Worth It

As a dancer, I’m surrounded by successful people every day- rich customers, girls who’ve gotten rich off customers- as well as people who’d have you believe they’re a lot better off than they are. Sometimes I do think ‘what’s wrong with me?’ when I hear about girls my age who own houses and drive luxury cars. I compare myself just long enough to remember that I don’t care. I genuinely am grateful for a decent apartment, and any car that runs is a big improvement over the bus.

Sometimes I think that the people who have more than me actually have less than me because they have less appreciation, less things they really love. After all, we dancers know that money brings everything except true love. We buzz around the rich men like flies, flirting, complementing, getting that dance, that room, that tip, that promise that he’ll come back and see us, then it’s on to the next one. The guys we love, the guys we date and marry, put money on their books when they’re in prison, move across the country with when they join the military, the guys we pray for and fight with on the phone in the dressing room, how many of them are actually rich?

Since money has never made me love a man, what makes me think that any amount of self-made riches will make me love myself? 

I think what most of us girls, even the ones that brag, are really after is stability. Stability, like love, comes in different forms for different people. Some girls won’t feel like they’re safely away from the grasp of poverty until they get that two story house and that car they’ll be paying off forever. Some girls just want enough saved in the bank to pay a couple months rent in case something should happen. Some girls will give every penny they make to a lawyer because they won’t feel safe and secure until their man comes home. While I have my personal opinions about which investments are better in the long run, I know that what’s right for me isn’t what’s right for another girl. So when I overhear girls brag about their latest purchase or make plans with someone on the other end of a long-distance call, I’m not jealous. I’m just thinking that I hope whatever she has is really worth it.

Good Men

It’s true that working in the adult industry, you will come across far too many misogynists, but you will also find men who truly respect women and to me that is a big deal.

There have been many times out in the ‘real world’ (which we are to believe is less hostile to women than the microcosm of strip clubs) where I’ve been threatened or disrespected by a man and NO ONE has done anything. I’ve also worked in clubs where management not only let the customers do whatever they wanted, but also encouraged the girls to do whatever the customer wanted, namely extras. This is why I’m so grateful to work where I do now.

On Sunday I was doing a private dance for a customer who kept touching. The floor guy came back twice to tell him he needed to stop. Since he’d been forced to keep his hands at his side, the customer decided to use his FACE to massage my ass. Within two seconds the floor guy was back there, making him pay me and kicking him out.

“I still can’t believe he did that,” the floor guy said later as he was walking me out to my car.

I could, because I’ve seen guys do worse.

What’s harder for me to believe is that there are men out there who care about how females are treated, but luckily, I’m learning that those men do exist.

Just having an Obama moment…

The highlight of my week so far has been watching the DNC convention on TV. I truly do love American politics. I have ever since I saw Obama’s keynote address at John Kerry’s nomination and thought, why can’t this guy be president?

When I asked that question, adults told me he might someday, but it was too soon. They were still saying that in 2007 when he began campaigning. Although I knew I would be 5 months too young to vote in the 2008 election, I still got excited. I read articles and watched political shows, I invested hope and even some of the money I was earning at my first minimum wage job into the campaign. My mom drove me and my sister over an hour so we could see Obama speak at a rally, back when he was still trailing Hillary. I’ll never forget that day, and I’ll never forget that November night I sat watching the news as it became more and more clear that yes, he was actually going to win this.

Four years later, I still support my president. I am proud of him for getting so many things done- most of what he said he’d accomplish at that speech my mother took me to- despite facing so many setbacks. One thing I wish he could have followed through on was closing Guantanamo, but nobody’s perfect. Healthcare, gay rights, women’s rights, taking down Bin Laden, the list goes on and on. It’s true that there aren’t many jobs available to me… but isn’t it funny that the Republicans say “it’s not the government’s role to create jobs,” and then try to bash Obama for not creating more of them? The fact is, the economy is bad, but if it wasn’t for Obama it would be a lot worse.

I feel I am better off, and will continue to be better off as I get older, because of Barack Obama. I will have better access to healthcare. I can expect equal pay for equal work. And I am, and will be, an engaged citizen. Even though I was 5 months too young to vote for Obama the first time around, I’ve voted in midterm and issues elections… I still haven’t gotten informed enough to vote for judges yet, as my mother encourages me to do… I’m not a perfect voter but I feel I am a good one who will continue to improve. I’m so glad we have a good president who I believe will only improve in his second term. I’m so grateful that in my lifetime I will at least get one chance to vote for President Barack Obama.

Stripper Politics: Fighting

Let me say that I think fighting is a beautiful thing, a forgotten art. A good fight is better than good sex, comparable in that when done with the right person after the proper amount of tension has built, both fighting and sex fill an ancient need deep inside you, and when done with someone you just met, both bring satisfaction tinged with confusion and guilt… but I digress. My point is that you can’t fight fair these days. On the street (and in the club, mall, etc.) everyone’s got a gun now, and where there aren’t guns there’s politics.

The other night, I wanted nothing more than to punch this chick at work. What happened was, I did two table dances for a bachelor party right before I had to go onstage. My outfit got all twisted as I was putting it back on and I was late so I put the twenty dollars they gave me on the stairs leading up to the stage (which are blocked by a door)and did my stage set. The next girl after me took her time getting onstage and when I was coming down the stairs… no twenty dollars.

I KNOW she took it, because the bathroom attendant who sits right by those stairs said he didn’t see anyone else go through the door, because the girl in question is an alcoholic piece of shit to begin with, and because when I casually asked her if she “happened to see” a twenty dollar bill on the stairs she started acting extra suspect. I KNEW but I couldn’t PROVE so I couldn’t ask management to do anything about it (plus snitching twice in one week would have required me to deduct an unprecedented amount of cool points from myself.) I couldn’t confront her because that would have turned into me swinging on her, and I really was not trying to get fired over twenty dollars. I could have tried to turn the other girls against her but that would have only led to drama which would A.) result in a fight or B.) result in me getting on management’s bad side, the two outcomes I was trying to avoid. It’s not about the money honestly. It’s the feeling of being stolen from, cheated, violated that really takes me out of my right mind. 

In the end I did the right thing and let it go, chalked it to the game and accepted that it was my fault. Money has to either be behind a lock, on your body, or in a place where you can see/ hear/ communicate telepathically with it. I KNOW this but lately I’ve been slipping, and I’m just lucky it was twenty dollars and not more. I had to do this exercise I’ve been using lately whenever anger, anxiety, or any other emotion threatens to get the best of me.

I tell the emotion, “I acknowledge you, I’m not ashamed of you, you can live here, but you can’t control me.”

It’s true that of all the political arenas and all the battlegrounds we face, the most difficult-and most crucial- one to master is the one that lies inside ourselves.

Stripper Politics: Snitching

I have a confession: a couple days ago I did something completely out of character. I snitched.

What happened was… Two guys come in. Well dressed middle class guys with money (there is a difference between middle class guys with money and rich guys… and usually I make more money off the former) AKA guys who’d be likely to buy the 3-for-50 (the club I work at offers ten dollar dances on the floor, 1-for-25’s or 3-for-50’s in the semi-private rooms, or 135 per half hour/ 250 per full hour champagne rooms. I usually push the 3-for-50’s.) I sit down with one of them. A dancer I’ll call “Maycee” sits down with his friend. 

Some background on Maycee: she’s overweight and carries it ALL in her stomach, frequently can be seen nodding off and scratching herself, and always looks a bit raggedy in the panties, garters, and makeup she bummed off other girls because she spent all her money on heroine. She likes to tell whoever will listen that I’M the reason she doesn’t make money on dayshift though…

So after a minute or two, Maycee gets her guy to go in the semi-private rooms. I’m a bit surprised but think ‘good for her.’

After my stage set and some casual conversation, I’m finally getting around to asking my guy for a dance. By this time his buddy has returned.

“That 3-for-50 sounds pretty good. What do you think, John/Bill/whatever-the-fuck-his-friend’s-name-was?”

“Why don’t you do the 2-for-30.”

Say what?! Apparently this hoe has been selling discounted dances and now I look like the one who’s ripping guys off. Luckily my dude was super cool, bought the dances, and even tipped me extra. If he hadn’t because I was unwilling to match Maycee’s ridiculous bargain, there’s a significant chance I’d have gone crazy white girl up in that bitch. Don’t fuck with my money just because you don’t have the slightest clue how to make your own.

Before thoroughly thinking it through, I went up to the manager and told him what I’d caught Maycee doing.

It’s not like I was making any new enemies by tattle-taling. Maycee and her friend (who’s beautiful, successful, and turning into a fiend before my eyes) already don’t like me for their own reasons.

My club is really well run, not one of those places where the girls are encouraged to establish their own pecking order. So my alternate idea of telling all the other girls in an effort to turn them against her seemed like it might just get me into trouble.

I thought snitching was in my best interest, and I kind of still do, but I also still kind of can’t believe I did it. I was taught (not by my parents, by my peers and friends a few years older) that snitching is a NO. This means talking to cops is taboo, but it also means running your mouth to bosses, girls you know are getting cheated on, etc. will earn you frowns and raised eyebrows.

I DON’T subscribe to this ‘MYOB’ philosophy in its entirety. I have called children’s services twice when I suspected abuse. I’ve given females a heads up when it was some random dude cheating on them, but NOT when it was one of my homeboys. Bros before hoes, and unless the girl is my friend, the fact that we both have vaginas doesn’t mean I owe her a damn thing. I am eternally grateful that the dude who was bestfriends with both my homeboy and his killer told the police what he’d seen. However, I think that in MOST CIRCUMSTANCES real men and women keep their mouths closed and find ways to handle their own problems.

I inwardly shook my head when I saw a girl at work (the beautiful druggy I mentioned above) calling her ex-boyfriend’s halfway house to tell them he had contraband. I thanked Karma when I found out one of my exes was doing county time, but that doesn’t mean I ever considered putting him there myself. Even when things got physical with my latest ex (a topic for another post) I didn’t call the cops. My more suburban-minded acquaintances told me I should have. I had to explain that, for one thing, calling the cops would have made the block hot for everyone.

I still haven’t come up with a definite rule about when it’s okay to snitch and when it’s not. I guess I’ll just keep deciding on a case by case basis, and occasionally doing things I’d rather not have to do. But I suppose that’s a big part of stripping and life in general: learning rules, breaking rules, and finding out about yourself in the process.