Strippers Blogging On The Internet

I left work on a high, thinking about all that exciting money, but several times over the last few days I’ve found my thoughts straying to Kevin and wondering how he’s coping. I don’t regret taking advantage of his heart-ache to pay my rent. It’s my job, and he knew what he was getting into when he chose to drown his sorrows in a strip club.

Well, someone has certainly earned a lot of karmic misery! If inhumanity and compassionless behavior is your stock and trade, then you deserve what you give. Something to remember the next time you might hear how hard it would be to be a stripper or sex worker... this dancer could very well have been a listening ear for money, like an unlicensed therapist, but she chose to also intentionally mislead or reinforce the notion that there was romance or love involved. For that, may she receive a lifetime of misery and heartbreak. May every abusive boyfriend and loveless relationship remind her why she is in her own personal hell- by choice, by action, by balance of justice in the universe.

None of us are exempt from our innate responsibility to be humane and decent people. None of us.
posted by hincandenza at 1:28 AM on December 30, 2007

Get off your high horse, hincandenza. We all fuck somebody.
posted by "Tex" Connor and the Wily Roundup Boys at 1:33 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think most would agree there is a difference between "fucking" and "fucking over", but hey, maybe that is too delicate a distinction for some.
posted by -t at 2:04 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

CANDY was very young and naive. She worked so her jobless boyfriend could have money to spend on other girls.

Anonymous souls vanished in corners of anonymous rooms filled with anonymous people.
posted by Mikey-San at 2:08 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

CANDY was very young and naive. She worked so her jobless boyfriend could have money to spend on other girls.

If there is one aspect of the human condition I will never understand, it is this one.
posted by maxwelton at 2:12 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think most would agree there is a difference between "fucking" and "fucking over", but hey, maybe that is too delicate a distinction for some.

One might hope context would make such distinctions clear, but an Asperger's-afflicted readership can be so unforgiving.

Consequently, to alleviate any confusion, real or imagined, I wish to clarify that I meant "fuck" in the exploitative sense, not the sexual sense.
posted by "Tex" Connor and the Wily Roundup Boys at 2:14 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Oops, meant to quote:

COURTNEY was like the littlest hobo who lived with whoever would have her. She overdosed and died among people who were not her friends.
posted by Mikey-San at 2:14 AM on December 30, 2007

Tales from the Boobie Bar is another great blog by a stripper, based on silly/stupid incidents (and occasionally good ones) that happen during a night's work. I also read the personal LJ of a stripper acquaintance which isn't just about the job (mainly the work aspects - finding jobs, getting to jobs, employer drama, etc) but also about her personal life and what's going through her head.

I wish people gave more respect to those in the sex industry and not denigrate them as mindless bimbos just because they take their clothes off.
posted by divabat at 2:31 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Empowerment blah blah sacred yonni blah blah sexual harassment laws mean every woman is a victim blah blah blah...but no mention of the fact that organized crime controls the strip clubs, and, by extension, the lives of every woman working as a stripper at those strip clubs. And I must state, for the record, that organized crime (like, say the Hells Angels in Canada) is scum.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:14 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well, I was sort of interested, until she made it clear that she was the Mrs. Thomas of feminism. Somehow, her ideation of men strikes me as both anti-feminist and contrary to men being people, as opposed to automatically forgivable bags of hormones. Kerspittle/Phewie on her.
posted by cytherea at 3:37 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Mugs and Jugs is closing in a week. Unfortunately without that bar I can’t pay my bills dancing in Vancouver and I’m not physically able to travel anymore. So I’m forced to quit dancing because of finances.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. I know I’m qualified I have the experience to do anything I want but all I want to do is dance. Every other job I’ve had has bored me to tears. I want to learn something everyday and feel passion and purpose in what I do. That’s what Stiletto Storm is going to be. But I have to survive and pay rent in the meantime. So I’m looking for a job. Anyone want to hire me?

Ironic isn’t it? The perception that strippers make a ton of money is so far from the truth in Vancouver it makes me sick. We’ve been circling the drain for a while now and I guess it’s finally happening. Politics is winning. The cities get to shut down strip clubs, take away safe work options for women, and congratulate themselves on doing so.

I should go paint the whole picture here but I’m just too exhausted. I look around Vancouver and what I see is a community at risk. Pickton is guilty. Big fucking deal! Women are still dying. They’re still disappearing. They’re still treated as disposable inconveniences.

http://ryannreflections.blogspot.com/

Hell's bells!

(As I type, this is the front page post on this FPP's first link.)
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:07 AM on December 30, 2007

Another story, and how it looked in the news.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:30 AM on December 30, 2007

i've never been to a strip club. however, i am curious if "supermassive black hole" by muse has become a strip club standard yet. and if not, MY GOD, WHY NOT?
posted by rmd1023 at 4:42 AM on December 30, 2007

Something to remember the next time you might hear how hard it would be to be a stripper or sex worker... this dancer could very well have been a listening ear for money, like an unlicensed therapist, but she chose to also intentionally mislead or reinforce the notion that there was romance or love involved. For that, may she receive a lifetime of misery and heartbreak. May every abusive boyfriend and loveless relationship remind her why she is in her own personal hell- by choice, by action, by balance of justice in the universe.

She chose to mislead someone who wanted to be misled. That 36-year-old broken-hearted computer-geek did not want some speech from "Lucas" about how he's going to be awesome someday, he wanted to own a moment where he has a connection with a hot girl (even if that moment was fueled by alcohol, $20 bills and double-order of suspension of disbelief). She gave him that. He got exactly what he wanted. I don't think they're creating a special tenth circle of Hell to accomodate strippers who get drunk guys to give them money. Whoop-dee-fricking-doo.
posted by 23skidoo at 5:36 AM on December 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

I've always found strip clubs to be some of the most depressing places imaginable. It's not that I'm immune to the party atmosphere. It's just that the whole arrangement is so cold, calculating and, ultimately, very sad.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:50 AM on December 30, 2007 [5 favorites]

karmic misery
No such thing, hincandenza.
posted by tellurian at 6:00 AM on December 30, 2007

I truly don't understand men who spend their money on strippers. Hookers, I understand. There is some bang for your buck, so to speak.

I mean, imagine a restaurant where you only get to look at and smell the food. You pay, and then you leave. There is no eating. How do you think that would do?
posted by flarbuse at 7:03 AM on December 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

I mean, imagine a restaurant where you only get to look at and smell the food. You pay, and then you leave. There is no eating. How do you think that would do?

People pay to get into car and boat shows all the time without the ability to purchase anything they look at there.
posted by Mikey-San at 7:09 AM on December 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

I truly don't understand men who spend their money on strippers. Hookers, I understand. There is some bang for your buck, so to speak.

Well, some of us don't screw around, but we do like to see a strange woman naked in the flesh once in a while. There's that wonderful quality of revelation when you see a woman nude for the first time. And nobody with a brain pretends it's about anything other than sex and money.
posted by jonmc at 7:10 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I’ve got a friend who’s an ex-stripper (who always says how much she misses the “dancing” aspect of the act), but she says she never did like the taking off the clothes part and being exposed to men who’d show her their penises.
posted by hadjiboy at 7:11 AM on December 30, 2007

I mean, imagine a restaurant where you only get to look at and smell the food. You pay, and then you leave. There is no eating. How do you think that would do?

Amongst people with eating disorders, quite well.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:15 AM on December 30, 2007 [5 favorites]

hincandenza writes "I left work on a high, thinking about all that exciting money, but several times over the last few days I’ve found my thoughts straying to Kevin and wondering how he’s coping. I don’t regret taking advantage of his heart-ache to pay my rent. It’s my job, and he knew what he was getting into when he chose to drown his sorrows in a strip club"

Evidently, if she thinks about Kevin it could be because she feels, deep down, he was suffering and evidently feels for him and his misery ..otherwise why should she even bother about thinking about him , time and again ? Yet to compensate for her callous behavior, of practically exploiting his weakeness, she has to grasp to the idea he choosed to be there and that nobody was forcing him to stay, because otherwise she had to come to the conclusion she should stop doing her job, or do it so that at the end the guy doesn't _feel compelled_ to come back, but that's not good for business.

Yet while I can blame her for understanding this and choosing to exploit him, I can't blame her for his problems, the ones that leaded him to her.

hincandenza writes "For that, may she receive a lifetime of misery and heartbreak"

Fuck you too, who's being callous now ? There ought to be a reason for her behavior and while I condemn her exploiting his weakness I don't know enough about her to see if she ever had alternatives,making her really detestable, or if she was a trainwreck as well (not because of exposing herself, that's just showbusiness with less pretending) who could use more sympathy and enlightement , rather than being bashed into guilt and may become a born-again-hypocrite.
posted by elpapacito at 7:27 AM on December 30, 2007

That Kevin guy seemed to insist on misleading himself, according to the story.

I don't think it's all that rare. I know a guy who used to spend all his free time in strip clubs, and at his worst he had definitely convinced himself that he shared a special bond with a few of the strippers in his regular hangouts. Each time one would disappoint his expectations, another would come along and of course it was "completely different from last time".

I don't care much for strip clubs myself. There's too much self-delusion involved on all sides of the experience.
posted by clevershark at 8:14 AM on December 30, 2007

Maxwelton wrote:

If there is one aspect of the human condition I will never understand, it is this one.

There is one thing I've come to understand about the human condition - that a human can be conditioned to accept pretty much anything if they believe they have no other choice.
posted by any major dude at 8:18 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

There's too much self-delusion involved on all sides of the experience.

I doubt that most men who go to strip clubs think they are doing anything other than watching naked women dance. Where's the self-delusion in that?
posted by jonmc at 8:26 AM on December 30, 2007

“It’s OK to be a 36 year old computer geek,” he said, “but it’s not OK to be a 36 year old computer geek with no future.”

. . . .

“I’m a Pisces,” he explained. “A guy Pisces is basically a girl. We only relate to girls.”

So Kevin goes to the titty-bar after a breakup, expects to talk to a woman whose job is to take off her clothes and gyrate, and he believes in astronomy's retarded cousin?God i hope in this case that "computer geek" means "first-level helpdesk". If this ass-trology believing clown codes, I don't want to see the code. Fuck, I get that people are stupid, but astrology?
posted by orthogonality at 8:38 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

but it seems that women arent that interested in watching naked dudes dance around.

Men are programmed by nature to look for woman who are most capable of creating healthy babies - hence the immense interest in shapely women - the less clothes the less chance they are getting fooled. Women are programmed to mate with those who have the best potential for providing good dominant genes and supporting their offspring. No need for nakedness to see those things although a couple of lines of cocaine will definitely broaden the field of potential suitors...
posted by any major dude at 8:40 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

I doubt that most men who go to strip clubs think they are doing anything other than watching naked women dance. Where's the self-delusion in that?

In the old school strip clubs, perhaps. However, in the newer, lap-dancing bars, the women's earnings are dependent on how many dances they sell. In order to sell dances, they need to persuade men to choose them rather than choosing somebody else. The most effective way that they can do that (assuming that they aren't head and shoulders more attractive than everybody else in the room) is to pretend that they've got a greater interest in the particular man that they're seeking to persuade.

And men, being the vain, ego-driven morons that we are, will often tend to fall for it.

Much of their income comes not from the average joe who pops into a strip club once every blue moon for a stag party or whatever, but from their 'regulars', the kind of lonely, self-deluded guys who have decided that they have got some sort of special relationship with these women. These guys can go through phenomenal amounts of money, just to buy the pleasure of sitting and talking with these women, with the occasional dance thrown in. And because the women's income depends upon these guys, they really don't go to any efforts to dissuade them -- and it's generally the exact opposite. They encourage these delusions. If those guys aren't self-deluded, I'm not sure who possibly counts.

And I'm kinda curious about how the various dancers who write these blogs handle that side of their business. Dancers that I've talked to tend to rationalize it, either saying that it's the man's choice, and if he wasn't spending it on me, it would be on another girl, etc. etc. There's only ever one lot of victims in the sex industry, and that's the women who work in it, right?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:44 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Every guy who knows his sign and the characteristics most often attributed to it totally "believes" in astrology. He couldn't possibly be, oh, I don't know, be using it as a line to make him feel less nervous about talking to a stripper in a strip club. No, he totally has to believe in all of it.
posted by 23skidoo at 8:49 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

PeterMcDermott: In my experience, once somebody knows that someone else is sexually attracted to them, they'll exploit that most often simply for attention/ego boost and the fun of toying with someone. These ladies make their living via sexual attraction so it's only natural they'd exploit it for money.
posted by jonmc at 8:55 AM on December 30, 2007

i've never been to a strip club. however, i am curious if "supermassive black hole" by muse has become a strip club standard yet. and if not, MY GOD, WHY NOT?

"Exotic Dancer" mix:

Paradise City - G'n'R
Dr. Feelgood - Motley Crüe
Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard
Cherry Pie - Warrant
You Can Leave Your Hat On - Joe Cocker
Girls, Girls, Girls - Motley Crüe
Cowboy - Kid Rock
Father Figure - George Michael
Blitzkrieg Bop - Rob Zombie (cover)
Girls on Film - Duran Duran
I Hate Myself For Loving You - Joan Jett
Battle Flag - Lo-Fidelity Allstars
Closer (Deviation Mix) - NIN

posted by coiled at 8:57 AM on December 30, 2007 [3 favorites]

orthogonality writes "Fuck, I get that people are stupid, but astrology?"

Yeah, but watch out ortho, some people finance, retirements, 401k are some other people "I can't believe they bought in that shit ! Pass the Dom, Lola"
posted by elpapacito at 9:09 AM on December 30, 2007

People spend money on strip clubs because they are paying to experience desire. In a certain sense, it is more fulfilling than paying for a prostitute. After the sex, you're done, but in a strip club scenario, you are constantly in that moment before consummation, where you desire someone and they [act like they] desire you. It's a never-ending high, a constant state of tension.
posted by papakwanz at 9:10 AM on December 30, 2007 [12 favorites]

I used to be addicted to the "Texas-style couch dance", but I didn't have the strength to go cold turkey. I'm tapering off slowly, and now I'm down to the New Jersey futon dance.
posted by Tube at 9:22 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

I've always found strip clubs to be some of the most depressing places imaginable. It's not that I'm immune to the party atmosphere. It's just that the whole arrangement is so cold, calculating and, ultimately, very sad.

Well, I basically feel the same way. For that reason, and related ones such as the fact that I don't want to be objectifying people, the only times I go to strip clubs are the times that I'm in some sense obligated - a friend's bachelor party.

However, honestly, I only feel that way when I'm not in a strip club. Before I go to one, after I leave one.

When I'm actually in one, though, yeah, there's some lingering vestigial remnant of that sentiment gnawing in the back of my brain, but for the most part, HOLY COW SHE'S SHOWIN' HER BOOBIES THIS IS AWESOME!
posted by Flunkie at 9:46 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I suppose one could say that the fact that there arent anywhere near as many male strip clubs as female ones as a symptom of sexism, but I don't know. The porn business is nothing if not capitalistic; if there was money to be made there'd be as many Chippendales as there are Jiggle Rooms, but it seems that women arent that interested in watching naked dudes dance around.

Met a guy once who told us the story of the time he was a stripper for a couple months on a dare. He started out and after a bit the management told him he was pretty good and they were moving him "upstairs where the real money is" which turned out to be the gay part.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:48 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

imagine a restaurant where you only get to look at and smell the food. You pay, and then you leave.

Many strippers are prostitutes and arrange to meet clients through the bar. So continuing the metaphor, for a lot of guys the strip bar is simply the appetizer before the meal.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:00 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Men are programmed by nature to look for woman who are most capable of creating healthy babies - hence the immense interest in shapely women - the less clothes the less chance they are getting fooled. Women are programmed to mate with those who have the best potential for providing good dominant genes and supporting their offspring."

I just felt like pointing out that this is pretty closely related to highly contentious claims. The whole "coy female" theory (in which males, thanks to evolution, try to have sex with as many females as possible while females, thanks to evolution, wait as long as possible before having sex with any male) is not supported by much evidence. The theory was first created, if I remember correctly, due to evidence gained from fruit flies, not closer relatives such as primates. Reading some of the articles that debunk it are just amazing, considering the amount of counter-evidence that was just simply ignored for many, many years. (One of the more humorous examples: the claim was made that the exhaustion one feels after sexual climax evolved from the need for women to stay laying down after sex for a greater chance of conception.... Never mind that women on average don't get a sense of exhaustion like that after one orgasm and are more likely to stand up and move on..)

(And, of course, it sure would be great if I had any of my citations available to give now, wouldn't it? Sigh.)

Anyway, I'm not meaning to pick a fight, and I don't mean to say that there obviously isn't some biological explanation for why women strippers are so much more popular than male ones... And I'm not even an expert on anything related to evolution or biology. I just learned a bit about this subject not long ago, found its history to be remarkably interesting, and thought it might be worth bringing up here.
posted by Ms. Saint at 10:07 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

You know, I can't stand going to the movie theater and having the concessions person ask me if I don't want a medium soda for an extra twenty-five cents. And strip clubs are all about the upsell. They're gonna want you to buy $7 cokes. They're gonna want you to buy a $25 lap dance. They're then gonna want to move you into private rooms where they can ride around on you on beds, which costs, like, $50. And, with many of the girls, they are then gonna want to move you to a hotel room, where costs really start to rise.

I'm a fan of burlesque, which really was about pulchritude. This is, quite often, just upselling toward prostitution, doled out in $25 segments.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:17 AM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Met a guy once who told us the story of the time he was a stripper for a couple months on a dare. He started out and after a bit the management told him he was pretty good and they were moving him "upstairs where the real money is" which turned out to be the gay part.

Exactly. Men, straight or gay, are more visually stimulated and more hormone-driven. Women just pretend to like us so we'll clean the gutters and shovel snow.
posted by jonmc at 10:24 AM on December 30, 2007

@coiled

You forgot Duran Duran's HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF
posted by liza at 10:36 AM on December 30, 2007

Many strippers are prostitutes and arrange to meet clients through the bar. So continuing the metaphor, for a lot of guys the strip bar is simply the appetizer before the meal.

I'm a fan of burlesque, which really was about pulchritude. This is, quite often, just upselling toward prostitution, doled out in $25 segments.

I actually don't have much experience in the strip clubs, but based on the strippers and guys who frequent strip clubs I've known this is not a general truth. Depends on the area, the club, and the stripper, I guess - a friend who basically travels the country stripping, working Renaissance Fairs, and having a good time reported a hard time finding a strip club that wasn't a front for a brothel in, I think, Arizona, but she did find one. Some guys who went to strip clubs all the time in NYC took me to one once and, hearing that I'd only been to a club once before and in Canada, explained the etiquette to me, including that I was pretty emphatically not getting laid. Other stories I've heard range from clubs that will kick out guys & strippers for any sign of prostitution to ones where there is indeed sex in the champagne room.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:57 AM on December 30, 2007

Prostitution is not permitted on the premises, as its a very fast way for the clubs to lose their license. But read any book written by a stripper, such as Diablo Cody's Candy Girl, and it makes it clear that a large percentage of strippers also meet their clients outside the clubs. I've known a few former strippers, and they have confirmed that this is true.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:03 AM on December 30, 2007

Burlesque = strippers for alterna-hipsters.
posted by Tube at 11:25 AM on December 30, 2007 [3 favorites]

oh. my. god. from the tales from the boobie bar via customers_suck.

There's a customer who ... picks a girl, seemingly at random, and gets $1000 worth of courts (the 30 minute dances) with her. During the courts, he doesn't want the girl to dance-no, he wants the girl to lay down with her head in his lap, face away from him (so not in a perv way, but more like in the way an exhausted child might zonk out on her father's lap).

Then, for the duration of the series of courts he bought, he just strokes the dancer's hair gently and says, sadly,

"Poor dead stripper."

And then he gives the girl an extra five grand (I guess he knows how goddamned creepy that shit is), and leaves again, not to return for a year or more.

note that $1000 worth of court dances is SIX HOURS. SIX HOURS OF "Poor dead stripper".
posted by rmd1023 at 11:28 AM on December 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Hello, I am a desperately lonely man. Sometimes I go to these places. It's a reason to get out of the house, albeit one that I realize might cost me far too much money. Stripjoints are places that a man can go and sit by himself and not look so out of place. I'd feel too old and uncool walking into a real nightclub, and would stand in a corner not knowing what to say to anyone. In the strip club the women come to you and pretend to like you, and you know why they do that. Either fending them off or encouraging them to try harder can be a seemingly harmless pastime for a weekend night. Especially when there is nowhere else where someone is going to behave like they're into you. It becomes a habit.

Once I paid $60 to be bounced upon by a girl with long straight hair held back by a white bandanna. Two days later this Kevin Federline whom I shared accommodation with was telling me about hanging out at the nudie bar and hitting it off so well with a girl, and I immediately sensed that it would be the same one. By the end of the week she had moved in with us, and I was campaigning to get her out of the house. Her dancer allure gone, she was now someone who left the kitchen a mess and kept too much junk in the bathroom. I paid rent to live with three people not four, and why did she get to live rent free when she had the ability to make $20 cash in three minutes? I saw this guy play this one dancer off against others, and began to wonder why I was willing to pay to be humoured for the length of a song when this mean-spirited boasting thieving unemployed baggy pants clown could have them run errands for him at his bidding. That helped me stay away for awhile.

Recently a dancer told me she has a target of $100 an hour. Cash money. That goal keeps her focused at work. I'm not so good at life, so I struggle to make that much in a day, after taxes. It made me realize that I can go in there ready to spend eight, ten hours' take-home or more, hoping that big expense will encourage someone want to sit and talk with me, but it's just chump change to her, a decent but not great hour. I guess it's not the way people should relate to each other, but I when I walk in I'm relying on my willingness to throw away cash to attract someone towards me who would otherwise have no reason to notice me. It doesn't make any of them bad people if they exploit my (or Kevin's) neediness - they're just trying to make the job worth doing. And I hope my patronage of what might be a harmful business doesn't make me a bad or creepy person - I've always had a hard time making friends, and the easy way is out there, open until 3am.
posted by TimTypeZed at 11:29 AM on December 30, 2007 [8 favorites]

A friend of mine from college worked first as a waitress at an upscale (?) strip club, and then eventually as a stripper at the same club. When she first started out the money was decent and she was able to make enough to finance her student films (and once she dropped out of school, her indie films).

I used to run into her in the grocery store and around town and we'd chat and she'd update me on her work and film career. In the mid 1990s she'd become very involved in creating a strippers' union because, according to her, the clubs had begun charging strippers to work, rather than paying them to dance. Strippers were now having to clear enough money in tips to pay for what was in essence a booth rental, as well as tipping out bartenders, waiters and DJs. Stripping alone was often not enough to pay the bills, whereas when she first started, it was.

For a sizable number of women who started out being able to make a living by stripping but had developed recreational drug habits that required a steady income, the money was no longer there. It's not surprising given the circumstances that quite a few women who started as dancers ended up as something else as the clubs began changing their business model.
posted by stagewhisper at 11:39 AM on December 30, 2007

These ladies make their living via sexual attraction so it's only natural they'd exploit it for money.

Sure. I'm simply saying that you've got to be somewhat self-deluded to believe that their interest in you is anything more than fiscal.

You forgot Duran Duran's HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF

Also Pointer Sisters -- Slow Hand.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:42 AM on December 30, 2007

Burlesque = strippers for alterna-hipsters.

You say that like it's a bad thing.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:43 AM on December 30, 2007

TimTypeZed, I want to thank you for your brave and honest post. While not denying the sex part, I've known quite a few men who go to strip clubs to talk to the strippers (and I've known some strippers who have talked about such men). For introverted men -- men who are scared of women -- these may be the only time they get into extended conversations with women. Luckily for me, I'm married, so I don't need this crutch, but I totally relate to the deep need for female attention -- and that doesn't necessarily mean (though it can mean) sexual attention. In a strip club, you know there's no risk of rejection.

The problem is that, like all crutches, it can make it harder for you to ever deal with "real world" interactions, in which there will always be some risk.
posted by grumblebee at 11:52 AM on December 30, 2007

a friend who basically travels the country stripping, working Renaissance Fairs

What, she dances the Koochie Koo at the Renaissance Faire? This sounds like the antithesis of hot?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:54 AM on December 30, 2007

I actually don't have much experience in the strip clubs, but based on the strippers and guys who frequent strip clubs I've known this is not a general truth. Depends on the area, the club, and the stripper, I guess -

As you say, it depends on the area. This is a general truth in many countries, though perhaps not the U.S. It's certainly true in Central and South America and S.E. Asia.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 12:06 PM on December 30, 2007

And I hope my patronage of what might be a harmful business doesn't make me a bad or creepy person - I've always had a hard time making friends, and the easy way is out there.

I don't think it makes you a bad or creepy person at all. However, your belief that this is an 'easy way' to meet potential friends of the opposite sex is exactly what I was getting at when I was talking about self delusion. Once you give these women money, you pretty much seal the deal against *ever* becoming friends with them, because they're out there to earn a living. In exactly the same way that shopkeepers don't give their goods away for free, people who work in the sex industry don't generally undermine their own interests either.

Not trying to be insulting or diss you by saying this -- I agree with grumblebee, it was a brave and honest post -- I'm just saying that if you're looking for a real relationship of any sort, titty bars are probably the worst place to begin -- though your K-Fed story seems to suggest that I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:08 PM on December 30, 2007

Over the years I have had many many friends and training partners who worked in strip clubs. Most as doormen and bouncers. Some as dancers. One as a DJ. I never enjoyed going to these places. And it was even less enjoyable knowing all the back story. The drugs. The freaks. Every stereotype and cliché I sadly observed as literally true. "I'm dancing to put myself through school." All that.

Not that I don't enjoy see attractive naked people. But frankly the entire atmosphere in these places was mostly desperate and pathetic.

However, a close friend of mine married a dancer with whom he had met while traveling. She later DID graduate from grad school and now teaches dance. But through that world both of them went through hell. Drama after drama. Every drama was utterly predictable and avoidable since the source was this profession of hers.

I don't think it's easy world to navigate to arrive at "normalcy" or stability in ones life.

"Burlesque = strippers for alterna-hipsters."

You say that like it's a bad thing.

It is. I don't know about other places but here in Seattle I have gone six times to various so called "Burlesque" shows. Without exception they were all embarrassing and terrible. After the first time my wife and I would beg our friends to not go again. And everytime they would say THIS one will be better.

In my experience Burlesque = Stripping for largely less attractive or chubby women who have little talent but a skill to fetish-ize a certain retro Betty Page cache and render what should be sexy and fun into something banal and dull.
posted by tkchrist at 12:59 PM on December 30, 2007

Burlesque = strippers for alterna-hipsters.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Burlesque is cool and stylish, but in the end you're still just looking at boobies, just like whether you're drinking malt liquor or fine cognac, you're still just getting drunk. It's the silly embroidered apologies people use for thing that need no apology that get under my skin sometimes.
posted by jonmc at 12:59 PM on December 30, 2007

What, she dances the Koochie Koo at the Renaissance Faire? This sounds like the antithesis of hot?

She's hot. (If I know she wouldn't be offended by me saying that, does that still make me a sexist?) The Renaissance Fair and the strip clubs are separate. The fairs provide one job, a place to stay, and generally chill people to hang out with (if you're judging on geekiness - the people who work at the fairs generally take it much less seriously, in a certain sense, than the people who are really into going to them) while the strip club provides another job.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:02 PM on December 30, 2007

your belief that this is an 'easy way' to meet potential friends of the opposite sex

After I posted I realized that I should have qualified that by saying "easy way to find temporary imaginary ones". Being real friendly is their business, and if you go back frequently enough to see the same person she might act happy to see you. Sure, self-delusion is involved - embraced, probably - even when we believe we can see and accept the harsh truth.
posted by TimTypeZed at 1:50 PM on December 30, 2007

A few hasty notes:

One of the strippers cited above writes in her blog that you'll find all kinds of women working in strip clubs.

Maybe.

Certainly, the cash is such that many young women, in theory, would find stripping a very attractive option.

In my experience, though, most strippers fall neatly into one of two camps:

a) Sensation-seeking, adrenaline-craving escapist party girls who live in the moment; and

b) Imaginative, ethereal types who've usually experienced horrific childhood sexual abuse.

Actually, come to think of it, both these types are escapist, and both have usually encountered either outright sexual abuse or at least distinct sexual weirdness as a child.

(I find strip clubs depressing, so I base this on those I've met outside the club context; I don't know what their personae/stories inside the club are like.)

Bottom-line: Strippers don't seem to be a totally random population; sexual abuse really does seem to be a common precursor.

>The whole "coy female" theory (in which males, thanks to evolution, try to have sex with as many females as possible while females, thanks to evolution, wait as long as possible before having sex with any male) is not supported by much evidence.

As for evidence, take two of your friends, one male and one female, and place them in a thought experiment. Let's assume they're of equivalent attractiveness and social skill. Place them in an imaginary bar. Each of them then goes around the room, asking opposite sex patrons to come home immediately and have sex. I'm pretty sure-- though I could be wrong-- that we'd both agree that your female friend would get many more takers, much faster, and the takers would be of much higher quality themselves. Men really are much more predisposed to immediate sexual contact.

Rather than launching into "Evolutionary Psychology Debated, Part XXXIV," let's just say that I believe men and women tend to *measure* sexuality differently. Basically, what most women think of as daring, hyper-sexual flirting is completely undetectable by most men; and what women can experience as five hours of incredibly charged emotional, erotic, and even spiritual conversation men tend to experience as 5 minutes of making out and four hours and fifty-five goddamn minutes of boring, frustrating whatever.

>I've always had a hard time making friends, and the easy way is out there, open until 3am.

Gutsy post, Tim Type Zed.
posted by darth_tedious at 2:30 PM on December 30, 2007

coiled: "Exotic Dancer" mix:

What, no "U + Ur Hand" by Pink? :)

On the other hand, I don't get "supermassive black hole", except in a shaky sense of "song about artificial attraction". I love Muse, but unless it's a strip club with a clientele of depressed nihilistic conspiracy theorists, why would that be a good song?

KokuRyu: Empowerment blah blah sacred yonni blah blah sexual harassment laws mean every woman is a victim blah blah blah...but no mention of the fact that organized crime controls the strip clubs, and, by extension, the lives of every woman working as a stripper at those strip clubs. And I must state, for the record, that organized crime (like, say the Hells Angels in Canada) is scum.

Yeah, I heard that's basically true for a lot of clubs, and that the Vegas ones are so mob connected, there have been stories of customers who argued they didn't really ring up $N hundred dollars in dances getting their backs literally broken in the parking lot. Outside of the Lusty Lady, I assume all strip clubs are run by scumsucking maggotfucker mob assholes.

Regarding my venom at the deceptive dancer I quoted; understand my anger is that she would be so exploitative over something deeper than merely temporary lust. She didn't just let him indulge his silly fantasy, it sounds like she actively encouraged it. I'm with jonmc: why can't it simply be an opportunity to see, talk to, or get rubbed up against by an attractive young woman? I don't expect my massage therapist to imply she secretly loves me, I just appreciate the good work she does with my neck pain and leave it at that. My take is she certainly can't proclaim victimhood or be surprised at how all her relationships in life end up fucked over since she's sleazy, self-centered, and mean-spirited.

That's what I meant by no one being exempt from a responsibility towards their humanity; even in this thread, people have chimed in that Kevin was a loser who deserved to get used because the Sinner dared to be in a strip club, which... wow, what a wellspring of empathy you all have. What is so special about a strip club that people deserve to be lied to about an emotional issue like love and affection? If your barista or waitress actively deceived you into thinking she loved you so you'd tip more, wouldn't that be sleazy? The dancer certainly could have made clear that it was just a business, but it sounds like she wanted to milk him for all she could and retroactively justified it. If you prey on the fears or desires of old people in swindling their life savings, you're a con artist. How is his relative youth or drunkenness making him fair game? I guess I'm a hopeless idealist if I believe that exploiting people's fears or desires about some of the most basic issues- love, death, etc- is utterly repulsive. Play on his sexual desires with the tease, that's fine and expected- but playing on something deeper? That's just sick and twisted, to my thinking.

Semi-related anecdote: my sister danced in a club in NYC when she first moved there; it helped her support her (real) dance career for a year or so, until she blew out a knee rollerblading, became a bartender and later got her MSW and is directing a group home. One thing she did say to me about it, is that after years in dance schools where she developed body issues and eating disorders due to the pressures to look wire-skinny like certain choreographers preferred, having an environment where she was praised and admired regularly was a refreshing and healthy change of pace. I always take that as an illustrative example that strip clubs can theoretically be healthy and fun for all involved.
posted by hincandenza at 4:04 PM on December 30, 2007

Kraftmatic Adjustible Cheese: Many strippers are prostitutes and arrange to meet clients through the bar. So continuing the metaphor, for a lot of guys the strip bar is simply the appetizer before the meal.

Where are you getting that from? From the strippers I know, they and their co-workers are adamant against sex with clients.
posted by divabat at 4:16 PM on December 30, 2007

Where are you getting that from? From the strippers I know, they and their co-workers are adamant against sex with clients.

You don't know the right strippers. It depends, as others have said, on what region of the country you're in and what clubs you go to. I could give you the names of a couple clubs in the L.A. area that are brothels. I have been to one of them which is how I found this out. Believe me, it was quite a shock when I got a "dance" and the girl whipped out lube and a condom.

A bit embarrasing for both of us, actually.
posted by Justinian at 4:52 PM on December 30, 2007

"Burlesque" around here seems to mean appropriating the cachet of Betty Page et al without actually stepping over the line and taking off your top. Stripping for dilettantes, basically. I shake my fist!
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 5:16 PM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Diva, if I remember, you're in Brisbane, where whorin' is legal, so there's no need for elaborate front operations.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 5:20 PM on December 30, 2007

What is so special about a strip club that people deserve to be lied to about an emotional issue like love and affection?

A man goes there in order to be fooled into thinking, even if it's just for a moment, that this girl showing her tits in front of you face would still be there if money weren't involved, because he's not like the other guys there. Being lied to about emotional issues is large what men go to strip clubs for.

Sure, not *everyone* goes there for that reason -- as I frequently joke, this is the internet, where everybody is an exception to every rule -- but the people I've known who were regular strip club patrons have fit that profile. But, it's their lives and their money.

"So you lie to yourself to be happy - there's nothing wrong with that, we all do it!" -Teddy, Memento
posted by clevershark at 6:03 PM on December 30, 2007

I am, basically, a pretty lonely person (romantically). The internet has become a surrogate that has allowed me to release tension rather than using that tension to motivate me to develop those oh-so-important real ones. Because while I have a very deep motivation to make a bond with women specifically I am enough of an introvert that I can go without and still be able to function in day-to-day society. Especially when I have one or two male 'friends' (more acquaintances at this time, really) to give me companionship. Because the companionship I have now is 'enough' and the fears with seeking romantic partnership so great that the path of least resistance is to just do what I've been doing the last few months.

Anyway. Some current friends have gone to a strip club not too long ago and they've expressed interest in going again and they've also said they want me to go with them. I've said no on the grounds that I probably wouldn't like it, but at the time I did not really articulate why. Part of this 'why' is tied in with the stuff in the first paragraph. The other part is, well, I'm actually very bad at deluding myself, at least in a positive direction. No, due to cynicism and years of thinking of myself as inadequate I've gone the other way and often delude myself into thinking that no one could really be interested in me.

Fortunately I don't really think that kind of thing nearly as much as I did a few years ago. There is, unfortunately, still some past inertia where I end up in that kind of thinking pattern from time to time. Because everything I know and believe about strip clubs suggests that the lack of interest from those women is literally true those thoughts would come constantly rather than rarely as they do now and might very well set me back a couple years in personal progress. So no strip clubs at this time for me, thanks.

I also have at least some societal and feminist-style reasons to be against strip clubs, but other people can articulate those reasons better. Basically, there might be an ideal world where strip clubs aren't focal points of unhealthy male-female relationships, but I don't think that we're quite there yet if we ever will be.

As for the links: very interesting. They remind me of True Porn Clerk Stories which I was introduced to by Metafilter back before I had an account. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do.
posted by Green With You at 6:04 PM on December 30, 2007

Oh, and another reason is good old-fashioned feelings of superiority. I can say "I'm a 24 year old who's never really been in a relationship, but at least I don't go to strip clubs so often the staff know my name". But after reading TimTypeZed's comment and how much I feel I have in common with him, I think I'll retire that feeling for the sophomoric opinion it is.
posted by Green With You at 6:11 PM on December 30, 2007

True story: one of my dear friends from high school dropped out of Catholic school to become a dancer. She stayed in the business 10+ years, making crazy money, occasionally trying other jobs that she thought would be interesting but were really pretty boring compared to the club, etc etc. I haven't talked to her in a while, but last I heard she was still dancing.

One day, I'm in my office at the brokerage firm and I get a call from her. "So, I took this job stripping on a webcam site and I need to write my profile page. You're a better writer than I am, will you help me?"

So I did.

I could see my officemates' (male, Catholic-school educated golf dorks) ears turning red from behind. Not from me being graphic: the funny part was coaching her to play into the fantasies of the typical site user. Turn-offs? Jocks, egomaniacs. Turn-ons? Glasses, smart guys. It was pretty fun, actually.

Our mutual (male) friend was the chef at our local club -- I'd spend my days off down there with him and he'd feed me steak and tell me funny stories. The dancers who worked there were -- almost to a one -- working their way through college and not living the party girl lifestyle. I learned a lot hanging out with them, actually.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:02 PM on December 30, 2007

"Why I love my job...

Friendship. I am surrounded by incredible, sexy, accepting, strong women who are supportive rather than competitive. We’ve seen it. We get it. It is so powerful to be surrounded by women who understand and offer comfort and camaraderie.

Relationships judged on character rather than looks. Everyone is beautiful. Respect in the industry from peers comes from being a beautiful person on the inside… kind, reliable, responsible, encouraging, and accepting. "

Somehow I don't think that the managers of these clubs judge these women on "character rather than looks." It is a nice fantasy, I guess.

I really don't understand "venom at the deceptive dancer". If some woman goes out to an fancy restaurant with some guy, listens to his jokes and heart-filled stories, orders the most expensive thing on the menu, then never goes out with him again, you could say she was being deceptive and mean. But there is no deception with a strip club. The whole concept of the place is that you pay women to think they like you. And, in fact, he paid her a lot to listen to his stories. I can't imagine any business transaction that is more open and obvious than this. As one of the strippers says in her FAQ, it isn't a dating service.
posted by eye of newt at 9:16 PM on December 30, 2007

@hincandenza:
It's the bass and the slow, heavy drums, I think - not the lyrics.

@liza:
Ooh, yeah. I snuck it in between Muse and Def Leppard.

I couldn't figure out a good spot to put Pointer Sisters, but it is a good song. I'm thinking the pile I've got is a little too fast paced.
posted by coiled at 9:42 PM on December 30, 2007

clevershark: A man goes there in order to be fooled into thinking, even if it's just for a moment, that this girl showing her tits in front of you face would still be there if money weren't involved, because he's not like the other guys there. Being lied to about emotional issues is large what men go to strip clubs for.

eye of newt: The whole concept of the place is that you pay women to think they like you

This can't be for real, you people can't seriously believe that. Do you actually know any men, with actual, y'know, penises? What man would pay for the privilege of being lied to about emotional issues?! Isn't that the common myth about men, that we're all just dumb clods who have one-track minds, and don't have the genius to invent complex emotional games and psychological interplay and call them "relationships"? Then why, on God's green earth, would anyone seriously believe that men go to a place that has young, firm, nubile naked women because they really want emotional gameplay?!

Seriously, just try typing that last sentence and keeping a straight face.

Are there any guys on planet Earth really going to strip clubs for this reason? That'd be like me thinking that downloading porn was really just a naughty love video from my internet girlfriend. It's not, it's just a means to an end, something stimulating while I masturbate. Sometimes you want to see naked women, because that just never tires of being awesome. I think it was Joe Rogan who joked that when a stripper asked him why he was at the club, he replied (drawling) "Because someone told me there was a place I could go to see a woman's vagina for a dollar..."

I'm not quite sure what to think of the women or men posting on this thread suggesting that strip clubs are willful parlors of romantic deception. If that's actually the common sentiment at large, and not the mewlings of castrated men and disconnected women on Metafilter... wow. That's sad on so many levels.
posted by hincandenza at 10:45 PM on December 30, 2007

What man would pay for the privilege of being lied to about emotional issues?!

(Raises hand)

Apparently, the truths that I'm running from are too cold for you to imagine.
posted by dogwalker at 11:00 PM on December 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

hincandenza: You're missing the fact that neither strip clubs nor dancers make their money off dudes going in to see naked chicks for a dollar. There may be a ton of those types of guys in the clubs, but they're mostly dead weight.

The clubs and dancers make their money off the regulars who come in and spend many thousands of dollars over time for the girls to give them dances. Those types of customers are often involved in lots of different kinds of deception. Self-deception, deception by the dancers, deception of the dancers by the clubs, and so on. There is a reason that (many) strippers refer to "hustling" the customer and to roping in regulars as "the hustle".

It's all about deceiving lonely guys (aided, yes, by their own self-deception) into believing that there is something more going on here than trying to empty their wallets as quickly and painlessly as possible.

You want to know what "objectification" really is? This is it. The regulars are not people to many of the dancers, they're just resources to be tapped until empty.

Not to say that the guys aren't often involved in their own sorts of objectification, but of all the people involved in the process, it's the customers who get the least out of it.
posted by Justinian at 11:02 PM on December 30, 2007

Well if that really is the truth, Justinian, then I definitely stand by my initial assessment of the dancer who was blogging about Kevin. A con artist, pure and simple.
posted by hincandenza at 12:33 AM on December 31, 2007

I'd just like to point a few things out.

It is not uncommon for a stripper to actually like a customer or become friends with him. Occasionally, the friendship will make the strip club transaction - fantasy for money - uncomfortable for a dancer, but not always. And many dancers meet their boyfriends/husbands in the clubs. So while it is not a dating service, that does not preclude the possibility of a romantic development.

I danced for seven years and I am still friends with many of my regulars from back in the day. We have a different relationship now because my livelihood is not dependent on their generosity anymore. But there has always been a mutual respect and understanding that does not involve deception (unless a man is deceiving himself, in which case you can't expect all strippers to be mind readers - some are).

I found that one can perfect the hustle without any "leading on" involved. I admit, when I first started stripping, I thought it was my job to flirt and lead men on. But within weeks of my first stripshow I got to see the painful results of my actions. Really nice guys who had hurt in their eyes when they looked at me.

It didn't matter how much sexual abuse I'd experienced as a child (none) or how much I needed to buy drugs (not at all) or whether I could get the guy into the alley for a blowjob (never did that) - I was still sick to my stomach to be the cause of hurting another human being. So I never did it again. For the next seven years, I never lead a single customer on. Quite the contrary, one of the perks of the job is the right to tell any guy off who behaves disrespectfully. Most waitresses would get fired for that.

No. Not every strip club is owned by organized crime. No. Not every stripper is a prostitute in disguise. (Actually there are reasons why women get into one or the other - most sex workers would never be comfortable dancing naked in front of hundreds of men. And many strippers are not comfortable crossing certain personal boundaries that would enable them to make great money as escorts.)

TimTypeZed, fill your boots, man. Stop allowing others to shame you for something you choose to do, something that makes you feel good. What is wrong with feeling good? You seem like a bright star, a good soul - this is the sense that I got reading your posts. Chances are your favourite dancers do hold a special place in their hearts for you. Not just because of your money. In my experience, it wouldn't matter how much money a man was offering if he was an ignorant ass.

The concept might astound, but strippers are people too. And they have their favourite regulars which is not always monetarily measured.

Anyhow, I couldn't help but get caught up in the debate. It is not my intention to offend anyone. I just feel like a lot of people say a lot of things about something they don't know much about. And maybe I can shed some light from the perspective of the fallen women herself.

PS. I loved being a stripper too - like the one who blogged about it! And I miss it. One of the best jobs I ever had. Fun, creative, exhilirating at times. Intelligent, funny, open honest women to work with. And honest men too. You'd be surprised how much honesty there is in a stripclub and I'm not even referring to the nudity, but that too.
posted by rosiesugars at 1:25 AM on December 31, 2007 [5 favorites]

CANDY was very young and naive. She worked so her jobless boyfriend could have money to spend on other girls.

Candy, Britney Spears, whatever.
posted by dasheekeejones at 3:46 AM on December 31, 2007

rosiesugars: It didn't matter how much sexual abuse I'd experienced as a child (none) or how much I needed to buy drugs (not at all) or whether I could get the guy into the alley for a blowjob (never did that) - I was still sick to my stomach to be the cause of hurting another human being. So I never did it again. For the next seven years, I never lead a single customer on. Quite the contrary, one of the perks of the job is the right to tell any guy off who behaves disrespectfully. Most waitresses would get fired for that.

Thanks for posting. It's nice to hear that some people can approach a sex-worker job with honesty, and recognize that simply because this country has a whacked relationship with sex doesn't mean that every customer or stripper must be deceitful or manipulative. I'm reminded of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Utah phone-sex con artist character in "Punch Drunk Love", believing that some people deserve to be taken advantage of simply because of their desires. It's clear from your post that you get what I was trying to convey: that simply being a dancer or a customer in a strip club doesn't mean that basic principles of humanity or decency should be thrown out the window.
posted by hincandenza at 7:39 AM on December 31, 2007

The first time I went to a strip club, the second girl who got up on stage was a former (grades 5-8) classmate of mine...and that was pretty much it for me and strip clubs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:24 AM on December 31, 2007

No. Not every stripper is a prostitute in disguise.

I don't think anybody in this thread claimed that all strippers are prostitutes. I did say that many of them are. In some locations, which I noted above, probably almost all of the women working in strip bars are prostitutes.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:14 AM on December 31, 2007

Yes, I have no doubt that rosiesugars is not alone in her experience. There may even be places where it isn't uncommon. But I can say with a large degree of confidence that there are lots of places where what occurs is much closer to my representation than rosiesugars.

But thanks for the perspective, rosiesugars, it is good to know that the bad bits of the industry aren't universal.
posted by Justinian at 12:30 PM on December 31, 2007

I stripped for years. I quit because I got sick of dealing with the public - and people's assumptions about who I was because of what I did for work.

I've never done drugs or been sexually abused. I was young, but I wasn't dumb or naive. I worked with a large variety of women, some of whom fit the stereotypes but a hell of a lot who didn't. The customers were about as wide a variety of men as you could think of. Some of them were drooling idiots, and some of them were professors and other interesting types who I had great conversations and debates with. Few people are cartoon characters in real life, I've found.

To me, it was work - a crappy job with no room for advancement that paid much more than most such jobs. I miss the money, but not the stigma. It makes me sad and angers me that people who I otherwise respect continue to perpetuate it.
posted by streetdreams at 7:11 PM on December 31, 2007

Hi Kraftmatic - nor did I say all strippers are not prostitutes. I trust your insight since I have not worked outside of Canada - and even then I've specifically worked in non-contact venues.

PS. Some of my best friends are prostitutes. It's also a valued job choice for many. If sex was revered rather than stigmatized, I expect this whole conversation would be very different. Sex workers are 120 times more likely to be murdered than any other demographic. This is due to stigma (and laws created around the stigma). We would worship and honor sex workers if our world wasn't so anti-sex. They wouldn't be the first ones to be picked off by murderers because people would notice them going missing and there would be an uproar about it. Instead they are treated as the most worthless human beings and their deaths are considered occupational hazards. It makes me sad.

Strippers are perceived as like the next step up from being a prostitute. Their stigma is our stigma. Their pain is our pain. Spreading love should not be so demonized. Men are willing to pay for sex and love and sex industry workers are willing to work delivering that service. Sex work, including stripping, should be valued, imho.

Streetdreams - thank you for lending your voice to the discussion. In solidarity with all humanity. xoxox
posted by rosiesugars at 10:14 AM on January 2, 2008

Rachel (of Dive Bar Dancer), one of the dancer/bloggers linked in the post, has found this thread and blogged about it.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 4:26 PM on January 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

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