I’m like “you were off your tits last night” and she’s like “yep. Gonna do it again tonight.” Ugh. GROSS. I really wish she would go away. I’m going to see if I can get her fired for doing coke in the bathroom or something.
I manage to avoid her while we’re getting ready, and go to visit my favorite bartender to have a salad and a tasty adult beverage. While sitting at the bar, one of the fixtures is asking me about my academic career. I tell him I didn’t get my MA because I thought it would make me more employable, I simply wanted the knowledge. He had done something similar (finished grad school with like 180 hours), and we have a conversation about how education is so belt-knotchy these days. He says to me, “Consider yourself a particle that enjoys brevity in motion. You’re just bouncing through life.” I find this so awesome I run off to the dressing room to write it down, but end up just sending it in a text message to a new lover, a writer, who laid this one on me in return: “Bouncing slipping sliding bending writhing moaning spinning somersaulting gyrating lubricating motivating inebriating bifurcating licking sucking coming sighing and the bouncing all over again. Sounds about right.” Oh sweet lord in heaven, that’s a luscious thing to read right before going onstage to dance naked in front of a crowd. I am the goddess incarnate, and your souls hereby belong to me. Pay homage or die.
On stage four, I receive a tip from a rather muscley person and we talk about body modifications. He’s nice enough, so I sit down with him and his buddies once my relief arrives. I have a pretty good time laughing with this table, and muscle dude has some interesting things to say about tattoos. He won’t let me dance for him though, so his time is limited. “Look, I’d rather just pay you to sit with me, here’s ten bucks.” Ten bucks? That’s not gonna go very far, I’ve been there for like half an hour. Pretty soon I give up, and he’s cool about it—“I understand, go make your money girl.”
Off I go. I snag a lap belonging to someone who tipped me onstage, and end up giving him his first lapdance ever. I love popping cherries. Then I find Mazlowe (yes, her stage name is literally a reference to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, because she is that awesome), a burner friend who comes into town a few weekends per month to work at my club. I sit with her and the dude she’s working on, just passing time till the night gets busier. Somehow we’ve kept missing each other when she comes to the club, so I soon discover how awesome it is to work with her—I really like her attitude, jokes, and her positive yet berating disposition. We fuck around with her dude for about fifteen minutes before his buddy shows up. Buddy is taking a while to warm up to the environment, and we’re all talking more, cackling at her jokes. In fact, buddy doesn’t seem to like me at all, so I’m pretty sure my time at this table is also limited, just like the last. Somehow the fact that I went to grad school comes up, and Mazlowe’s dude asks me what my degree is in. I’m in a playful mood, so I go, “guess.” His first guess is “animal husbandry” and we all have a good laugh about that one. I give him a few more guesses before I finally tell him “women’s studies” and then, he goes, I shit you not, he says “that’s retarded.” Now, as I mentioned in the "men's studies" blog, it’s my personal policy to try and discourse with people who have misguided impressions of my field of study, but not this time. I feel like pouring my drink on him. Instead I just walk off without saying anything. The feminist outreach program is closed due to lack of funding.
Then I’m pissed. The club is full but not busy: there are lots of people sitting around drinking, partying, but not buying dances. This is typical for a weekend, but sometimes you can get lucky. Well, turns out one of my good friends happens to be making a rare appearance, so I go up to VIP and mess around with my two friends who are keeping him company. Seriously: he and I are so close that there’s no way I can dance for him anymore. It’d be like giving my uncle a lap dance. But I’ll mess around with Rhiannon, oh yes indeedy I will. She’s fun. We spend a considerable stretch of time trying to leave marks on each other’s asses. My time with these friends recharges my emotional batteries—I was having trouble playing the roles downstairs, so it’s really nice to just be myself with these people I’ve known for years.
He has to leave, so soon I’m on my own again, working the trenches. I’m making laps, not seeing much, when I pass muscley dude. He goes, “You should have stuck around, all of this could have been yours” and shows me about five hundreds in his wallet. WHAT THE FUCK. I say, “But you didn’t want dances, and you gave me ten bucks after about thirty minutes. What was I supposed to think?” and he’s like, “You screwed it up. I would have given you all of this.” Omfg, really? Does he feel so powerless in this place that he needs to taunt me with money? Does it get him off to have girls throwing themselves at him all night in hopes of being paid, and then teasing them with what “they could have had” if they had just gotten it right? Is there a right way to play this guy? I don’t really give a fuck, I’m so incensed, I have no desire to even think about what I “could have done differently.” I go, “whatever” and storm off. On my way back to the dressing room, I pass Mazlowe’s “women’s studies is retarded” asshat, who motions me over to the table. I flip him off and keep walking. Fuck this shit.
I sit in the dressing room. I eat cake. I read the book I brought with me, which happens to have been recently released by that aforementioned lover with the talented texting thumbs. His shit makes me laugh, and it's exactly what I need in that moment. I send him a picture of the book on my boot, thrown over one knee, with lockers in the background, and I tell him how nice it is to have him in my locker. He likes this. I’m on a particularly amusing section, so funny that I’m reading quotes aloud and nobody is getting them, which I find even more amusing and insist upon telling him in another text. I distract myself from this wretched night, and salvage what’s left of my state of emotions, I re-ground myself by indulging in the writing of someone with whom i shared a spectacular shag a few weeks ago. I tell him how nice that is, and regale him with quotes I hear coming out of strippers: just down from a (apparently pointless) stage rotation, one goes “well, that was a waste of lipgloss.” LOL. Whiner girl says, “I might throw up, would that help?” Wow. What an attention whore. But worth relaying nonetheless. Along with quotes, I send him increasingly provocative self portraits holding his book in my stripper gear. Soon they release us from this mirrored cage, and he instructs me to come hard when I get home. I thank him for getting me through the last part of my horrible night and tell him I’ll leave some wet spots on my bed for him. He thanks me and says that my sexiness will inform his dreams deliciously. How refreshing, what a contrast, what a beautiful way to come back to myself after being attacked by lecherous death-eaters all night. Thanks for that, sexy man. I owe you one.
Now I’m pretty sure she’s on drugs. Two nights ago she crashes into the dressing room doing her “Whhyyyyy doesn’t anybodyyyyy like meeeee” (Seriously, this is what’s coming out of her mouth—can you say ‘self fulfilling prophecy’? I knew thatcha could!) routine, but I’m in such a good mood it barely touches me. I’ve just spent three lovely hours messing around with someone I would date if he wasn’t married (I only get to see him about twice a year, and it’s always a treat. He can see the future. And he has fangs) and playing concierge to the rest of his roomful of work colleagues up in VIP. Naturally, my hair got a little messed up, so I’m redoing it: about twice a week, when I don’t feel like washing/drying/straightening my hair, I put it in a bun and throw on these hair pieces instead. They look like tribbles: they’re color-matched, mostly braided, hair “scrunchies” (no, not that kind of scrunchie). They’re an instantaneous updo, and the end result is rather messy and irreverent looking, and it accentuates my neck. I love them. Anyways, they got messed up (to the point of falling off) when I was upstairs having my neck bitten by a wise person, so now they’re laid out on the countertop for reapplication. I return from a bobby pin excavation excursion to my locker, to find whiner girl leading a team of two other women of color in making fun of my tribbles, literally pointing and laughing and throwing out comments about how only black chicks can wear those things. Whoa. I’m not a very confrontational person by nature, and I’m really not interested in spending two minutes applying my tribbles in front of these women who were just mocking them and me, so I grab my things and head over to the other side of the dressing room. A while passes, I can’t shake that feeling, and the incident is kindof gnawing at me. So when I’m talking to this really awesome fedora-and-three-piece-suit-wearing bar fixture, and whiner girl elbows her way in fishing for a drink, I confront her. I tell her that what I thought she said was rude, and it made me really uncomfortable. Now, if the situation was reversed, even if I didn’t mean it or give two shits, I would most likely have acknowledged the other person’s feelings and apologized and explained the miscommunication if one existed. She does no such thing. “Aw, come ON, we were only JOKING, and besides, that’s not what we said.” And I’m like, “Dude. You were making fun of the shit that I wear, right in front of me. Not cool.” And she persists: “Oh, come ON. Lighten UP. Here, let’s kiss and make up” and then, she grabs my head and slimes the lower half of my face with saliva and lipgloss for about ten seconds. I’m trying to pull away the entire time, I’m completely revolted (hell, even fedora guy walks off—and he’s one of the most perverted people I’ve ever met), and when she finally lets me go I shoot her this look of total disgust and stomp off to the dressing room to clean off my fucking face. I think she actually sexually harassed me. And that, my friends, is a really difficult thing to do.
So I did something I’ve only done once before in my four year career as a slutty independent contractor: I told on her. I talked to the house mom, who was horrified, and fetched the dance manager and made me repeat my story. I felt really weird, doing that. Flash forward to last night, and who do I run into at the back door on our way to sign in for the night? Yeah. I avoid her for as long as possible, thinking she probably got in trouble and she knows it was me, but I guess not, because she goes “sup bitch” and I’m like “you were off your tits last night” and she’s like “yep. Gonna do it again tonight.” Ugh. GROSS. I really wish she would go away. I’m going to see if I can get her fired for doing coke in the bathroom or something.
I manage to avoid her while we’re getting ready, and go to visit my favorite bartender to have a salad and a tasty adult beverage. While sitting at the bar, one of the fixtures is asking me about my academic career. I tell him I didn’t get my MA because I thought it would make me more employable, I simply wanted the knowledge. He had done something similar (finished grad school with like 180 hours), and we have a conversation about how education is so belt-knotchy these days. He says to me, “Consider yourself a particle that enjoys brevity in motion. You’re just bouncing through life.” I find this so awesome I run off to the dressing room to write it down, but end up just sending it in a text message to a new lover, a writer, who laid this one on me in return: “Bouncing slipping sliding bending writhing moaning spinning somersaulting gyrating lubricating motivating inebriating bifurcating licking sucking coming sighing and the bouncing all over again. Sounds about right.” Oh sweet lord in heaven, that’s a luscious thing to read right before going onstage to dance naked in front of a crowd. I am the goddess incarnate, and your souls hereby belong to me. Pay homage or die.
On stage four, I receive a tip from a rather muscley person and we talk about body modifications. He’s nice enough, so I sit down with him and his buddies once my relief arrives. I have a pretty good time laughing with this table, and muscle dude has some interesting things to say about tattoos. He won’t let me dance for him though, so his time is limited. “Look, I’d rather just pay you to sit with me, here’s ten bucks.” Ten bucks? That’s not gonna go very far, I’ve been there for like half an hour. Pretty soon I give up, and he’s cool about it—“I understand, go make your money girl.”
Off I go. I snag a lap belonging to someone who tipped me onstage, and end up giving him his first lapdance ever. I love popping cherries. Then I find Mazlowe (yes, her stage name is literally a reference to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, because she is that awesome), a burner friend who comes into town a few weekends per month to work at my club. I sit with her and the dude she’s working on, just passing time till the night gets busier. Somehow we’ve kept missing each other when she comes to the club, so I soon discover how awesome it is to work with her—I really like her attitude, jokes, and her positive yet berating disposition. We fuck around with her dude for about fifteen minutes before his buddy shows up. Buddy is taking a while to warm up to the environment, and we’re all talking more, cackling at her jokes. In fact, buddy doesn’t seem to like me at all, so I’m pretty sure my time at this table is also limited, just like the last. Somehow the fact that I went to grad school comes up, and Mazlowe’s dude asks me what my degree is in. I’m in a playful mood, so I go, “guess.” His first guess is “animal husbandry” and we all have a good laugh about that one. I give him a few more guesses before I finally tell him “women’s studies” and then, he goes, I shit you not, he says “that’s retarded.” Now, as I mentioned in the "men's studies" blog, it’s my personal policy to try and discourse with people who have misguided impressions of my field of study, but not this time. I feel like pouring my drink on him. Instead I just walk off without saying anything. The feminist outreach program is closed due to lack of funding.
Then I’m pissed. The club is full but not busy: there are lots of people sitting around drinking, partying, but not buying dances. This is typical for a weekend, but sometimes you can get lucky. Well, turns out one of my good friends happens to be making a rare appearance, so I go up to VIP and mess around with my two friends who are keeping him company. Seriously: he and I are so close that there’s no way I can dance for him anymore. It’d be like giving my uncle a lap dance. But I’ll mess around with Rhiannon, oh yes indeedy I will. She’s fun. We spend a considerable stretch of time trying to leave marks on each other’s asses. My time with these friends recharges my emotional batteries—I was having trouble playing the roles downstairs, so it’s really nice to just be myself with these people I’ve known for years.
He has to leave, so soon I’m on my own again, working the trenches. I’m making laps, not seeing much, when I pass muscley dude. He goes, “You should have stuck around, all of this could have been yours” and shows me about five hundreds in his wallet. WHAT THE FUCK. I say, “But you didn’t want dances, and you gave me ten bucks after about thirty minutes. What was I supposed to think?” and he’s like, “You screwed it up. I would have given you all of this.” Omfg, really? Does he feel so powerless in this place that he needs to taunt me with money? Does it get him off to have girls throwing themselves at him all night in hopes of being paid, and then teasing them with what “they could have had” if they had just gotten it right? Is there a right way to play this guy? I don’t really give a fuck, I’m so incensed, I have no desire to even think about what I “could have done differently.” I go, “whatever” and storm off. On my way back to the dressing room, I pass Mazlowe’s “women’s studies is retarded” asshat, who motions me over to the table. I flip him off and keep walking. Fuck this shit.
I sit in the dressing room. I eat cake. I read the book I brought with me, which happens to have been recently released by that aforementioned lover with the talented texting thumbs. His shit makes me laugh, and it's exactly what I need in that moment. I send him a picture of the book on my boot, thrown over one knee, with lockers in the background, and I tell him how nice it is to have him in my locker. He likes this. I’m on a particularly amusing section, so funny that I’m reading quotes aloud and nobody is getting them, which I find even more amusing and insist upon telling him in another text. I distract myself from this wretched night, and salvage what’s left of my state of emotions, I re-ground myself by indulging in the writing of someone with whom i shared a spectacular shag a few weeks ago. I tell him how nice that is, and regale him with quotes I hear coming out of strippers: just down from a (apparently pointless) stage rotation, one goes “well, that was a waste of lipgloss.” LOL. Whiner girl says, “I might throw up, would that help?” Wow. What an attention whore. But worth relaying nonetheless. Along with quotes, I send him increasingly provocative self portraits holding his book in my stripper gear. Soon they release us from this mirrored cage, and he instructs me to come hard when I get home. I thank him for getting me through the last part of my horrible night and tell him I’ll leave some wet spots on my bed for him. He thanks me and says that my sexiness will inform his dreams deliciously. How refreshing, what a contrast, what a beautiful way to come back to myself after being attacked by lecherous death-eaters all night. Thanks for that, sexy man. I owe you one.
4/23/10
hearts on fire
I was on fire last night. It was weird, too, because usually my first night back after a vacation is rather clumsy. Generally it’s a shift I have to get out of the way, dip my toe back in the proverbial pond of pretending to like people for money before I actually get my game back. Not this time.
I jerked off before work, my customary pre-shower activity. I’ll let you in on a little trade secret: I save my pussy juices and combine them with my perfume. It’s so awesome to watch guys’ eyes roll back in their head when they smell me. They don’t KNOW they smelled it, but they did. Gotta love pheromones. (Don’t believe me? read this). And I love my new hitachi—thank god I only recently got one, because if I had discovered that thing at a young age I would have developed the female version of what Dan Savage calls the “death grip.” But I guess I should be more worried about carpel tunnel?
But I digress. Last night I was glowing, batteries recharged from visiting the only place on earth that makes me feel whole (i.e. San Francisco), it felt like I had a beam of light (and fog, and eucalyptus, and lube) emanating from my chest. My stage sets were perfect—this happens about once a month—I’ll get up there and something just clicks. I love dancing, and I love it when I don’t have to think about it, and that doesn’t happen very often when I’m alone on a platform in heels with lights and an audience that is scrutinizing my body for flaws. I experience that psychological weightlessness on the dancefloor all the time, pretty much every time I try…but not very often at work. Sometimes, though, sometimes it clicks. And last night it did. Both sets too. That never happens. I mean, I love my music—I make sure I keep a CD up with the DJ of songs he’ll only play for me because I brought them into the club, and I switch it out about every six months—songs with meaning, songs that make me feel powerful and sexy and dirty and fierce. Like I own the place. But just because I love my music doesn’t always spell a spectacular set, where every move is perfectly timed without thinking about it, and I feel effortlessly graceful while also oozing sex. Well, last night was one of those nights.
In addition to feeling like captain badass superslut onstage, everyone I talked to gave me money—and that almost NEVER happens. The night started off with my awesome regular Ken, a customer I actually missed when I was in California. We talk with my friend Rhiannon about hunting (yes, this girl is an archer. How hot is that?), and how she wants to do a photo shoot/reality show in camo body paint and not much else. I tell tales of my trip to Cali. I do four dances, and again, every move is perfect. Lap dancing is a bit different, it’s more about nerve clusters and pressure points than timing, but still, there are some nights that I just feel on. Ken regales me with updates on what his crazy soon-to-be-ex-wife pulled while I was gone, and he and I make plans to pop our Ikea cherries together sometime soon. He’s got a new apartment to furnish, and neither of us has ever been to the Swedish home furnishing monolith. Besides, I hear the meatballs are awesome.
I go onstage. I glide and spin and writhe to Miss Kittin’s “Metalhead.” (Incidentally, this is the track that played when I took my first spill onstage, the event which catalyzed the beginning of this blog, my very first entry. It’s dark and mean and hot as fuck, and thus still on my CD years later). On stage three, I receive a tip from a very nice man named John, he’s clearly taken with me, and moves straight to the top of my priority list for post-stage profit-garnering activities. On my way to stage four, a bar regular I’ve chatted with but never actually done dances for slips a twenty into my g-string. I’m like, “wow. Thanks! What’s that for?” and he goes, “Because Robby [my favorite bartender] says he loves you and I think you’re awesome.” Fucking sweet. I love free money. On four I practically get mauled by an overly intoxicated but very funny good ol’ boy. On five, the female half of a couple literally leaps out of her seat to come and see me. On six, I get to heckle a bachelor party, a favorite pastime of mine. Then I’m off to see John.
Well holy fucking shit, turns out we have something huge in common: debate. I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it, but I was a debater in high school and college. (In “never trust a man with a boat,” the boyfriend I described living with for a summer and residing in a dorm while he worked at a summer camp—that was a debate camp. When I wrote that I intentionally hid the debate detail in an effort to protect my privacy, but this morning I am no longer worried about keeping that a secret). Well, he’s a lawyer, I mention debate, and turns out this guy was the high school debate partner of a very successful college coach who recently passed away. Fucking crazy. I impress him with my debate record, we discuss the differences between Lincoln Douglas and Cross-Examination. We talk about non-monogamous relationships and commitment. Recently divorced, he says that I give him hope. And I am so touched that I send myself text messages from his phone, the only way I can really take notes while actually on the floor.
He asks me if I have any piercings that he can’t see, and I spew the saga that was my hood piercing. The “short” version: pierced once, totally easy, loved it, lost it while messing around with Ruby in the backseat of my ex-fiancé’s WRX while he drove us home to fuck, woke up to an ice storm and no clit jewelry, couldn’t get to a shop for three days to get new hardware, and it had sealed up. Fancied myself a badass (he says, “but you ARE a badass!”) so I got it re-pierced in two places, must have had scar tissue because HOLY SHIT that hurt so much I could barely hold still, and the healing process literally included clawing at the walls of the shower when I cleaned them. Then I found myself working around them when I jerked off, and finally met someone who could consistently get me off with his mouth who said it was in his way, so I took them out. I used to say my clit piercings were neon arrows that said “RIGHT HERE, DUMBASS” but at the point where they’re interfering with pleasure? Gone in half a second and haven’t looked back since. So then we start talking about cunnilingus, and he tells me that the next time I meet a man who does it right, that I should immediately demand he give me lessons by having me practice on his ear, and that I should go lysistrata on his ass (read: withhold blowjobs) until he complies. The lysistrata reference was mine, not his. I fucking love lysistrata.
So, that happened, I made about $80 from him in half an hour and had that fantastic conversation, he leaves and off I go in search of my next victim. It’s about a ten foot journey to a table of three guys, two of which are occupied by some of my favorite bitches, so I figure I’ve got some good odds with the empty lap—or at least a majority vote. I sit on him and quickly earn his trust by saying I won’t try and swindle him into the champagne room. He likes garters and stockings, so I go put some on—fine, twist my arm. I spend the next half hour pretending that I actually want to date him because it seems this is what it takes to gain entry into his wallet. Very interesting contrast to John, who I didn’t have to pretend with at all and who actually gave me sexual advice—I have to lie to his person. But whatever, it’s all in a night’s work, and I definitely have the power of persuasion in my bag of tricks.
Another $80 later, and I’m onstage again. This time it’s Primal Scream’s “Some Velvet Morning” and I fucking rock it out. I feel so hot. Hell, I AM so hot. It’s late after that, and the remainder of the night passes in a blur as I do a dance here, a dance there, the most memorable of which comes from the unlikely couple consisting of a hot (and very fucking randy) Persian chick and her body builder boyfriend. I’m like, “So how did you guys meet?” and she goes, “I like muscles.” Nice. Cute. I dance for them both, she gives me this really amazing kiss, and they promise to come back in tonight.
All in all, a great night. It ran the gamut from conversing with a trusted regular and friend, updating each other on what’s transpired in our lives in the last week; a new potential regular whom I don’t have to pretend with and who adores me for my smarts; an easy mark I could play without even thinking about it; and picking up on the vibe of a hot couple and getting to make out with a pretty girl with an accent. I made about $400, below average but totally acceptable, and I had a blast. I was on fire, all my moves were right, it was easy and fun. I really love my job. Fuck social acceptance and medical benefits, I’ll take my life on the fringe any day.
I jerked off before work, my customary pre-shower activity. I’ll let you in on a little trade secret: I save my pussy juices and combine them with my perfume. It’s so awesome to watch guys’ eyes roll back in their head when they smell me. They don’t KNOW they smelled it, but they did. Gotta love pheromones. (Don’t believe me? read this). And I love my new hitachi—thank god I only recently got one, because if I had discovered that thing at a young age I would have developed the female version of what Dan Savage calls the “death grip.” But I guess I should be more worried about carpel tunnel?
But I digress. Last night I was glowing, batteries recharged from visiting the only place on earth that makes me feel whole (i.e. San Francisco), it felt like I had a beam of light (and fog, and eucalyptus, and lube) emanating from my chest. My stage sets were perfect—this happens about once a month—I’ll get up there and something just clicks. I love dancing, and I love it when I don’t have to think about it, and that doesn’t happen very often when I’m alone on a platform in heels with lights and an audience that is scrutinizing my body for flaws. I experience that psychological weightlessness on the dancefloor all the time, pretty much every time I try…but not very often at work. Sometimes, though, sometimes it clicks. And last night it did. Both sets too. That never happens. I mean, I love my music—I make sure I keep a CD up with the DJ of songs he’ll only play for me because I brought them into the club, and I switch it out about every six months—songs with meaning, songs that make me feel powerful and sexy and dirty and fierce. Like I own the place. But just because I love my music doesn’t always spell a spectacular set, where every move is perfectly timed without thinking about it, and I feel effortlessly graceful while also oozing sex. Well, last night was one of those nights.
In addition to feeling like captain badass superslut onstage, everyone I talked to gave me money—and that almost NEVER happens. The night started off with my awesome regular Ken, a customer I actually missed when I was in California. We talk with my friend Rhiannon about hunting (yes, this girl is an archer. How hot is that?), and how she wants to do a photo shoot/reality show in camo body paint and not much else. I tell tales of my trip to Cali. I do four dances, and again, every move is perfect. Lap dancing is a bit different, it’s more about nerve clusters and pressure points than timing, but still, there are some nights that I just feel on. Ken regales me with updates on what his crazy soon-to-be-ex-wife pulled while I was gone, and he and I make plans to pop our Ikea cherries together sometime soon. He’s got a new apartment to furnish, and neither of us has ever been to the Swedish home furnishing monolith. Besides, I hear the meatballs are awesome.
I go onstage. I glide and spin and writhe to Miss Kittin’s “Metalhead.” (Incidentally, this is the track that played when I took my first spill onstage, the event which catalyzed the beginning of this blog, my very first entry. It’s dark and mean and hot as fuck, and thus still on my CD years later). On stage three, I receive a tip from a very nice man named John, he’s clearly taken with me, and moves straight to the top of my priority list for post-stage profit-garnering activities. On my way to stage four, a bar regular I’ve chatted with but never actually done dances for slips a twenty into my g-string. I’m like, “wow. Thanks! What’s that for?” and he goes, “Because Robby [my favorite bartender] says he loves you and I think you’re awesome.” Fucking sweet. I love free money. On four I practically get mauled by an overly intoxicated but very funny good ol’ boy. On five, the female half of a couple literally leaps out of her seat to come and see me. On six, I get to heckle a bachelor party, a favorite pastime of mine. Then I’m off to see John.
Well holy fucking shit, turns out we have something huge in common: debate. I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it, but I was a debater in high school and college. (In “never trust a man with a boat,” the boyfriend I described living with for a summer and residing in a dorm while he worked at a summer camp—that was a debate camp. When I wrote that I intentionally hid the debate detail in an effort to protect my privacy, but this morning I am no longer worried about keeping that a secret). Well, he’s a lawyer, I mention debate, and turns out this guy was the high school debate partner of a very successful college coach who recently passed away. Fucking crazy. I impress him with my debate record, we discuss the differences between Lincoln Douglas and Cross-Examination. We talk about non-monogamous relationships and commitment. Recently divorced, he says that I give him hope. And I am so touched that I send myself text messages from his phone, the only way I can really take notes while actually on the floor.
He asks me if I have any piercings that he can’t see, and I spew the saga that was my hood piercing. The “short” version: pierced once, totally easy, loved it, lost it while messing around with Ruby in the backseat of my ex-fiancé’s WRX while he drove us home to fuck, woke up to an ice storm and no clit jewelry, couldn’t get to a shop for three days to get new hardware, and it had sealed up. Fancied myself a badass (he says, “but you ARE a badass!”) so I got it re-pierced in two places, must have had scar tissue because HOLY SHIT that hurt so much I could barely hold still, and the healing process literally included clawing at the walls of the shower when I cleaned them. Then I found myself working around them when I jerked off, and finally met someone who could consistently get me off with his mouth who said it was in his way, so I took them out. I used to say my clit piercings were neon arrows that said “RIGHT HERE, DUMBASS” but at the point where they’re interfering with pleasure? Gone in half a second and haven’t looked back since. So then we start talking about cunnilingus, and he tells me that the next time I meet a man who does it right, that I should immediately demand he give me lessons by having me practice on his ear, and that I should go lysistrata on his ass (read: withhold blowjobs) until he complies. The lysistrata reference was mine, not his. I fucking love lysistrata.
So, that happened, I made about $80 from him in half an hour and had that fantastic conversation, he leaves and off I go in search of my next victim. It’s about a ten foot journey to a table of three guys, two of which are occupied by some of my favorite bitches, so I figure I’ve got some good odds with the empty lap—or at least a majority vote. I sit on him and quickly earn his trust by saying I won’t try and swindle him into the champagne room. He likes garters and stockings, so I go put some on—fine, twist my arm. I spend the next half hour pretending that I actually want to date him because it seems this is what it takes to gain entry into his wallet. Very interesting contrast to John, who I didn’t have to pretend with at all and who actually gave me sexual advice—I have to lie to his person. But whatever, it’s all in a night’s work, and I definitely have the power of persuasion in my bag of tricks.
Another $80 later, and I’m onstage again. This time it’s Primal Scream’s “Some Velvet Morning” and I fucking rock it out. I feel so hot. Hell, I AM so hot. It’s late after that, and the remainder of the night passes in a blur as I do a dance here, a dance there, the most memorable of which comes from the unlikely couple consisting of a hot (and very fucking randy) Persian chick and her body builder boyfriend. I’m like, “So how did you guys meet?” and she goes, “I like muscles.” Nice. Cute. I dance for them both, she gives me this really amazing kiss, and they promise to come back in tonight.
All in all, a great night. It ran the gamut from conversing with a trusted regular and friend, updating each other on what’s transpired in our lives in the last week; a new potential regular whom I don’t have to pretend with and who adores me for my smarts; an easy mark I could play without even thinking about it; and picking up on the vibe of a hot couple and getting to make out with a pretty girl with an accent. I made about $400, below average but totally acceptable, and I had a blast. I was on fire, all my moves were right, it was easy and fun. I really love my job. Fuck social acceptance and medical benefits, I’ll take my life on the fringe any day.
4/13/10
Men's Studies
As I may or may not have mentioned, I’m a grad student in a women’s studies program. When I attended my first sex work conference (and subsequently became a stripper), I remember a particularly interesting encounter with another stripper/researcher who warned me to be careful that I not “hide behind the research.” Driven by other accounts of stripper/researchers who had customers say, “oh, you’re just doing this for the research” (Katharine Frank, G-Strings and Sympathy 13), I refuse to hide my researcher status from inquiring customers. So when I mention I’m a grad student in women’s studies, I usually get a response like, “Well sweetie, I’ve been studying women for over 30 years, whaddaya wanna know?” or, “You’re already a woman. Why do you need to study them?” while at first these jokes were annoying, I got used to them—I literally hear versions of these statements several times a week. They might be belittling, but they’re not overly offensive. And besides, it’s really hard to offend me. Well, the other night, someone completed that seemingly insurmountable task. Ahem:
I was on the third stage, twirling around a pole for dollar bills, when I apparently caught the eye of a distinguished looking gentleman with an extremely kind face. He approached me, tipped me, and I told him I’d come “bother him” after I was done with my stage rotation. Temporarily ignoring the advances of a VERY hot couple by stage six, I went and sat down on Steve’s lap instead. (sometimes these decisions can be difficult—when you get tipped by 10 different people, who do you approach first? You make the wrong call, waste 10 minutes talking with someone who doesn’t pan out, and your other leads are either busy with someone else, or have vanished altogether. It can be stressful. Every stripper has her own strategy, and my internal dialogue went as follows: I see this couple in the club almost every Saturday night, but I’d never seen distinguished-looking-steve before. also, couples usually aren’t worth more than a few dances, and I’d already seen steve do at least five with a hot Russian babe while I was sitting with someone at an adjacent table earlier in the evening).
Steve starts asking me about myself: this is a good start. Sometimes guys don’t give a fuck who I am, where I come from, what I do when I’m not dancing for dollars, so it’s nice to be asked. I tell him I recently completed a master’s degree, and he asks me what my major was. I say “women’s studies” and he goes, “UGH.” I say, “What was THAT reaction?” and he rolls his eyes. I press on: “no seriously, you just had a very strong negative reaction to women’s studies. I’m really curious as to where that came from.” And he asks,in a very combative tone, “Is there a MEN'S studies?” (omg. Really?). I go, “Honey, the whole goddamned world is men’s studies. Women’s studies was invented because some people thought an alternate perspective was needed. Besides, the school won’t let us change it to gender studies. Also, we spend most of our time talking about race, class, ethnicity, orientation, disability, and all sorts of other categories that separate people and lead to discrimination. Women’s studies is really a misnomer.” Then he goes, “Well, do you think you deserve special treatment?” I scoff: “No.” He asks, “Do you feel victimized?” “No, and I resist that label whenever possible.”
At this point, I really want to bolt. This is clearly going nowhere profitable. But I think to myself, “Part of the reason you got into this business was to challenge people’s stereotypes about what constitutes a stripper, what constitutes a feminist. If you stomp off, he’s just going to chock you up as a bitchy feminazi, and that won’t do anyone any good, now will it?” and so I remain. And then, after insulting my entire field of study, he proceeds to launch into a truly offensive train of thought:
Steve: “So, do you have a doctor?”
Me: “Yes.”
Steve: “Are they black? White? Male? Female?”
Me: “She’s white.”
Steve: “Would you be opposed to having a black doctor?”
(Sweet baby jesus on a stick. Where the fuck is he going with this?)
Me: “Of course not.”
Steve: “What about if he was over 50?”
Me (ignoring the presumptive "he" in that last statement): “No. And what does that have to do with anything?”
Steve: “Well you know, up until about 30yrs ago they didn’t let blacks into medical school. So any black doctor over the age of 50 was given a free pass, and didn’t have to compete.”
Me: “So what? It’s not like they were automatically given a free pass through all their classes as well. They still had to do the work and get the grades.”
Steve: “I just think there should be an even playing field.”
Me: “But there’s not an even playing field, and there certainly wasn’t one back then. And you owe me a drink for that comment.”
Steve rolls his eyes, but complies. I know I’m not going to get any money out of him, and I feel I need to be compensated in some way for the time I just spent listening to his racist diatribe. I’ve had this affirmative action debate with other rich white men before, and I really can’t stand to hear someone who refuses to acknowledge their privilege rail about how “there should be an even playing field.” Of course you think there SHOULD be an even playing field, you rich white motherfucker, because for YOU, there always HAS BEEN. I have a dear friend who once made the mistake of bringing up a similar argument in my presence: “Well, I’ve not received jobs because they gave it to a black person instead.” I said, “So fucking what? How many jobs do you think you’ve gotten because you’re white? There’s no way to know, because that’s your reality. But people of color encounter hidden prejudices like that every day.”
To be clear, almost nothing pisses me off more than a rich white man talking about how he’s been discriminated against because of his skin color. Cry me a fucking river, asshole. You’ve been given EVERY opportunity in life, and just because our government decided that certain classes of people might need a helping hand doesn’t mean your life is any less cushy as a result. So what if you didn’t get that one job? You make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So what if you have to pay a higher insurance premium to fund the healthcare of someone who doesn’t have a job? You can still afford a giant TV and fiber optic cable content, high speed internet, a gas guzzling truck, and bottled water delivered directly to the door that leads to your climate controlled home. You walk on a treadmill in your living room instead of walking to an hour long bus ride to work every day.
My point is this: privilege is often unacknowledged by those who possess it, and the privileges of whiteness are often as invisible as the category itself. And that, my friends, might be the most important thing I learned in grad school.
I was on the third stage, twirling around a pole for dollar bills, when I apparently caught the eye of a distinguished looking gentleman with an extremely kind face. He approached me, tipped me, and I told him I’d come “bother him” after I was done with my stage rotation. Temporarily ignoring the advances of a VERY hot couple by stage six, I went and sat down on Steve’s lap instead. (sometimes these decisions can be difficult—when you get tipped by 10 different people, who do you approach first? You make the wrong call, waste 10 minutes talking with someone who doesn’t pan out, and your other leads are either busy with someone else, or have vanished altogether. It can be stressful. Every stripper has her own strategy, and my internal dialogue went as follows: I see this couple in the club almost every Saturday night, but I’d never seen distinguished-looking-steve before. also, couples usually aren’t worth more than a few dances, and I’d already seen steve do at least five with a hot Russian babe while I was sitting with someone at an adjacent table earlier in the evening).
Steve starts asking me about myself: this is a good start. Sometimes guys don’t give a fuck who I am, where I come from, what I do when I’m not dancing for dollars, so it’s nice to be asked. I tell him I recently completed a master’s degree, and he asks me what my major was. I say “women’s studies” and he goes, “UGH.” I say, “What was THAT reaction?” and he rolls his eyes. I press on: “no seriously, you just had a very strong negative reaction to women’s studies. I’m really curious as to where that came from.” And he asks,in a very combative tone, “Is there a MEN'S studies?” (omg. Really?). I go, “Honey, the whole goddamned world is men’s studies. Women’s studies was invented because some people thought an alternate perspective was needed. Besides, the school won’t let us change it to gender studies. Also, we spend most of our time talking about race, class, ethnicity, orientation, disability, and all sorts of other categories that separate people and lead to discrimination. Women’s studies is really a misnomer.” Then he goes, “Well, do you think you deserve special treatment?” I scoff: “No.” He asks, “Do you feel victimized?” “No, and I resist that label whenever possible.”
At this point, I really want to bolt. This is clearly going nowhere profitable. But I think to myself, “Part of the reason you got into this business was to challenge people’s stereotypes about what constitutes a stripper, what constitutes a feminist. If you stomp off, he’s just going to chock you up as a bitchy feminazi, and that won’t do anyone any good, now will it?” and so I remain. And then, after insulting my entire field of study, he proceeds to launch into a truly offensive train of thought:
Steve: “So, do you have a doctor?”
Me: “Yes.”
Steve: “Are they black? White? Male? Female?”
Me: “She’s white.”
Steve: “Would you be opposed to having a black doctor?”
(Sweet baby jesus on a stick. Where the fuck is he going with this?)
Me: “Of course not.”
Steve: “What about if he was over 50?”
Me (ignoring the presumptive "he" in that last statement): “No. And what does that have to do with anything?”
Steve: “Well you know, up until about 30yrs ago they didn’t let blacks into medical school. So any black doctor over the age of 50 was given a free pass, and didn’t have to compete.”
Me: “So what? It’s not like they were automatically given a free pass through all their classes as well. They still had to do the work and get the grades.”
Steve: “I just think there should be an even playing field.”
Me: “But there’s not an even playing field, and there certainly wasn’t one back then. And you owe me a drink for that comment.”
Steve rolls his eyes, but complies. I know I’m not going to get any money out of him, and I feel I need to be compensated in some way for the time I just spent listening to his racist diatribe. I’ve had this affirmative action debate with other rich white men before, and I really can’t stand to hear someone who refuses to acknowledge their privilege rail about how “there should be an even playing field.” Of course you think there SHOULD be an even playing field, you rich white motherfucker, because for YOU, there always HAS BEEN. I have a dear friend who once made the mistake of bringing up a similar argument in my presence: “Well, I’ve not received jobs because they gave it to a black person instead.” I said, “So fucking what? How many jobs do you think you’ve gotten because you’re white? There’s no way to know, because that’s your reality. But people of color encounter hidden prejudices like that every day.”
To be clear, almost nothing pisses me off more than a rich white man talking about how he’s been discriminated against because of his skin color. Cry me a fucking river, asshole. You’ve been given EVERY opportunity in life, and just because our government decided that certain classes of people might need a helping hand doesn’t mean your life is any less cushy as a result. So what if you didn’t get that one job? You make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So what if you have to pay a higher insurance premium to fund the healthcare of someone who doesn’t have a job? You can still afford a giant TV and fiber optic cable content, high speed internet, a gas guzzling truck, and bottled water delivered directly to the door that leads to your climate controlled home. You walk on a treadmill in your living room instead of walking to an hour long bus ride to work every day.
My point is this: privilege is often unacknowledged by those who possess it, and the privileges of whiteness are often as invisible as the category itself. And that, my friends, might be the most important thing I learned in grad school.
1/21/10
never trust a man with a boat
people with boats can be really fucking shady, yo.
a few nights ago, i met a customer with whom i got along inordinately well. he was irreverent, a total smartass, and he appreciated my brain. i met him at the front bar, where he dropped a $20 on me to "stick around." he keeps telling me that he wishes he'd met me outside of the club, and mentions repeatedly that he wants me to come to his hotel room. this is not out of the ordinary, and it's easy to brush off. after he buys me a drink and we talk for about ten minutes, i take him over to a booth so i can work my magic without his buddies around.
i sit through a song, talking, before deciding i need to make more money--great conversation, but i'm starting to become antsy stripper and let's face it, twenty bucks only goes so far. i stand up, and do a few dances during which i have to tell him repeatedly that "if you don't behave yourself i'm going to start charging you extra." i'm only sortof joking; he really can't keep his hands to himself. i mean, some touching is fine, i actually prefer (most) customers to touch me a little bit--it feels less stiff than them just sitting there with their arms glued to their sides while i basically snuggle with them to a beat. but constantly trying to grope me, and refusing to lean back in his seat not only bugs the CRAP out of me (especially that last part. i need to have control over the situation, and when guys lean forward they gain more physical leverage), but also means he receives an inferior lapdance. i can't get close to him and relax while i'm constantly having to police his hands or push him back in the booth so he doesn't knock me over, try and grab me, or overpower me. after two dances he says, "i think i just want you to sit here, since i can't control myself." fair enough. i tack on another 20 to the mental tally i'll give him when it comes time to get money.
so we sit and talk for about 20 minutes, and after another "i wish i'd met you in a regular bar or something" we get on the subject of hooking up with people one meets in bars, and the strategies, goals, statistics therein. i avoid mentioning my assessment of strip clubs as spaces which try and make patrons feel as though they're in a single's bar, only with all the odds stacked in their favor. i don't think it's a good idea to have a discussion about the game with this person; his bubble seems a bit easier to burst than others'. i often have really great conversations with customers about the nature of strip clubs, and they still pay me money. but this one seems like he needs to believe that i would be behaving exactly the same way if he wasn't paying me. fine, i can play along, god knows i've done it before. and then he tells me this story:
a number of years ago he went out to a bar with a buddy, the kind of guy who can regularly pick up two women at once. true to form, his buddy picks up two women, and off they go to buddy's boat. they're expecting a third friend, and suddenly it dawns on my guy that this other friend is much more attractive than him, and thus will undoubtedly usurp his ability to mack on this girl. in an effort to secure any chance he might have of getting laid, he makes his buddy pull the boat out, and eventually they have to break the no-wake rule because the 3rd friend shows up just in time and chases them down the pier. heh.
so they get out to the bay or wherever, buddy goes downstairs to bang his girl, and my guy is up top chatting with the other chick. they're getting along just fine, but he can tell it's just not going to happen, she's not interested, whatever. no big deal, they're just hanging out. pretty soon buddy emerges from down below, and pulls my guy aside to ask how it's going. my guy says, "i don't think anything is going to happen, but it's cool, we're just talking." and then his buddy proceeds to grab this girl by the arm and haul her to a different part of the boat, where he tells her off. "what the fuck did you think you were coming out here for?" "do you know how much it costs to fill up this tank?" he's yelling at her, he's poking her in the chest. all the while my guy is trying to wave him off, because he really doesn't think it's a big deal. wow. "that's fucked up," i say, and he agrees.
here's the punchline: after being told off and guilt tripped for not putting out, for not filling her function as a token warm wet hole, the girl returns to my guy, and snuggles up to him. and then he fucked her.
now i know why he prefaced the story by saying he'd only confessed this to a small handful of people. i'm in shock. i manage to convey how much i appreciate him telling me the story, and he talks about how guilty he's felt about the incident ever since that night. while i'm horrified at the tale, i really am grateful he told me--it's not every day you get to hear stories like that from a virtual stranger, at least not in person (want to read anonymous confessions on the internet? check out http://postsecret.blogspot.com/). but that's one of the things i love about being a stripper--it's the manifestation of my lifelong desire to be a fly on the wall of the men's locker room.
a long time ago, i lived with a boyfriend for a summer, who had to spend a good chunk of his time working at a certain camp for teenagers. his duties included some dorm admin stuff, so he had a room there, and i stayed with him. at night, i would stalk the halls on the boy's floor after they were confined to their rooms, just to see if i could overhear something interesting. i never did. i've always wanted to know how boys talk to each other when girls aren't around, and as a stripper, i believe i get an approximation of that. it works like this: even though they are most certainly aware of our presence as token T&A, they don't care what we think because we're just strippers. also, they never have to see us again, and so it's a relatively risk-free environment. therefore, they don't censor themselves a whole lot around us (and lemme tell ya, it's a rough world out there in the maniverse if some of the stuff i see and hear on a regular basis is actually censored). what's more, i hear all sorts of interesting tidbits that don't have to do with chauvinist underpinnings: i've had people confess all sorts of weird stuff, tell me intimate details of their relationships, talk to me about kinks that i'm sure they don't share with their male friends (like, say, how they want me to fuck them in the ass). often times, the talking i do feels like a therapy session. i'm no stranger to this, and i quite enjoy it--especially when i'm getting paid well.
i know i've got to be onstage in a bit, so we finish our chat and rejoin his friend at the bar for more drinks. he makes another couple comments indicating he wished he had a chance to try his game on me in a "real" bar, and how i should TOTALLY come to his hotel room. i make a joke about him not being able to afford it, to which he replies, "well, i don't want to PAY you." i go, "well that's too bad, because i have to be onstage soon and you owe me sixty bucks." the expression on his face reads as, "?!" and i truly believe he was actually surprised that he owed me money for what had just transpired. "i owe you SIXTY BUCKS?! for WHAT?!" and i'm like, "well, we did two dances, and then you told me you just wanted me to sit there, which i did, naked, for over 20 minutes, and i think i deserve another $20 for that." "but i just gave you twenty bucks!" "yes, and thank you, but that was an hour ago and i considered it a tip." he doesn't budge. i can see him shutting down, getting the kind of attitude i am sometimes on the receiving end of when it comes time to talk about money--but usually that's not until the end of the night when customers are more inebriated and have grown weary of hemorrhaging cash. you can see it in their faces: their bubble bursts, and they just turn on you. they can't deal with acknowledging that they just paid you to be nice to them, so all of a sudden you're a golddigging bitch and they're "not paying anyone else any more fucking money."
over the course of about three seconds, he turns into a pouty child who's determined to get his way. he folds his arms and holds firm in his stance that he's not going to pay me. he says, "how big are the bouncers? i wouldn't mind fighting my way out of here." he keeps bringing up the twenty bucks he handed me--AS IF that's some colossal sum of money. i say, "yes, and thank you for the tip, but that doesn't cover services rendered." he clearly has no idea that i'm AT WORK. "but i thought you liked me." "yes, and i did have a great time with you, but this is my job." his friend, thank god, is no stranger to the strip club game and pulls me aside, apologetic, and gives me all the money in his wallet--forty bucks. "i'm really sorry, he doesn't understand that this is work for you." oh well. i thank him, cut my losses, go on stage, and proceed to forget about it.
the moral to the story: never trust a man with a boat. they'll use their ability to contain you as means to control you. and they have shady friends.
a few nights ago, i met a customer with whom i got along inordinately well. he was irreverent, a total smartass, and he appreciated my brain. i met him at the front bar, where he dropped a $20 on me to "stick around." he keeps telling me that he wishes he'd met me outside of the club, and mentions repeatedly that he wants me to come to his hotel room. this is not out of the ordinary, and it's easy to brush off. after he buys me a drink and we talk for about ten minutes, i take him over to a booth so i can work my magic without his buddies around.
i sit through a song, talking, before deciding i need to make more money--great conversation, but i'm starting to become antsy stripper and let's face it, twenty bucks only goes so far. i stand up, and do a few dances during which i have to tell him repeatedly that "if you don't behave yourself i'm going to start charging you extra." i'm only sortof joking; he really can't keep his hands to himself. i mean, some touching is fine, i actually prefer (most) customers to touch me a little bit--it feels less stiff than them just sitting there with their arms glued to their sides while i basically snuggle with them to a beat. but constantly trying to grope me, and refusing to lean back in his seat not only bugs the CRAP out of me (especially that last part. i need to have control over the situation, and when guys lean forward they gain more physical leverage), but also means he receives an inferior lapdance. i can't get close to him and relax while i'm constantly having to police his hands or push him back in the booth so he doesn't knock me over, try and grab me, or overpower me. after two dances he says, "i think i just want you to sit here, since i can't control myself." fair enough. i tack on another 20 to the mental tally i'll give him when it comes time to get money.
so we sit and talk for about 20 minutes, and after another "i wish i'd met you in a regular bar or something" we get on the subject of hooking up with people one meets in bars, and the strategies, goals, statistics therein. i avoid mentioning my assessment of strip clubs as spaces which try and make patrons feel as though they're in a single's bar, only with all the odds stacked in their favor. i don't think it's a good idea to have a discussion about the game with this person; his bubble seems a bit easier to burst than others'. i often have really great conversations with customers about the nature of strip clubs, and they still pay me money. but this one seems like he needs to believe that i would be behaving exactly the same way if he wasn't paying me. fine, i can play along, god knows i've done it before. and then he tells me this story:
a number of years ago he went out to a bar with a buddy, the kind of guy who can regularly pick up two women at once. true to form, his buddy picks up two women, and off they go to buddy's boat. they're expecting a third friend, and suddenly it dawns on my guy that this other friend is much more attractive than him, and thus will undoubtedly usurp his ability to mack on this girl. in an effort to secure any chance he might have of getting laid, he makes his buddy pull the boat out, and eventually they have to break the no-wake rule because the 3rd friend shows up just in time and chases them down the pier. heh.
so they get out to the bay or wherever, buddy goes downstairs to bang his girl, and my guy is up top chatting with the other chick. they're getting along just fine, but he can tell it's just not going to happen, she's not interested, whatever. no big deal, they're just hanging out. pretty soon buddy emerges from down below, and pulls my guy aside to ask how it's going. my guy says, "i don't think anything is going to happen, but it's cool, we're just talking." and then his buddy proceeds to grab this girl by the arm and haul her to a different part of the boat, where he tells her off. "what the fuck did you think you were coming out here for?" "do you know how much it costs to fill up this tank?" he's yelling at her, he's poking her in the chest. all the while my guy is trying to wave him off, because he really doesn't think it's a big deal. wow. "that's fucked up," i say, and he agrees.
here's the punchline: after being told off and guilt tripped for not putting out, for not filling her function as a token warm wet hole, the girl returns to my guy, and snuggles up to him. and then he fucked her.
now i know why he prefaced the story by saying he'd only confessed this to a small handful of people. i'm in shock. i manage to convey how much i appreciate him telling me the story, and he talks about how guilty he's felt about the incident ever since that night. while i'm horrified at the tale, i really am grateful he told me--it's not every day you get to hear stories like that from a virtual stranger, at least not in person (want to read anonymous confessions on the internet? check out http://postsecret.blogspot.com/). but that's one of the things i love about being a stripper--it's the manifestation of my lifelong desire to be a fly on the wall of the men's locker room.
a long time ago, i lived with a boyfriend for a summer, who had to spend a good chunk of his time working at a certain camp for teenagers. his duties included some dorm admin stuff, so he had a room there, and i stayed with him. at night, i would stalk the halls on the boy's floor after they were confined to their rooms, just to see if i could overhear something interesting. i never did. i've always wanted to know how boys talk to each other when girls aren't around, and as a stripper, i believe i get an approximation of that. it works like this: even though they are most certainly aware of our presence as token T&A, they don't care what we think because we're just strippers. also, they never have to see us again, and so it's a relatively risk-free environment. therefore, they don't censor themselves a whole lot around us (and lemme tell ya, it's a rough world out there in the maniverse if some of the stuff i see and hear on a regular basis is actually censored). what's more, i hear all sorts of interesting tidbits that don't have to do with chauvinist underpinnings: i've had people confess all sorts of weird stuff, tell me intimate details of their relationships, talk to me about kinks that i'm sure they don't share with their male friends (like, say, how they want me to fuck them in the ass). often times, the talking i do feels like a therapy session. i'm no stranger to this, and i quite enjoy it--especially when i'm getting paid well.
i know i've got to be onstage in a bit, so we finish our chat and rejoin his friend at the bar for more drinks. he makes another couple comments indicating he wished he had a chance to try his game on me in a "real" bar, and how i should TOTALLY come to his hotel room. i make a joke about him not being able to afford it, to which he replies, "well, i don't want to PAY you." i go, "well that's too bad, because i have to be onstage soon and you owe me sixty bucks." the expression on his face reads as, "?!" and i truly believe he was actually surprised that he owed me money for what had just transpired. "i owe you SIXTY BUCKS?! for WHAT?!" and i'm like, "well, we did two dances, and then you told me you just wanted me to sit there, which i did, naked, for over 20 minutes, and i think i deserve another $20 for that." "but i just gave you twenty bucks!" "yes, and thank you, but that was an hour ago and i considered it a tip." he doesn't budge. i can see him shutting down, getting the kind of attitude i am sometimes on the receiving end of when it comes time to talk about money--but usually that's not until the end of the night when customers are more inebriated and have grown weary of hemorrhaging cash. you can see it in their faces: their bubble bursts, and they just turn on you. they can't deal with acknowledging that they just paid you to be nice to them, so all of a sudden you're a golddigging bitch and they're "not paying anyone else any more fucking money."
over the course of about three seconds, he turns into a pouty child who's determined to get his way. he folds his arms and holds firm in his stance that he's not going to pay me. he says, "how big are the bouncers? i wouldn't mind fighting my way out of here." he keeps bringing up the twenty bucks he handed me--AS IF that's some colossal sum of money. i say, "yes, and thank you for the tip, but that doesn't cover services rendered." he clearly has no idea that i'm AT WORK. "but i thought you liked me." "yes, and i did have a great time with you, but this is my job." his friend, thank god, is no stranger to the strip club game and pulls me aside, apologetic, and gives me all the money in his wallet--forty bucks. "i'm really sorry, he doesn't understand that this is work for you." oh well. i thank him, cut my losses, go on stage, and proceed to forget about it.
the moral to the story: never trust a man with a boat. they'll use their ability to contain you as means to control you. and they have shady friends.
12/27/09
"i got caught being a real person."
so i'm sitting at the library bar with ruby, having a bite to eat and a drink at the beginning of our shift. this is customary behavior for my friends and me--it's nice to take a moment to transition out of "real person" mode and into our stripper personae. at this point, we've undergone most of our transition already--we've showered, driven to work, fixed our hair and makeup, donned our costumes--but beyond those physical transformations, there are psychological steps to be taken, and sitting at the bar for a while can help ease that process. on this particular evening we're talking about our tendencies within romantic relationships: are we pursuers or pursuees? what aspects of those roles are turn-ons or turn-offs? what makes us lose interest quickly, what keeps us coming back for more?
suddenly, a (somewhat former) regular customer of mine, jim, walks up. i stopped sitting with him a while ago because he got too pushy, and it just stopped being worth the money he paid me. he interrupts our conversation about boyfriends to blurt out, "haven't seen you in a while, how are you and your boyfriend doing?" sigh. we've been through this before, and for some reason i'm not feeling very open to having this discussion, again--most likely due to the nature of the conversation he's interrupted. "we broke up four months ago, jim, and that's the first thing you said to me the last time i saw you, and i'd really appreciate it if you'd stop asking me about that." he goes, "well okay fine, i'll go away." i say, "you don't have to go away, i just don't want to talk about my ex boyfriend anymore. i'm trying really hard to get over it, and having you ask me about it doesn't help."
either he's drunk, or he's just not getting the hint, or both, because he presses me further--"well, what happened?" ugh. in what universe is this appropriate small talk? i snap at him, "look, i don't really want to talk about it. it was really awful, and it'd be great if i didn't have to explain that to you every time i saw you." (seriously, this is the first thing he's said to me, every time he's seen me, in the last several months. either it's the first thing he can think of to talk to me about, or he doesn't remember previous conversations. either way, it's got to stop, because i wasn't lying when i said it was awful, and i REALLY don't to be reminded of my newly-acquired emotional baggage while i'm trying to undergo a smooth transition into stripper mode). dejected, he sulks off. i don't try and stop him. i turn to ruby and say, "oops. i got caught being a real person. my bad."
the next time i see jim, a month later, he asks me the same thing. he just doesn't remember previous conversations. i guess he's just a drunk, and i'm going to have to keep that in mind while pretending to not be a real person around him in the future. i suppose that's what i deserve for thinking i had a candid enough relationship with a regular to talk about aspects of my "real" life.
suddenly, a (somewhat former) regular customer of mine, jim, walks up. i stopped sitting with him a while ago because he got too pushy, and it just stopped being worth the money he paid me. he interrupts our conversation about boyfriends to blurt out, "haven't seen you in a while, how are you and your boyfriend doing?" sigh. we've been through this before, and for some reason i'm not feeling very open to having this discussion, again--most likely due to the nature of the conversation he's interrupted. "we broke up four months ago, jim, and that's the first thing you said to me the last time i saw you, and i'd really appreciate it if you'd stop asking me about that." he goes, "well okay fine, i'll go away." i say, "you don't have to go away, i just don't want to talk about my ex boyfriend anymore. i'm trying really hard to get over it, and having you ask me about it doesn't help."
either he's drunk, or he's just not getting the hint, or both, because he presses me further--"well, what happened?" ugh. in what universe is this appropriate small talk? i snap at him, "look, i don't really want to talk about it. it was really awful, and it'd be great if i didn't have to explain that to you every time i saw you." (seriously, this is the first thing he's said to me, every time he's seen me, in the last several months. either it's the first thing he can think of to talk to me about, or he doesn't remember previous conversations. either way, it's got to stop, because i wasn't lying when i said it was awful, and i REALLY don't to be reminded of my newly-acquired emotional baggage while i'm trying to undergo a smooth transition into stripper mode). dejected, he sulks off. i don't try and stop him. i turn to ruby and say, "oops. i got caught being a real person. my bad."
the next time i see jim, a month later, he asks me the same thing. he just doesn't remember previous conversations. i guess he's just a drunk, and i'm going to have to keep that in mind while pretending to not be a real person around him in the future. i suppose that's what i deserve for thinking i had a candid enough relationship with a regular to talk about aspects of my "real" life.
12/16/09
suck it up
it's not like i hate obese people--this is texas, hating fat people would be exhausting. hell, i don't even judge their inability to control their eating--this is america. our portions our huge, our lifestyles is sedintary, and with the exception of major (coastal) cities, our street food is drive-thru, empty-calorie-and-saturated-fat-laden, and completely delicious "fast food." in NYC, at least you can grab a gyro. in SF, a crepe (ok, neither of those are super awesome for you, but still. they're not a double quarter pounder with cheese, bacon and mayo, large fries, and a large high fructose corn syrup and caffeine injection).
my point is: this is texas, there are TONS of overweight people (the majority...no doubt), and plenty of obese people. i dance for the former ALL the time, and the latter occasionally.
it's hard to dance for obese people, logistically speaking. there's just not much lap space: because their bellies are so big, it resides atop most of the thigh real estate. there's just not enough room between their waists and their knees on which i can sit and gyrate properly, and so it's more of a physical challenge to do something erotic on top of them. they're so round, i have to lean over them in a really awkward way. moreover, when i stand up, turn around, and bend over, my ass just bumps into their enormous bellies. is that sexy to them, having a hot piece of ass resting on top of their gut? because i'd have to stand 3ft away to avoid it (but hey--at least i'd be legal!).
inversely, dancing for extremely skinny people is difficult in a different way. for example, i have a customer who uses a wheelchair on whose legs i'm afraid to put almost any weight. his lap is bony and frail, and although he can't feel anything on it, i'm afraid of injuring him. women are often more difficult too--their knees are knobbier. skinny is a different set of challenges. the point is, dancing for overly fat or overly skinny people is part of my job.
that being said, i don't mind dancing for obese people so much. so it's more of a challenge--big deal. there are moments, however, which are less savory than others. ahem:
last week was great, above average income for five nights in a row. i should have figured that would come to an end eventually. so, it's midnight, and i've been at work for four hours. i'm not drinking because i'm on antibiotics, and i feel slightly off my game. i've done one dance with the little round fish counter manager from whole foods with whom i talk liberal politics. when i dance for him, he always says, "i'm the luckiest man in the world right now!" but he's only good for one, and other than being delightful, that's about it. i do another dance, for someone who works with MIT researching social network data--we had a very interesting discussion about the politics of knowledge production and the changes in journalism with blogging (he recommends i read a book called "six degrees").
so despite pleasant company, i'm not having a good night. then the nerdy guys (a little one and a obese one) from last week reappear, minus the randy massage therapist gf. this is too bad, because i really enjoyed dancing for her--it was her 2nd ever trip to a strip club, and she was really enthusiastic. the little nerdy guy (the girl's bf) buys the fat one a dance. i cringe, but agree, as i've only made $40. i remember last week, when i danced for him once, and recall some awkward convulsing on his part. i remember him telling me how he saw his first pair of real live breasts in a strip club, how his first kiss was in a strip club, and i become fairly certain he's never been laid. the little one says, "well i'd like to get a dance, but i have a gf, so i'll buy him one instead", and i say "that's what we're here for. we're like gfs who you don't have to call in the morning." and the fat one indicates that he wouldn't necessarily MIND having to call me in the morning, and then i know. he's as desperate as i suspect, and this is real, human contact for him, not just some party-time service he's indulging in.
so i dance. he smells bad, the kind of smell often carried by the obese, because they can't reach everywhere to wash properly; later, when i mention this in a post-work gchat with a massage therapist friend, he goes "yeah. the folds get rank." (i happened to be snacking at the time, but the phrase "rank folds" made me set down the dried mangoes). anyhoo, he is polite and keeps his hands to himself, he has kind eyes and a quick smile, but oh my god he smells like piss.
and every time my knee so much as brushes his cock, it twitches violently, and he gives off a tremendous gasp, often punctuated with an "UNH." his cock twitches so hard that i'm afraid i'm going to accidentally make him come.
the thing is, it's really hard to get close enough to him to do a decent dance without touching his cock. he's well over 300lbs, so see the above about "not much lap real estate." what's more, he has that under-the-navel pooch, which basically ends in his groin, so it makes everything protrude even more. he's basically a big round belly with a poor, neglected dick at the bottom. and he's really sensitive, so every 30 seconds i get treated to a pre-orgasmic spasm as a reminder that yes, he is indeed enjoying this.
i give him the dance his friend paid for, and i leave immediately. as i'm dressing, he says another girl is coming over, but that i should come back later. so i make a few laps around the club, experience no increase in funds, and i happen to walk past the nerdy table again. he seems eager. i think, "what's another 3.5 minutes of torture for $20? this is my job, right?" so i dance again. he gets three in a row. at the end of each song, i feel relieved--not only do i have like three moves i can actually perform on someone this big, which gets boring, but the pre-orgasmic cock twitching is REALLY grossing me out--but at the end of each song, he says, "one more," and i cringe.
the phrase, "lie back and think of england" comes to mind. or rather, "zone out and think of my upcoming san francisco vacation."
sometimes $20 just isn't enough. (hell, sometimes $1800 isn't enough--i recently overheard our resident jessica rabbit bitching in the dressing room about having to endure three hours of being slobbered on, for only $1800. it's all relative, i guess). that $80 i made dancing for him doubled what i took home that night. suck it up. part of our job is fulfilling the role of a pseudo-sexual surrogate. we provide physical intimacy for people who lack it. (the next night i danced for a regular customer whose wife hasn't fucked him in 6 years. he's too good to cheat, and too sweet to leave his family, so he comes to strip clubs. i see confirmation of this "outlet valve" theory every day). i often feel compassionate for sex-starved customers, and am happy to provide this simple touching, happy to fulfill that basic human need, happy to inspire erections, happy to graze them with my knee and see ecstasy on the faces of strangers--for a price of course. but not this time, not him. he was repulsive, and i was terrified i was going to make him come. i pitied his lack of self control--not the overeating, but the oversensitivity.
so i choked back my gags, mentally tallied my budget while i did my job, and got out of there ASAP. was it worth it? maybe. probably, since he didn't actually come.
but alas, as a hair technician i visited recently said when i asked her about what it's like to wax scrotum, "it all looks green at the end of the day."
my point is: this is texas, there are TONS of overweight people (the majority...no doubt), and plenty of obese people. i dance for the former ALL the time, and the latter occasionally.
it's hard to dance for obese people, logistically speaking. there's just not much lap space: because their bellies are so big, it resides atop most of the thigh real estate. there's just not enough room between their waists and their knees on which i can sit and gyrate properly, and so it's more of a physical challenge to do something erotic on top of them. they're so round, i have to lean over them in a really awkward way. moreover, when i stand up, turn around, and bend over, my ass just bumps into their enormous bellies. is that sexy to them, having a hot piece of ass resting on top of their gut? because i'd have to stand 3ft away to avoid it (but hey--at least i'd be legal!).
inversely, dancing for extremely skinny people is difficult in a different way. for example, i have a customer who uses a wheelchair on whose legs i'm afraid to put almost any weight. his lap is bony and frail, and although he can't feel anything on it, i'm afraid of injuring him. women are often more difficult too--their knees are knobbier. skinny is a different set of challenges. the point is, dancing for overly fat or overly skinny people is part of my job.
that being said, i don't mind dancing for obese people so much. so it's more of a challenge--big deal. there are moments, however, which are less savory than others. ahem:
last week was great, above average income for five nights in a row. i should have figured that would come to an end eventually. so, it's midnight, and i've been at work for four hours. i'm not drinking because i'm on antibiotics, and i feel slightly off my game. i've done one dance with the little round fish counter manager from whole foods with whom i talk liberal politics. when i dance for him, he always says, "i'm the luckiest man in the world right now!" but he's only good for one, and other than being delightful, that's about it. i do another dance, for someone who works with MIT researching social network data--we had a very interesting discussion about the politics of knowledge production and the changes in journalism with blogging (he recommends i read a book called "six degrees").
so despite pleasant company, i'm not having a good night. then the nerdy guys (a little one and a obese one) from last week reappear, minus the randy massage therapist gf. this is too bad, because i really enjoyed dancing for her--it was her 2nd ever trip to a strip club, and she was really enthusiastic. the little nerdy guy (the girl's bf) buys the fat one a dance. i cringe, but agree, as i've only made $40. i remember last week, when i danced for him once, and recall some awkward convulsing on his part. i remember him telling me how he saw his first pair of real live breasts in a strip club, how his first kiss was in a strip club, and i become fairly certain he's never been laid. the little one says, "well i'd like to get a dance, but i have a gf, so i'll buy him one instead", and i say "that's what we're here for. we're like gfs who you don't have to call in the morning." and the fat one indicates that he wouldn't necessarily MIND having to call me in the morning, and then i know. he's as desperate as i suspect, and this is real, human contact for him, not just some party-time service he's indulging in.
so i dance. he smells bad, the kind of smell often carried by the obese, because they can't reach everywhere to wash properly; later, when i mention this in a post-work gchat with a massage therapist friend, he goes "yeah. the folds get rank." (i happened to be snacking at the time, but the phrase "rank folds" made me set down the dried mangoes). anyhoo, he is polite and keeps his hands to himself, he has kind eyes and a quick smile, but oh my god he smells like piss.
and every time my knee so much as brushes his cock, it twitches violently, and he gives off a tremendous gasp, often punctuated with an "UNH." his cock twitches so hard that i'm afraid i'm going to accidentally make him come.
the thing is, it's really hard to get close enough to him to do a decent dance without touching his cock. he's well over 300lbs, so see the above about "not much lap real estate." what's more, he has that under-the-navel pooch, which basically ends in his groin, so it makes everything protrude even more. he's basically a big round belly with a poor, neglected dick at the bottom. and he's really sensitive, so every 30 seconds i get treated to a pre-orgasmic spasm as a reminder that yes, he is indeed enjoying this.
i give him the dance his friend paid for, and i leave immediately. as i'm dressing, he says another girl is coming over, but that i should come back later. so i make a few laps around the club, experience no increase in funds, and i happen to walk past the nerdy table again. he seems eager. i think, "what's another 3.5 minutes of torture for $20? this is my job, right?" so i dance again. he gets three in a row. at the end of each song, i feel relieved--not only do i have like three moves i can actually perform on someone this big, which gets boring, but the pre-orgasmic cock twitching is REALLY grossing me out--but at the end of each song, he says, "one more," and i cringe.
the phrase, "lie back and think of england" comes to mind. or rather, "zone out and think of my upcoming san francisco vacation."
sometimes $20 just isn't enough. (hell, sometimes $1800 isn't enough--i recently overheard our resident jessica rabbit bitching in the dressing room about having to endure three hours of being slobbered on, for only $1800. it's all relative, i guess). that $80 i made dancing for him doubled what i took home that night. suck it up. part of our job is fulfilling the role of a pseudo-sexual surrogate. we provide physical intimacy for people who lack it. (the next night i danced for a regular customer whose wife hasn't fucked him in 6 years. he's too good to cheat, and too sweet to leave his family, so he comes to strip clubs. i see confirmation of this "outlet valve" theory every day). i often feel compassionate for sex-starved customers, and am happy to provide this simple touching, happy to fulfill that basic human need, happy to inspire erections, happy to graze them with my knee and see ecstasy on the faces of strangers--for a price of course. but not this time, not him. he was repulsive, and i was terrified i was going to make him come. i pitied his lack of self control--not the overeating, but the oversensitivity.
so i choked back my gags, mentally tallied my budget while i did my job, and got out of there ASAP. was it worth it? maybe. probably, since he didn't actually come.
but alas, as a hair technician i visited recently said when i asked her about what it's like to wax scrotum, "it all looks green at the end of the day."
11/20/09
thank you, drunk bitch
so i'm driving home through the rain, and i realize i can't let this one slide. that drunk bitch just done brought me out of blogging hiatus. year long writer's block? gone. thank you, drunk bitch.
last night, i saw management politely pile her into a cab. she slobberingly gets into the front seat. everyone waves.
tonight, she stumbles into the dressing room, yelling, "KATIE! I WANNA GO HOME!"
(who's katie? i don't know. where's home? i don't care).
the house mom smiles as this girl is LAYING on the FLOOR pulling her sweatpants onto her flabby hips. (yes, i just made a body-type judgment. so sue me. this chick doesn't work out, she drinks too much, and nobody seems to care. why do i care? because she doesn't take pride in herself, her figure, or anything. she's not one of those full-figured girls, she's fat. and has a really abrasive (and drunken) personality--and for some reason, she still makes money. i know plenty of big girls who are perfectly awesome and make bank, but as far as i can tell, this chick gets drunk for a living).
a waitress stops by to croon, "oh you're so cute i love you!" as this chick is literally slobbering on the dressing room floor. seriously people. our club is owned by a woman, we have scholarships for students, we were voted best club in the nation last year, and we were on two (2!) cable news networks last month. (ahem: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33501148). we are BETTER THAN THIS.
so here i am, seething while i throw on my jeans, hating myself for the way i played my shift, since i had clearly spent too much time showing off my brain when i obviously could have made more money doing fruity shots (or whatever the hell this cunt is on) and gaffawing for a living.
i had a bad night. not terrible, i met some awesome people (i learned how gas prices are estimated and fixed! i waxed philosophical with san franciscans!), but, sadly, such things do not (always) pay the bills. so i've been wasting my time hanging out with interesting people who i should have been playing. so what. i got caught up in myself and forgot that my self is for sale.
there are nights when i simply refuse to dumb myself down for money. not like her. not like this. WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS.
but everyone overlooks it, stuffs her into yet another cab (or goes and finds katie, who she's STILL slurringly yelling for), and looks the other way. why. WHY?!
i don't understand what she has going for herself, other than single-handedly helping our liquor sale stats. she makes the rest of us look terrible (or, depending on how you look at it, she makes the rest of us look good in comparison). she personifies EVERYTHING about the stripper stereotype that i have made it my mission in life to overcome. i storm out of the club, steam coming from my ears.
the only thing i can know for sure is that i am better than that. the next night, as i sit talking with a new customer, he plunks down $100 on the table and says, "i don't want you to dance, i'm having such a great time conversing that i want to pay you" and vindication is mine.
last night, i saw management politely pile her into a cab. she slobberingly gets into the front seat. everyone waves.
tonight, she stumbles into the dressing room, yelling, "KATIE! I WANNA GO HOME!"
(who's katie? i don't know. where's home? i don't care).
the house mom smiles as this girl is LAYING on the FLOOR pulling her sweatpants onto her flabby hips. (yes, i just made a body-type judgment. so sue me. this chick doesn't work out, she drinks too much, and nobody seems to care. why do i care? because she doesn't take pride in herself, her figure, or anything. she's not one of those full-figured girls, she's fat. and has a really abrasive (and drunken) personality--and for some reason, she still makes money. i know plenty of big girls who are perfectly awesome and make bank, but as far as i can tell, this chick gets drunk for a living).
a waitress stops by to croon, "oh you're so cute i love you!" as this chick is literally slobbering on the dressing room floor. seriously people. our club is owned by a woman, we have scholarships for students, we were voted best club in the nation last year, and we were on two (2!) cable news networks last month. (ahem: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33501148). we are BETTER THAN THIS.
so here i am, seething while i throw on my jeans, hating myself for the way i played my shift, since i had clearly spent too much time showing off my brain when i obviously could have made more money doing fruity shots (or whatever the hell this cunt is on) and gaffawing for a living.
i had a bad night. not terrible, i met some awesome people (i learned how gas prices are estimated and fixed! i waxed philosophical with san franciscans!), but, sadly, such things do not (always) pay the bills. so i've been wasting my time hanging out with interesting people who i should have been playing. so what. i got caught up in myself and forgot that my self is for sale.
there are nights when i simply refuse to dumb myself down for money. not like her. not like this. WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS.
but everyone overlooks it, stuffs her into yet another cab (or goes and finds katie, who she's STILL slurringly yelling for), and looks the other way. why. WHY?!
i don't understand what she has going for herself, other than single-handedly helping our liquor sale stats. she makes the rest of us look terrible (or, depending on how you look at it, she makes the rest of us look good in comparison). she personifies EVERYTHING about the stripper stereotype that i have made it my mission in life to overcome. i storm out of the club, steam coming from my ears.
the only thing i can know for sure is that i am better than that. the next night, as i sit talking with a new customer, he plunks down $100 on the table and says, "i don't want you to dance, i'm having such a great time conversing that i want to pay you" and vindication is mine.
3/12/09
for all you demanding fuckers
i know i haven't posted in a while, and while encouragement to rectify that situation has ranged from polite and encouraging to all-out-STFU-whiny, i'm going to address it.
you want to know why i haven't been posting? curious as to what the hell i've been doing? well, here's my prospectus, bitches. it's a dry, tightly packed 10-page version of my thesis. it had to include a literature review AND works cited in those ten pages, so it's not as much argumentation as anyone would have liked--but hey, they don't just give these stupid grad degrees to just anyone, they make you jump through all manner and sort of flaming hoop beforehand. squishing a 40-page argument into 10 pages with a bunch of other requirements isn't easy. and i only got it down to 40 pages after cutting out 75% of my argumentation. so there.
but seriously people, quit asking me for more blogs and bear with me: i've got a pre-defense draft of the thesis due on april 10th, and post-defense final version due on may 10th. don't expect a damn thing until then--except maybe the first chapter, which i'll post here if, like, you really want me to.
so, i'm sorry, and yes, as many of you have so unceremoniously pointed out, i DO have stories to share--but not the time to type them up into the format you're used to. so STFU. seriously. and read this instead of bitching at me!
Stripping Subjectivity: The Multiply-Situated Self, “Covert Mimesis,” and Reinscription/Resistance through Subversion
Sex work is major point of contention within feminist discourse, eliciting discussion often polarized along lines of dis/empowerment: is sex work empowering or disempowering, feminist or unfeminist? Exemplified by feminist conferences of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the “sex wars” divided feminists on this issue: “anti-pornography” feminists denounced objectification as a tool of patriarchal oppression, while sex-positive feminists stressed possible empowerment within objectification and therefore within sex work itself. Anti-sex-work feminists and other researchers from outside the sex industry often focus on what they describe as sex workers’ coping mechanisms to mitigate the objectifying and degrading nature of their work, thereby entrenching an either/or mindset when addressing issues of empowerment, and ignoring descriptions of complex, contradictory, and liminal experience which continually emerge from sex worker narratives (Lerum 8). In this thesis, I draw on my own experience to argue that strippers’ reflexive engagement with roles/personae results in a conscious and dynamic multiply-situated self that becomes a tool of “covert mimesis,” facilitating transcendence of objectification through excessive performance, and enabling personal privacy and therefore empowerment in a phallocentric context by allowing strippers control over their expressed selves.
The strip club context is compelling because it provides a semi-public interactive sphere in which to participate and/or observe core issues of objectification and degradation; enacting a magnified representation of gender/power scripts (Perrucci, “Transformative Power” 336), “some young researchers find strip clubs the perfect laboratory to literally work through these concerns using their own bodies” (Frank 507). Autoethnography is crucial for conveying strippers’ liminal experience of objectification and dis/empowerment: participant observation allows reflexive, contextual engagement with subjective impacts of stripping on identity, shuns the myth of “objectivity,” and endeavors to communicate personal, partial truths (Abu-Lughod 15). My interrogation of strippers’ subjectivities quickly encountered pervasive cultural binaries: the Cartesian mind/body split informs denouncements that strippers are “reduced to objects,” and the self/other divide necessitates a unitary and stable “self,” thus delegitimizing the dynamic multiply-situated subjectivity often resulting from sex work. Strippers’ narratives force reconsideration of cultural dualisms by presenting embodied theories that confound either/or thought structures; liminal experiences of dis/empowerment and multiplicity pervade sex worker discourse, challenging both stigma and stereotype.
Strip clubs are inherently phallocentric environments (Egan, “Fantasy Girl” 111) requiring direct interaction with customers and thus a great deal of emotional labor (Bruckert 86). A successful stripper maintains a believable performance of a role/persona, indulging clients’ whims: in catering to customers’ demands by concealing “undesirable” facets of their subjectivities, strippers alter their expressed selves for profit. A context that demands female capitulation to male desires seems entirely phallocentric, yet many aspects of the strip club context defy distinct categorizations (Perrucci, “Transformative Power” 333). I will argue that feminist stripper ethnographies indicate potential liberation through multiplicity, via roles/personae performance. Drawing on my own experience, I will demonstrate how reflexive engagement with the environment yields a “layered account” of how roles of stripper and researcher affect one’s subjectivity; multiplicity becomes a source of strength, and “the self produced in this text is emergent from the interaction of these roles” (Ronai 105).
Acceptance of multiplicity allows roles/personae to become tools of what Danielle Egan calls “covert mimesis” : strippers excessively perform versions of femininity, knowingly entrenching phallocentric forms yet utilizing their object status in covert resistance (“Fantasy Girl” 111). This performance is covertly mimetic because a dancer mimes aspects of traditional femininity, but only she understands how they differ from her self-image. Covert resistance is largely invisible because her inner self is unimportant to customers: she mirrors the self they desire, allowing her to subvert gender norms while seemingly entrenching them. Building on Egan’s term, I argue that covert mimesis fosters movement between selves (jettisoning the polarized “true” and “faked” self), performances of femininity which acquire new power when seen through a lens of excess and performance (Johnson, “Pole Work” 150). In this sense, roles and masks can be liberating even while they seem unfeminist on the surface (Perrucci, “Persona and Self” 39): Ironically, the strip club (a homogenized and repressive environment) can supply more freedom of sexual expression than its participants may enjoy in everyday life (Perrucci, “Transformative Power” 324).
My thesis will consist of three parts. The first chapter traces the history and content of the feminist sex wars, arguing that the resulting polarization within feminist discourse is due to focus on dis/empowerment, and fuels feminist sex worker narratives. I analyze positionality within feminist stripper literature, emphasizing reflexivity’s crucial role in conveying subjective realities of stripping, and describe how polarizations fueled my entry into the industry. The second chapter unpacks those subjective realities of stripping, focusing on emotional labor, the use of roles/personae and their development into a multiply-situated identity. The third chapter explains how multiplicity is a tool of covert mimesis, necessitating conscious acknowledgment of and movement between selves. Finally, I show how conscious, dynamic multiplicity and resulting covert mimesis fosters privacy and personal empowerment, while enabling increased freedom of sexual expression.
Literature Review
The sex wars represented anti-pornography feminists’ critique and attempts to silence voices of empowerment within sex work, thus provoking an onslaught of feminist sex worker narratives. Steph Weene’s “Venus” represents a basic articulation of multiplicity and possible empowerment within the club’s phallocentric environment. Writing at the height of the sex wars, Weene refutes cultural disavowal and feminist criticism of her willful self-objectification with analysis of her gendered performance of beauty and eroticism that avoids reduction to stereotypes. Originally, Weene’s stripper personae led to self-alienation by commodifying her sexuality; resisting multiplicity is a tendency imposed by the mind/body split, which strippers must overcome before unproblematically engaging in covert mimesis. Thus, she names her reclamation of pride and power “feminissima” (37), essentially a personalized description of covert mimesis and an early description of agency within stripping. Weene’s theory serves as an excellent example of proactive mimetic resistance, and provides a doorway for deeper exploration of multiplicity and privacy in relation to empowerment.
Unfortunately, post-sex wars quantitative researchers and anti-sex work feminists often ignore sex worker narratives of liminality within dis/empowerment. Chris Bruckert’s book Taking It Off, Putting It On: Women in the Strip Trade challenges academic silencing of sex workers by placing embodied experience of hidden transcripts and passive resistance at the center of discourse, and integrating others’ narratives into an intersubjective, cohesive project. Through passive resistance, strippers are in a unique position to invert/manipulate oppressive scripts, forming a hidden transcript that could impact mainstream discourse. While Bruckert’s work supports multiplicity by integrating various narratives, it also upholds an arbitrary distinction between “true” and “faked” persona, thus entrenching the myth of a singular, fixed self: engaging in emotional labor, strippers are “alienated” from their “social selves” (88), though emotional labor is compulsory it “need not touch her self” (95). Expanding upon Bruckert’s work, I argue that strippers’ multiply-situated selves enable covert mimesis (which Bruckert links to transcendence of the self without internalizing repression), and, more importantly, conscious shifts between selves prevents self-alienation when engaging in covert mimesis. These conscious shifts indicate strippers’ proactive and agentive assertion of positively-oriented subjectivities within the sex work context, challenging anti-sex-work feminist claims that strippers are necessarily degraded or victimized by objectification.
The phallocentric strip club context threatens strippers’ self-esteem, thereby making maintenance of roles/personae and covert mimesis essential to a strong sense of self. Danielle Egan’s book Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love: The Relationships Between Exotic Dancers and Their Regulars sketches liminal experiences of strippers and customers in relation to the complex power structure within strip clubs, where “white, heteronormative masculinity operates unproblematically and is reiterated for profit” (39). Strippers’ performance of “object” elicits a fluid sense of subjectivity, a challenge to embrace “both/and” (145) and highly personalized mimetic strategies of resistance. Egan, like Bruckert, appears to consider the alteration of mainstream discourse as the main goal of resistance; thus, my work will demonstrate that empowerment through subjective theory and privacy are more immediate goals than significant shifts in mainstream discourse. While overt resistance is “anything but futile” (146), subversion on a covert, personalized level can yield just as much personal empowerment but is rarely noticed by scholars of resistance (Paules 181-2).
Movement between selves via engagement of roles/personae is essential to empowerment through covert mimesis and stripping. Merri Lisa Johnson’s article, “Pole Work: Autoethnography of a Strip Club,” identifies the mind/body split as necessitating embodied movement between “many versions of female sexuality” (149). In describing her feminist subjectivity of stripper/researcher, Johnson finds the strip club a space to “wholly be” (151) by utilizing embodied experience to continue feminist theory’s “assault” on dominant discourse and conceptual roles (156). Articulating a lack of “literally embodied activisms” (151), Johnson presents the analogy of “pole work” as an embodied straddling of dualisms, facilitating reclamation of selfhood through movement between hyphenated dichotomies like “stripper-scholar” (156). I extend Johnson’s theory by integrating her binary-subverting “pole work” into other theories of excess and mimesis, showing how a multiply-situated, self-authored subjectivity can positively impact strippers’ feelings of privacy and therefore empowerment.
Engagement of roles/personae results in multiplicity, but conscious deployment of multiplicity is as crucial to empowerment as the roles/personae themselves. Alissa Perrucci emphasizes the importance of acknowledged multiplicity to strippers’ identities in her article, “The Relationship Between Persona and Self in Exotic Dancers’ Experience of Privacy,” arguing that by accepting (as opposed to resisting) the conscious engagement of personae, strippers challenge the myth of a stable/fixed subjectivity, thereby preventing internalization of stigma and alienation from “true” self (38). Multiple subjects allow “authorship of self” (39) within a role without being reduced to stereotypes, permitting feelings of individuality, agency, and privacy within a phallocentric environment. Expanding upon “authorship of self” to include covert mimesis, I extend Perrucci’s privacy argument by adding Johnson’s emphasis on liminality. I will argue that movement between personae offers a more dynamic example of multiplicity than an arbitrary distinction placed between “true” self and “faked” personae. Moreover, conscious acknowledgement of role/persona engagement, as exemplified by Weene and Johnson, demonstrates strippers’ subject
ive agency and makes possible personal privacy and empowerment within sex work.
Strippers engage multiple personae by having the ability to choose when to reveal or conceal certain aspects of their selves; agency within multiplicity enables personal privacy, providing inroads towards liberation within sex work. Identifying strip clubs as spaces where strippers and customers alike can enact multiple gender roles of their choosing, Perrucci’s “The Transformative Power of Sex Work” emphasizes the ability to conceal and reveal information within interactions as crucial to preserving a sense of privacy, which Perrucci deems central to the formulation of a healthy self-image and therefore empowerment within sex work. The club space therefore becomes a site of potential transformation of sexual and gendered scripts, where men and women can subvert gender norms while seeming to entrench them (i.e. covert mimesis), ideally by engaging in a mutually satisfying interaction that furthers social movement towards increased sexual freedom. Though Perrucci connects a multiply-situated self to feelings of privacy and therefore empowerment, her article entrenches a mutually-exclusive relationship between objectification and empowerment via pervasive juxtaposition. By incorporating binary-imploding theories like Johnson’s “pole work,” I transcend Perrucci’s either/or thought paradigm by emphasizing the possibility of empowerment within objectification, and vice versa.
Methodology
Shortly before I began official research into strippers’ subjectivities I was compelled to seek embodied knowledge on the subject, persuaded both by a perceived rift between literature written by sex workers and that written about them, and by an intense desire for insider knowledge. And so I began working as a stripper, intent upon interrogating how my feminist subjectivity interacted with the club environment. The methodology I employ here results from viewing my experiences through the lens of others’ auto-ethnographic, subjectively-informed theories: I use my body as a primary site of knowledge production, but articulate my experience via theories of my feminist/stripper/researcher predecessors. The product combines various facets of feminist auto-/ethnographic accounts of strippers’ subjective experience into a cohesive argument that subverts binaric paradigms (e.g. mind/body, self/other, subject/object, dis/empowerment) and provides space for resistance and empowerment within a phallocentric context.
Works Cited
Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Can There Be A Feminist Ethnography?” Women & Performance 5.1 (1991): 7-27.
Bruckert, Chris. Taking It Off, Putting It On: Women in the Strip Trade. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2002.
Chapkis, Wendy. Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Egan, R. Danielle. Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love: The Relationships Between Exotic Dancers and Their Regulars. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
---. “I’ll be Your Fantasy Girl, If You’ll be My Money Man: Mapping Desire, Fantasy and Power in Two Exotic Dance Clubs.” Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society 8.1 (2003): 109-20.
Frank, Katherine. “Thinking Critically about Strip Club Research.” Sexualities 10.4 (2007):501-17.
Hunter, Nan D. “Contextualizing the Sexuality Debates: A Chronology.” Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture. Eds. Lisa Duggan and Nan D. Hunter. New York: Routeledge, 1995. 16-29.
Johnson, Merri Lisa. “Pole Work: Autoethnography of a Strip Club.” Sex Work & Sex Workers: Sexuality and Culture. Eds. Barry M. Dank, Roberto Refinetti, Vol 2. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1999. 149-57.
Leigh, Carol, aka Scarlot Harlot. “Inventing Sex Work.” Whores and Other Feminists, ed. Jill Nagle. New York: Routledge, 1997. 223-31.
Lerum, Kari. “Twelve-Step Feminism Makes Sex Workers Sick: How the State and the Recovery Movement Turn Radical Women into ‘Useless Citizens.’” Sex Work and Sex Workers: Sexuality and Culture. Eds. Barry M. Dank and Roberto Refinetti, Vol 2. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. 7-36.
Paules, Greta Foff. Dishing It Out: Power and Resistance among Waitresses in a New Jersey Restaurant. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
Perrucci, Alissa C. “The Relationship Between Persona and Self in Exotic Dancers’ Experience of Privacy.” Unusual Occupations 11.1 (2000): 35-53.
---. “The Transformative Power of Sex Work.” Humanity and Society 24.2 (2000): 323-37.
Ronai, Carol Rambo. “The Reflexive Self through Narrative: A Night in the Life of an Exotic Dancer/Researcher.” Investigating Subjectivity: Research on Lived Experience. Eds. Carolyn Ellis and Michael G. Flaherty. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992. 102-24.
Weene, Steph. “Venus.” Heresies 3.4 (1981): 36-8.
you want to know why i haven't been posting? curious as to what the hell i've been doing? well, here's my prospectus, bitches. it's a dry, tightly packed 10-page version of my thesis. it had to include a literature review AND works cited in those ten pages, so it's not as much argumentation as anyone would have liked--but hey, they don't just give these stupid grad degrees to just anyone, they make you jump through all manner and sort of flaming hoop beforehand. squishing a 40-page argument into 10 pages with a bunch of other requirements isn't easy. and i only got it down to 40 pages after cutting out 75% of my argumentation. so there.
but seriously people, quit asking me for more blogs and bear with me: i've got a pre-defense draft of the thesis due on april 10th, and post-defense final version due on may 10th. don't expect a damn thing until then--except maybe the first chapter, which i'll post here if, like, you really want me to.
so, i'm sorry, and yes, as many of you have so unceremoniously pointed out, i DO have stories to share--but not the time to type them up into the format you're used to. so STFU. seriously. and read this instead of bitching at me!
Stripping Subjectivity: The Multiply-Situated Self, “Covert Mimesis,” and Reinscription/Resistance through Subversion
Sex work is major point of contention within feminist discourse, eliciting discussion often polarized along lines of dis/empowerment: is sex work empowering or disempowering, feminist or unfeminist? Exemplified by feminist conferences of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the “sex wars” divided feminists on this issue: “anti-pornography” feminists denounced objectification as a tool of patriarchal oppression, while sex-positive feminists stressed possible empowerment within objectification and therefore within sex work itself. Anti-sex-work feminists and other researchers from outside the sex industry often focus on what they describe as sex workers’ coping mechanisms to mitigate the objectifying and degrading nature of their work, thereby entrenching an either/or mindset when addressing issues of empowerment, and ignoring descriptions of complex, contradictory, and liminal experience which continually emerge from sex worker narratives (Lerum 8). In this thesis, I draw on my own experience to argue that strippers’ reflexive engagement with roles/personae results in a conscious and dynamic multiply-situated self that becomes a tool of “covert mimesis,” facilitating transcendence of objectification through excessive performance, and enabling personal privacy and therefore empowerment in a phallocentric context by allowing strippers control over their expressed selves.
The strip club context is compelling because it provides a semi-public interactive sphere in which to participate and/or observe core issues of objectification and degradation; enacting a magnified representation of gender/power scripts (Perrucci, “Transformative Power” 336), “some young researchers find strip clubs the perfect laboratory to literally work through these concerns using their own bodies” (Frank 507). Autoethnography is crucial for conveying strippers’ liminal experience of objectification and dis/empowerment: participant observation allows reflexive, contextual engagement with subjective impacts of stripping on identity, shuns the myth of “objectivity,” and endeavors to communicate personal, partial truths (Abu-Lughod 15). My interrogation of strippers’ subjectivities quickly encountered pervasive cultural binaries: the Cartesian mind/body split informs denouncements that strippers are “reduced to objects,” and the self/other divide necessitates a unitary and stable “self,” thus delegitimizing the dynamic multiply-situated subjectivity often resulting from sex work. Strippers’ narratives force reconsideration of cultural dualisms by presenting embodied theories that confound either/or thought structures; liminal experiences of dis/empowerment and multiplicity pervade sex worker discourse, challenging both stigma and stereotype.
Strip clubs are inherently phallocentric environments (Egan, “Fantasy Girl” 111) requiring direct interaction with customers and thus a great deal of emotional labor (Bruckert 86). A successful stripper maintains a believable performance of a role/persona, indulging clients’ whims: in catering to customers’ demands by concealing “undesirable” facets of their subjectivities, strippers alter their expressed selves for profit. A context that demands female capitulation to male desires seems entirely phallocentric, yet many aspects of the strip club context defy distinct categorizations (Perrucci, “Transformative Power” 333). I will argue that feminist stripper ethnographies indicate potential liberation through multiplicity, via roles/personae performance. Drawing on my own experience, I will demonstrate how reflexive engagement with the environment yields a “layered account” of how roles of stripper and researcher affect one’s subjectivity; multiplicity becomes a source of strength, and “the self produced in this text is emergent from the interaction of these roles” (Ronai 105).
Acceptance of multiplicity allows roles/personae to become tools of what Danielle Egan calls “covert mimesis” : strippers excessively perform versions of femininity, knowingly entrenching phallocentric forms yet utilizing their object status in covert resistance (“Fantasy Girl” 111). This performance is covertly mimetic because a dancer mimes aspects of traditional femininity, but only she understands how they differ from her self-image. Covert resistance is largely invisible because her inner self is unimportant to customers: she mirrors the self they desire, allowing her to subvert gender norms while seemingly entrenching them. Building on Egan’s term, I argue that covert mimesis fosters movement between selves (jettisoning the polarized “true” and “faked” self), performances of femininity which acquire new power when seen through a lens of excess and performance (Johnson, “Pole Work” 150). In this sense, roles and masks can be liberating even while they seem unfeminist on the surface (Perrucci, “Persona and Self” 39): Ironically, the strip club (a homogenized and repressive environment) can supply more freedom of sexual expression than its participants may enjoy in everyday life (Perrucci, “Transformative Power” 324).
My thesis will consist of three parts. The first chapter traces the history and content of the feminist sex wars, arguing that the resulting polarization within feminist discourse is due to focus on dis/empowerment, and fuels feminist sex worker narratives. I analyze positionality within feminist stripper literature, emphasizing reflexivity’s crucial role in conveying subjective realities of stripping, and describe how polarizations fueled my entry into the industry. The second chapter unpacks those subjective realities of stripping, focusing on emotional labor, the use of roles/personae and their development into a multiply-situated identity. The third chapter explains how multiplicity is a tool of covert mimesis, necessitating conscious acknowledgment of and movement between selves. Finally, I show how conscious, dynamic multiplicity and resulting covert mimesis fosters privacy and personal empowerment, while enabling increased freedom of sexual expression.
Literature Review
The sex wars represented anti-pornography feminists’ critique and attempts to silence voices of empowerment within sex work, thus provoking an onslaught of feminist sex worker narratives. Steph Weene’s “Venus” represents a basic articulation of multiplicity and possible empowerment within the club’s phallocentric environment. Writing at the height of the sex wars, Weene refutes cultural disavowal and feminist criticism of her willful self-objectification with analysis of her gendered performance of beauty and eroticism that avoids reduction to stereotypes. Originally, Weene’s stripper personae led to self-alienation by commodifying her sexuality; resisting multiplicity is a tendency imposed by the mind/body split, which strippers must overcome before unproblematically engaging in covert mimesis. Thus, she names her reclamation of pride and power “feminissima” (37), essentially a personalized description of covert mimesis and an early description of agency within stripping. Weene’s theory serves as an excellent example of proactive mimetic resistance, and provides a doorway for deeper exploration of multiplicity and privacy in relation to empowerment.
Unfortunately, post-sex wars quantitative researchers and anti-sex work feminists often ignore sex worker narratives of liminality within dis/empowerment. Chris Bruckert’s book Taking It Off, Putting It On: Women in the Strip Trade challenges academic silencing of sex workers by placing embodied experience of hidden transcripts and passive resistance at the center of discourse, and integrating others’ narratives into an intersubjective, cohesive project. Through passive resistance, strippers are in a unique position to invert/manipulate oppressive scripts, forming a hidden transcript that could impact mainstream discourse. While Bruckert’s work supports multiplicity by integrating various narratives, it also upholds an arbitrary distinction between “true” and “faked” persona, thus entrenching the myth of a singular, fixed self: engaging in emotional labor, strippers are “alienated” from their “social selves” (88), though emotional labor is compulsory it “need not touch her self” (95). Expanding upon Bruckert’s work, I argue that strippers’ multiply-situated selves enable covert mimesis (which Bruckert links to transcendence of the self without internalizing repression), and, more importantly, conscious shifts between selves prevents self-alienation when engaging in covert mimesis. These conscious shifts indicate strippers’ proactive and agentive assertion of positively-oriented subjectivities within the sex work context, challenging anti-sex-work feminist claims that strippers are necessarily degraded or victimized by objectification.
The phallocentric strip club context threatens strippers’ self-esteem, thereby making maintenance of roles/personae and covert mimesis essential to a strong sense of self. Danielle Egan’s book Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love: The Relationships Between Exotic Dancers and Their Regulars sketches liminal experiences of strippers and customers in relation to the complex power structure within strip clubs, where “white, heteronormative masculinity operates unproblematically and is reiterated for profit” (39). Strippers’ performance of “object” elicits a fluid sense of subjectivity, a challenge to embrace “both/and” (145) and highly personalized mimetic strategies of resistance. Egan, like Bruckert, appears to consider the alteration of mainstream discourse as the main goal of resistance; thus, my work will demonstrate that empowerment through subjective theory and privacy are more immediate goals than significant shifts in mainstream discourse. While overt resistance is “anything but futile” (146), subversion on a covert, personalized level can yield just as much personal empowerment but is rarely noticed by scholars of resistance (Paules 181-2).
Movement between selves via engagement of roles/personae is essential to empowerment through covert mimesis and stripping. Merri Lisa Johnson’s article, “Pole Work: Autoethnography of a Strip Club,” identifies the mind/body split as necessitating embodied movement between “many versions of female sexuality” (149). In describing her feminist subjectivity of stripper/researcher, Johnson finds the strip club a space to “wholly be” (151) by utilizing embodied experience to continue feminist theory’s “assault” on dominant discourse and conceptual roles (156). Articulating a lack of “literally embodied activisms” (151), Johnson presents the analogy of “pole work” as an embodied straddling of dualisms, facilitating reclamation of selfhood through movement between hyphenated dichotomies like “stripper-scholar” (156). I extend Johnson’s theory by integrating her binary-subverting “pole work” into other theories of excess and mimesis, showing how a multiply-situated, self-authored subjectivity can positively impact strippers’ feelings of privacy and therefore empowerment.
Engagement of roles/personae results in multiplicity, but conscious deployment of multiplicity is as crucial to empowerment as the roles/personae themselves. Alissa Perrucci emphasizes the importance of acknowledged multiplicity to strippers’ identities in her article, “The Relationship Between Persona and Self in Exotic Dancers’ Experience of Privacy,” arguing that by accepting (as opposed to resisting) the conscious engagement of personae, strippers challenge the myth of a stable/fixed subjectivity, thereby preventing internalization of stigma and alienation from “true” self (38). Multiple subjects allow “authorship of self” (39) within a role without being reduced to stereotypes, permitting feelings of individuality, agency, and privacy within a phallocentric environment. Expanding upon “authorship of self” to include covert mimesis, I extend Perrucci’s privacy argument by adding Johnson’s emphasis on liminality. I will argue that movement between personae offers a more dynamic example of multiplicity than an arbitrary distinction placed between “true” self and “faked” personae. Moreover, conscious acknowledgement of role/persona engagement, as exemplified by Weene and Johnson, demonstrates strippers’ subject
ive agency and makes possible personal privacy and empowerment within sex work.
Strippers engage multiple personae by having the ability to choose when to reveal or conceal certain aspects of their selves; agency within multiplicity enables personal privacy, providing inroads towards liberation within sex work. Identifying strip clubs as spaces where strippers and customers alike can enact multiple gender roles of their choosing, Perrucci’s “The Transformative Power of Sex Work” emphasizes the ability to conceal and reveal information within interactions as crucial to preserving a sense of privacy, which Perrucci deems central to the formulation of a healthy self-image and therefore empowerment within sex work. The club space therefore becomes a site of potential transformation of sexual and gendered scripts, where men and women can subvert gender norms while seeming to entrench them (i.e. covert mimesis), ideally by engaging in a mutually satisfying interaction that furthers social movement towards increased sexual freedom. Though Perrucci connects a multiply-situated self to feelings of privacy and therefore empowerment, her article entrenches a mutually-exclusive relationship between objectification and empowerment via pervasive juxtaposition. By incorporating binary-imploding theories like Johnson’s “pole work,” I transcend Perrucci’s either/or thought paradigm by emphasizing the possibility of empowerment within objectification, and vice versa.
Methodology
Shortly before I began official research into strippers’ subjectivities I was compelled to seek embodied knowledge on the subject, persuaded both by a perceived rift between literature written by sex workers and that written about them, and by an intense desire for insider knowledge. And so I began working as a stripper, intent upon interrogating how my feminist subjectivity interacted with the club environment. The methodology I employ here results from viewing my experiences through the lens of others’ auto-ethnographic, subjectively-informed theories: I use my body as a primary site of knowledge production, but articulate my experience via theories of my feminist/stripper/researcher predecessors. The product combines various facets of feminist auto-/ethnographic accounts of strippers’ subjective experience into a cohesive argument that subverts binaric paradigms (e.g. mind/body, self/other, subject/object, dis/empowerment) and provides space for resistance and empowerment within a phallocentric context.
Works Cited
Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Can There Be A Feminist Ethnography?” Women & Performance 5.1 (1991): 7-27.
Bruckert, Chris. Taking It Off, Putting It On: Women in the Strip Trade. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2002.
Chapkis, Wendy. Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Egan, R. Danielle. Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love: The Relationships Between Exotic Dancers and Their Regulars. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
---. “I’ll be Your Fantasy Girl, If You’ll be My Money Man: Mapping Desire, Fantasy and Power in Two Exotic Dance Clubs.” Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society 8.1 (2003): 109-20.
Frank, Katherine. “Thinking Critically about Strip Club Research.” Sexualities 10.4 (2007):501-17.
Hunter, Nan D. “Contextualizing the Sexuality Debates: A Chronology.” Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture. Eds. Lisa Duggan and Nan D. Hunter. New York: Routeledge, 1995. 16-29.
Johnson, Merri Lisa. “Pole Work: Autoethnography of a Strip Club.” Sex Work & Sex Workers: Sexuality and Culture. Eds. Barry M. Dank, Roberto Refinetti, Vol 2. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1999. 149-57.
Leigh, Carol, aka Scarlot Harlot. “Inventing Sex Work.” Whores and Other Feminists, ed. Jill Nagle. New York: Routledge, 1997. 223-31.
Lerum, Kari. “Twelve-Step Feminism Makes Sex Workers Sick: How the State and the Recovery Movement Turn Radical Women into ‘Useless Citizens.’” Sex Work and Sex Workers: Sexuality and Culture. Eds. Barry M. Dank and Roberto Refinetti, Vol 2. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. 7-36.
Paules, Greta Foff. Dishing It Out: Power and Resistance among Waitresses in a New Jersey Restaurant. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
Perrucci, Alissa C. “The Relationship Between Persona and Self in Exotic Dancers’ Experience of Privacy.” Unusual Occupations 11.1 (2000): 35-53.
---. “The Transformative Power of Sex Work.” Humanity and Society 24.2 (2000): 323-37.
Ronai, Carol Rambo. “The Reflexive Self through Narrative: A Night in the Life of an Exotic Dancer/Researcher.” Investigating Subjectivity: Research on Lived Experience. Eds. Carolyn Ellis and Michael G. Flaherty. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992. 102-24.
Weene, Steph. “Venus.” Heresies 3.4 (1981): 36-8.
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