Civil Undressed

Shit People Say...to Strippers

2012-01-21T12:31:00.001-08:00

Too lazy to join the YouTube meme-ers, but here's a feeble attempt at a script nonetheless:

"You are way to smart to be a stripper."
"I'm not really a strip club guy."
"I'm a nice guy."
"I know you're lying to me."
"I know you're just after my money."
"You're the first stripper I ever asked out."
"How did a girl like you end up stripping?"
"We can meet outside; I promise, we don't have to have sex."
"Do you do full service?"
"If there are no other customers here, come sit with me."
"The other girl let me finger her in VIP."
"Earn this dollar."
"No thanks, I'm just here waiting for my friend."
"Can I get 2-for-1 with lapdances?"
"Can I touch it? Just from the outside?"
"You're always going to be this beautiful. At least until 35."
"You don't date customers? Fine, then I just won't spend any money on you."
"Yeah, sure, you're a grad student."
"How are you getting home after work?"
"I can tell we really connected today."
"Whatever you do, don't get any skinnier."
"Whatever you do, don't gain any weight."
"What are your rates for outcall?"
"I'm about to bust a nut."
"I'll come back after I get paid."
"I hate the way fake tits feel."
"You speak good English."
"Kiss me."

King of Clubs

2011-12-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Today was totally a reminder of why I love stripping so fucking much:

Money.
The chance to wear ludicrous - yet somehow, still sexy - outfits, makeup, and hair, and get paid for it.
Money.
Getting paid to flirt.
Money.
Having the crock of romantic monogamy repeatedly debunked while at the same time hearing guys spout ego-boosting expressions of romantic monogamy.
Oh, yeah, and...money.

This super-friendly, attractive (in an ordinary sort of way), moneyed dude immediately took a liking to me, and once I struck up a conversation with him, he pointed out that we'd met before. Yes, he's been a customer of mine at each of the three clubs I've worked at, and each time, we've gotten along fabulously! It's a small world, after all! Now, if only Disney would (in between putting ridiculous racially stereotypical comic relief and/or villainous characters in each animated film) make a ride featuring strip club customers! As soon as we began our banter, the memory of him came back to me like an eager housemom asking for house fee. We had a blast, and he promised to visit again next time he's in town.

His visit aside, I gave a marathon series of dances to this other dude who was filled with some of the best lapdance quotes of all time!
"You're, like, the freakiest Indian girl ever! You're giving the other billion of you a bad name! You're giving Hinduism a bad name!"
"Damn these boxers! I keep having to readjust my dick in these jeans. Next time I come, I'm going to wear slacks."
"Well, if you're going to hell I suppose you might as well take me down with you."
"Girl, the way you're grinding on me, it's like you know I just got paid today."

I had to keep turning around and putting my ass on him so he would(n't) see me crack(ing up)!

ConSTRIPation

2011-11-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

Today was my first shift back after a gluttonous Thanksgiving* weekend and, man, I was as bloated as a stuffed turkey. (Word to those who are even remotely attracted to me: Please stop reading.) Yes, I hadn't laid cable in a couple days, and suddenly had the urge halfway through a mega-busy shi(f)t at work! I am never 1 to do a #2 at work, and I was too busy working the floor to s(h)it down with my UsWeekly for 20 minutes, so I just had to hold it (figuratively speaking, of course) while I did stage sets, sipped drinks with customers, and did more than my fair share of dances.

Of course, it has to be the one day I'm fighting my little feud with Mother Nature that I give a lapdance to Cheek Puller. This dude always grabs both cheeks when I'm straddling him and, in trying to get me to move the way he wants me to, ends up pulling them apart like a Thanksgiving turkey wishbone! I was like Ass Ventura, When Nature Called!

One of my regular customers strolled in today and, in making my day perfectly thematic, decided to talk about why he's NOT into any kind of scat-play. I don't know why he felt the need to discuss this with me today of all days. This was like the physiological equivalent of how hearing running water makes you want to piss; I totally thought I'd have to drop off John, Kate, AND their 8 at the pool right there on his lap.

As if I wasn't dealing with enough shit already, I had to spend a crapload of time with this asshole customer. He was this white, shaved-head, sexist dude who immediately started telling me 1) how I didn't belong here if I grew up in suburbia 2) that I had a rare combination of hot body and nice face "which most chicks don't have" 3) that I was hot now, but had probably been an ugly kid because I seemed too down to earth for a pretty girl. Then he told me, in an extremely condescending voice, that I should definitely try getting fucked up the ass, "especially since you're a g-spot girl. Clit girls don't get off on anal." He also told me he had a lot of money, and was THE head honcho at [major corporation]. Needless to say, this Rockefeller spent a whopping $38 on me. The hilarious part was him asking me to guess his age. Being the great stripper I am, I always guess a good 7-10 years younger than I actually think, so I said "30." And he said, "Pretty close! I'm almost 28." WHAT! I guess being an asshole really adds years to your face. "I'm not a cop," he told me at one point, "so you can tell me your rates for BJ's outside the club. I know you're horny." Other gems from this dude: "You like kosher sausage?" [grabs his crotch] "I'm a great husband, other than cheating on my wife all the time." "This would be a great lapdance if my boner weren't getting all bent inside my pants."

Whew! I feel so much better just having unloaded all this. Also, it's nice to have written this blog post.

*Speaking of Thanksgiving, I worked the night shift before Turkey day and, any time I cozied up to a white dude and tried to get a dance, I'd say "So, does this Pilgrim wanna sit down with this Indian for a lapdance?" It worked like a charm! Dots, not feathers, you racist motherfuckers!

Occupied Strip Club!

2011-10-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

A month after the Occupy Wall Street movement took off, and it's still going strong. Yeah, they haven't exactly ironed out the tensions downtown about the race and class dynamics of the whole thing, but it seems an inspiring, emergent move to radically critique our fucked up political and economic system. I've been down there a bunch of times, and it's certainly better than staying at home watching the Kardashians on E! (Then again, giving a lapdance to a guy in sweatpants is better than that, too, so I suppose that's not saying much.)

Notes from my strip club on Occupy Wall Street:
The bouncer, a muscle-bound dude from Honduras, and I have a rapport. We talk mad shit about US imperialism; he's a religious Christian and I'm a secular type, but this is one thing we agree on (that, and the fact that the guy who wears 3-feet long furry angel wings to the club every couple months and dances flamboyantly to Michael Jackson just ain't right!). Anyway, the other day he gestured toward CNN and asked me if I'd been down to Wall Street for the movement. Yes, I told him, and he gave me a big high-five. "Americans can't sleep forever. They might have comfortable beds, but no, they can't sleep forever."

An Egyptian customer told me he hopes what we see in Zuccotti Park is the next Tahrir Square. Then he asked me if I "have a big pussy" and put $5 between my breasts. (I'm not quite sure what answer he was looking for.)

Then, there was this amazing douchebag who went off on a 7 minute rant that went something like this:
"You know, this Occupy Wall Street thing is just scary. And I know who's behind it. Obama's behind it. And Soros is behind it. It's all Obama and Soros. Obama, I mean, what a scary fucker. He's nothing but a Marxist Muslim. He's a far left, radical, Marxist Muslim. And he hates Israel. I can't stand liberal Jews. Jews who are Democrats. They're so brainwashed by this bullshit liberal media. I don't even watch the news. If I do watch anything, maybe I'll watch Fox News. But, these liberal Democrat Jews just don't understand how the Democratic party is against Israel. I know, I know Michelle Bachman is an evangelical Christian, but at least she cares about Israel. I mean, the Democrats just really control the media, and they've brainwashed the Jews into being Democrats. I am a proud Republican Jew. Now I don't like Ron Paul. He's all right sometimes, but I just don't agree with his anti-military position. I like Herman Cain the most. Yeah, I'm not racist. I am not a racist, even though people might think I am. I mean, I hardly even see race. I see people. Like my daughter, she just happened to marry a good Jewish boy, a doctor. But if he'd been black, I'd have been okay with it. I might have been concerned that there are some degenerates in his family, some criminals, but I'd have been okay with it. It's the goddamn Democrats. You know, when bad stuff happens, the Republicans always get blamed. If Waco happened when we had a Republican president, it would have been a way bigger deal. A WAY bigger deal! Only Republicans get in trouble."

This dude totally deserved to get molested.

Strapped for Cash

2011-09-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

The club I'm currently at requires us to band our cash together with rubber bands and keep it strapped to the inside of our ankle. The other two clubs I worked at had no such rules, and after experimenting with rubber bands, tiny decorative purses, and garters, I realized the purse option was my favorite. It was a tiny accessory, it didn't scream "tacky stripper style!" the way the other two options did, and it also allowed for a small stash of lipgloss, my cellphone, and hand* sanitizer.

Not so at my club now! The purses are not allowed, I think because they are worried we'll take our cellphones onto the floor with us (which sounds like totally illegal employment practice since we are independent contractors, but don't get me started on that!). There are a few perks to strapping your cash to your ankle - it's super secure. It's right there, on your leg, and you'd physically know if it went missing. And (I'm just guessing here) it arouses the shit out of guys with a stripper fetish.

That said, after working a day shift last week I hurriedly got dressed (a skirt and blazer because I'd come from my teaching job in the morning that day - which caused another girl to remark "Man, you look so professional. What, are you telling your man you work in an office or something?") so I could run to the gym for a quick post-work workout. Yikes! Almost forgot to take the money off my ankle!

Imagine walking down the streets of Queens to the subway with a wad of cash literally wrapped around my ankle! Or, better yet, going to the gym, where the manager and I have developed a steady flirtatious banter, and awkwardly attempting to explain how an assortment of singles, twenties, and (not enough) hundred dollar bills ended up neatly folded around two rubber bands!

*And by "hand" I mean anything anyone with questionable hygiene may lick, kiss, grab, or (in the most extreme case) cover in semen.

The best of times, the worst of times.

2011-07-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

Weird! I was on stage, doing my thang, and I look out to see a) a friend of mine from way back when and b) a guy I've danced for a handful of times over the years...sitting together! Drinking a beer! Looking at me! Huh? Well, I knew that (a) and (b) had been part of the same grad school program, and part of me always assumed they knew each other, but being the discreet (not trying to blow customers' cover) dancer that I am, I never asked her, "Do you know Steve?!" Well, apparently, she does...the two of them met up today for a beer and she ended up mentioning her grad student South Asian stripper friend and he put two and two together and brought her to my club pronto for a 3-way lapdance!

This experience was far superior to another lapdance experience I had involving tears streaming down a customer's face. He was 21 years old and it was his first time in a strip club or getting a dance, and he "felt so sad" that we girls had to do this for a living. "This isn't what intimacy is supposed to be like," he told me, before he forked over enough dough for 4 more dances. He's actually the second lapdance crybaby I've had - the first one cried out of a combination of frustration at his sex life ('cuz he hasn't slept with his wife in 13 years) and because I'd "never love him" ('cuz he's a pathetic loser - I actually judge his wife for sleeping with him 13 years ago). Well, I guess better tears than another liquid discharge!

Gaza Stripper

2011-06-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, Norm Finkelstein, Rashid Khalidi, and Peter Weiss gave a talk at Columbia University on the Goldstone Report and the bullshit human rights violations that occurred during the massacre in Gaza in 2009. It was pretty hot, because they managed to hold the event without any counter-protesters accusing the speakers of anti-Semitism (which happened the last time Finkelstein was brought to Columbia for a speaking engagement) so the audience could focus on the content of the talks themselves instead of the context of the event (not to deny that the latter's importance!). Anyway, I got there early enough to get a choice seat - 2/3 of the way back, in an aisle, so I could make a premature getaway (I can never sit through a whole 2.5 hour event like this) without disturbing anyone. As the hall filled up, I noticed a very regular, loyal customer had taken his seat not 10 feet away from me. I waffled between hiding from him (I was in glasses, braids, no make-up, and a bookish sweater) and waving hello (he is super-nice and probably respectful). I went for the latter; he gave me a polite nod and mouthed a few friendly questions ("how are you? working tomorrow?") and then let me be for the rest of the evening. It's a small anti-racist world after all!

Something's Afoot

2011-05-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

Well over a year ago, I met this customer at my Manhattan club who lived in Boston but was in NYC on business. I vaguely remember meeting him; he refreshed my memory last night by saying he blew a lot of money telling me "just keep giving me lapdances till your shift is over." Apparently he took down my email address and dropped me a line. It prompted me to search my e-mail history today - here's what he sent me in 2010:

"You are brilliant, beautiful and can I say just a gorgeous girl. I would love to stay in touch. I was wondering, if you have sometime tomorrow I'd love to take you shopping at Tiffany's and have brunch before I leave. Please answer. Good luck with school!"

I turned him down, and he left town...I didn't hear from him for a year or so, until just a few months he reported his intentions to come to NY for an orthopedics convention (he's an orthopedic surgeon), offering me a HUGE chunk of money to meet him at a restaurant wearing anklets, toe rings, and black heels.

Let's just say, easiest cash I've ever made. No sex, mostly talking, and I was fed a great dinner and some fruity champagne drinks. He confessed to his foot fetishism being linked to a sort of submissive sexual identity, so I proceeded to come across as super-confident and bold; someone he was powerless but to listen to. He ate it up!

I'm not sure if I'll see him again, but things certainly got off on the right foot! Figuratively, only, of course...

I've entertained probably close to seven or eight foot fetishists at work. One was actually my friend's customer, but when she was out sick, she ordered him (he also saw her as his mistress he had to obey) to worship my feet in her absence. Basically, I'd take a bar stool into the lapdance area, sit on it, and shove my feet all over his face for four or five dances. Once in a while, I'd chime in with "Worship my feet!" Another one is this super-old guy who's deaf and not 100% together up there, yet still has no difficulty wandering into strip clubs every few weeks. He rarely buys lapdances, but will tuck singles into your stilettos if you give him a little sniff of your toes or play footsies with him.

Now, having my feet worshipped is not something that gets my engine going. And while I often put my foot in my mouth, I'm not too keen on putting it in others'. But when it comes to a paid encounter, a foot fetish is about the best thing you can ask for. You get to keep your clothes on, you get compensated for shoe shopping, and provided the guy is more into stockings than stalking, you're sure to stay safe!

Daily Grinding

2011-04-28T18:34:00.001-07:00

Today, this guy who never buys lapdances or acknowledges me (but always lurks around the club stingily) got all kinds of generous when I was on stage and then bought a lapdance from me. I gave him a pretty low-contact dance, because he seemed happy with that, but two-thirds of the way through the guy comes in his trousers, and I feel something wet and sticky on the back of my thigh! UGH! I've seen some gross shit at the club, but 'cum' on! And then he has the audacity (or maybe he was just making a hilarious pun) to say he hopes he got me "real wet" during the dance.

My fortune turned when this super-attractive white man who looked like a tall, hot version of Michael J. Fox really took to me. We had all kinds of witty banter going. Like, he was telling me his philosophy on "what's allowed" in VIP rooms, saying "I don't mean to paint it with broad strokes, but most clubs, you can very easily get a hand job." So I replied, "Well, this broad doesn't stroke, so don't get any ideas." He bought a ton of dances and tipped generously, and I was totally tickled by how adorable he was! God, I love the rare (I'd say one out of every sixty) customer who I find myself attracted to, and lucky enough to get paid for rubbing my body against them. After the dances we chatted over a few drinks, and :sigh:, he's a staunch Republican free market guy. I found myself going from "I'd hit that" to "I'll punch that." I sarcastically asked him why, if he believes in laissez-faire so much, could he not keep his hands to himself during lapdances! Of course, that shit cracked him up too. It was the first time someone referred to my breasts as "hot, perky Marxist tits."

Finally, damn! There's this new dancer at the club who I'm totally in love with. She's pretty, smart, and so fucking interesting. We talk during slow moments at the club, and in my three years of dancing she's the first dancer I've met who is politicized, beautiful, and dancing because she really loves doing it (though I know you ladies are out there!)! She's also really involved in the NYC burlesque scene and into race politics, particularly as race/sexuality/beauty standards intersect. Also, she practices polyamory and we've had all sorts of awesome conversations about the problems with monogamy. Man, I think I need to call up my momma, say I'm in love with a stripper, yo!

Fools and their money

2011-04-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

Is it me or have guys just gotten douchier in the last 4 months? Seriously, it's like they've gone from run-of-the-mill douche-bags to giant douche-suitcases.

Exhibit A:
An old man came into the club and was taken by me & one other dancer (my friend Sheila!). I had guessed his age at about 58, but he informed that he was 71 and a stroke survivor. He hung out with Sheila for a while before asking her to excuse herself so he could talk to me. What follows is a truncated, condensed transcript of our actual conversation...

"Now, what is your ethnicity? See, I've always really admired the Indians. They are such a hard-working people, very very hard working. And they are all smart! All of them! Now, the kama sutra. I've always felt that Indian women were extremely sensual, beautiful, and attractive. Now Indian men on the other hand, they are just assholes. I hope you don't mind my saying. They think they own the world, and man, they are just such mama's boys. Enough about myself, tell me about yourself. Do you have any kids? I ask because I've got two children and 5 grandkids. And the woman I'm married to right now, she's actually my second wife. My first wife left me, took my children away, and moved to Portland, several years ago. But I wasn't going to let her! No, I flew out to Portland and staked out in front of her house to see what her schedule was, and after a couple days, I just broke in and kidnapped my children. We drove up to Seattle, got on a plane, and flew back to New York. Now, this was like 35 years ago, so you know, the cops weren't ever able to find me, and now my kids are grown men with children of their own. But I need to write to their mother, make sure she's written her children into her will in case she kicks the bucket soon. Are you really into politics? Because, I'll tell you - there are three things I'm passionate about: my grandchildren, Jesus, and my conservative politics. You ever heard of Winston Churchill? He said if you're young and a conservative, you have no heart, and if you're old and liberal, you have no brain...I know a lot about the world. I watch Fox News, and man, Obama...He's going to drive America into bankruptcy if he keeps doing what he's doing with the budget! Now I really want to give you my phone number so we can just talk on the phone...but I don't know, I gave it to Sheila earlier and I am a fairly monogamous man..."

Again, the actual conversation lasted about an hour, and my only words were reaching over for his stack of money and asking if I could "buy myself a drink." I'd go to the bar, get a glass of ice water, and pocket the money as my own tip...I know someone's an asshole when they actually make my left-wing ass wanna defend the oh-so-centrist Obama...

Exhibit B:
I had met a customer about two years ago at the club who was a BIG talker. But he was also a big spender, buying me commissioned drinks and tons of lapdances (especially when he got drunk). He's a US-born Punjabi Indian, who had an arranged marriage to a girl from back home and had a couple kids with her. She was great - really reliable, a great mother - but not exciting, so he started dating a Puerto Rican stripper and fell madly in love with her. At the time I met him 2 years ago, he had broken it off with the stripper and had "left" his wife (though not divorced her) and was trying to get me to be his new girlfriend. I informed him that I couldn't meet him outside the club. A couple days later I got an apologetic e-mail from him, telling me he was going to give his marriage a shot and that he couldn't email me or meet me (not that I'd agreed to meet him to begin with!) because he was going to move to India with his family and work things out.

Well, he was back yesterday. He went to India and "manipulated" (his words) his wife into coming back to the US. ("I promised her I'd be with her and I love her, but really I just wanted my kids near me. It was all lies, and I feel bad, but come on - these are my kids!") Meanwhile, he's struck things up with Maria again, and even though she's pregnant with another man's baby, she wants him to marry her and be father to the kids. He's still "legally married to his ex wife." He's "dating" a stripper from the club because after Maria got knocked up by some other guy ("granted, I was fucking other women too") he couldn't trust her anymore, and he's "hedging, because I don't want to get hurt" by making sure he has another girl on the backburner. Of course, I talked to said backburner-stripper in the dressing room, who ha$ a very different ver$ion of what their relationship i$ about...

I know these assholes are a dime a dozen, and I've had innumerable conversations like the ones above, but I just can't seem to justify these guys being extremely wealthy (and, in the Case of the Kidnapping Republican, having the right to vote while felons who perhaps sold a bag of coke are disenfranchised - fuckin' 'democracy'!). My age-old question is, are these guys big douche-totes everywhere they go, or do they just save it for their strip club therapy sessions, a commodified, judgment-free space of alien intimacy?

The Race to the Bottom

2011-04-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

To say asses are racialized is a foregone conclusion. Everyone remembers the joke "What's the only difference between dating a white girl and a black girl? The answer to the question 'Do these pants make my ass look big?'" Of course, thanks to Kim Kardashian, heir to the immense throne left by her predecessor J.Lo, the fascination with large asses has become appealing to white boys too (or maybe this has more to do with the fact that I'm in NYC?)

Anyway, the other day I had this Marshall Mathers clone customer who was all over me because, in his words, "I love a light-skinned skinny girl with a huge ass." Each of the three elements of that compliment could, of course, be highly insulting (or equally complimentary) in certain settings.

This regular custie, this Bengali guy, always touches the small of my back after lapdances and tells me "European women don't have this," referencing the curve at the top of my ass.

And of course, the NUMEROUS times customers haven't believed that I was South Asian because "Indian girls NEVER have asses; you must be Latina" has been documented on this blog...

With people who are more conscious of race as a social construct, the "bottom drops out" of conversation. I was kicking it with this Chinese Lower East Side-bred gangster and his crew at the club the other day, and his friend made the same "you have a nice ass - for an Indian girl" remark. The Chinese guy was like "Man, you are narrow fucking minded; you have a certain idea of what you think women's bodies are like, but open your eyes. There are Indian girls with asses that you're choosing NOT to see. It's like people who are surprised that I'm Chinese and built! It's like, haven't you ever gone out of your little circle that reinforces your ideas about race?" Then he switched gears, started talking about how he got in a fight at a club the other day (had swollen knuckles to show me to prove it) - with this guy who was dancing all crazy and kept bumping into him. "I felt real bad, though, because after I hit him I found out he was gay. I felt real bad. I don't hit gay guys." It totally echoed the macho "Never hit a woman" sentiment that suggests it's fine for testosterone dudes to wrestle each other over whatever the fuck they want but you treat "your woman" like a precious little flower petal. Are gay rights here being articulated in the same way?

Andhra Praneuer

2011-04-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

I made a new friend at the club. And by "friend," I mean strangest customer ever! This guy, about 60 years old, looked South Asian to me, and he spotted me right away and flagged me over. We began conversing in Urdu; he's from Andhra Pradesh and speaks very little English (though my friend hilariously pointed out that this limited English guy was proficient enough to locate a place he could see some tatties!). Anyway, he got a couple dances from me and then took me for a drink at the bar, asking me where I live. "With friends," I told him. He responded "Zindagi mein sirf do dost rehte hain: Ammi aur Abba." (Translation: In life, you only have two friends - your mother and your father.) He told me to quit this job and start a business. I assured him that I was a student and didn't plan to strip for my whole life (I had a sense that lecturing him on his rescue mentality would be lost on him, so I went this other angle instead -- I'm just doing this "for now."). "Don't worry, when I'm done with school, I'll get a job," I told him. "Naukri kabhi mat karo. Business start karo." (Don't ever get a job; start your own business.) He told me how to buy a car at auction and then use it to start my own car service; or I could open an eyebrow threading salon, there's lots of money there.

I love how, as much as he wanted me to find an honorable calling for myself and appointed himself career counselor, he had no qualms attempting to fondle my breasts throughout his lapdances! I wanted to tell him, I do have my own business, and you're my customer, biatch!!

Rio de JanHAIRo

2011-04-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

Ah, pubic hair! Can't live with you (imagine a bush protruding from the sides of my teeny G string...), can't live without you (how else can people distinguish my vag from a pre-teen hairless one?) I had never allowed wax to get any closer to my birth canal than my bikini line until about a year ago, when I realized that a Brazilian would get rid of everything down there, and that too, for several weeks. Without the pesky razor bumps or immediate stubble of shaving. If the thought of yanking out coarse pubes by the root with hot wax sounds painful to you, you're absolutely right! But big ups to my girl Nyra at Bliss Spa on 57th Street for giving me a relatively ouch-less Brazilian every 4 ish weeks. I'm not really into masochism, but I'm totally happy forking over $80 to Nyra to induce pain on my labia for a few minutes; it spares me the weekly hedge-trimming I'd otherwise have to engage in! Going at my vag with electric trimmers? Check, please!

After a not-so-brief hiatus from dancing, I'm back at it today! Hence the talk of getting my body hairless and back in shape for club nudity. Going back on a Tuesday should be slow enough for the culture shock to not be overwhelming, plus I've got Irish Gold and a few other oldie/goodies coming in to say hello. Still, I'm nervous! Any time I take a break from dancing, I get trepidation before going back...so keep your fingers and toes crossed for me, friends!

Easy Access

2011-03-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all of you who were encouraging and supportive through your comments to my last post! The event went really well – I shared some humorous anecdotes about my customers (an adaptation of my monikers post) and then transitioned into an ode to Irish Gold, one of my favorite people from the club scene, and perhaps anywhere. People were laughing and really into my reading, and it felt good standing up and sharing a part of myself to academics, who usually see a very very different version of me. Afterward, a professor even approached me and encouraged me to do my dissertation on this topic (thanks, but no thanks – I’m not interested in seeing what the genealogical ranking and ordering of geographic areas, distinct separation of topics like “feminism” and “race,” and the cold/removed way academia sometimes deals with sex work would do something that’s been a formative part of my sense of sexuality, humor, independence, and happiness).

But, I have been thinking about academia and stripping in another, more pressing (to me) way. The debates rage in social science about how to study elites. How do we gain access? Does participant observation work? Can we interview elites, and take their word for what they say, when we’re ultimately critical of the power they wield and distrustful of their words? Must ethnographers be allied with, or sympathetic to, their subjects? You know, all the same age-old shit that anthropologists were asking in the 80’s is still being asked in newfangled ways. And social scientists continue to struggle with it.

Meanwhile, in the strip club scene (or many other sex work arenas), you get easy-ass access (literally, I guess) to all kinds of elite subjects. In fact, you get the sort of access that an ethnographer would only dream of. You get to hear their confessions about finance, friends, family; you get to know about their sex lives and politics. Unfortunately, Institutional Review probably wouldn’t approve lapdancing as an acceptable methodology, but man, if they did…*writes strongly-worded letter to National Science Foundation*

This reminds me: remember the Wolf in Veep’s Clothing? I got the most patronizing e-mail from this Republican a-hole recently.

I thought of you concerning the liberation sweeping Arab lands - actually, I thought of, and felt for you. I felt a wave of sadness that Arabs (and Muslims too) have been so oppressed, both physically and psychologically, for so long. It really washed over me. While I feel happiness at the successful rebellions, my sadness was / is actually a stronger emotion: I just felt "why did such repression have to go on for so long, for what?!?" Wanted to give you a hug. May sound strange coming from someone who you know only slightly and from a parallel universe you might say. Hope you feel liberated and positive and optimistic. I've always felt you harbor a lot of inner anger and resentment. If so, maybe that will ebb away. Anyway, Cheers.

Thoughts: First, you should know I corrected 13 spelling errors here to make it easier for you to read. Second of all, how fucking patronizing! He has me on his listserv which sends out bi-weekly articles he’s written about how Obama’s a socialist and how we need to privatize everything, and then he has the nerve to feel overwhelmed at Arab liberation struggles? Does he not get how his neoliberal economic politics rely upon the very oppression he’s trying to critique? Also, I did not appreciate his whole sense of harboring inner anger bit; true, I get pretty miffed at the club when he says things about how good colonialism has been for people of color or about how unfettered free markets are the way to be (yeah, that shit's personal). But, seriously, I do have my jovial side (I guess white male libertarians are deprived the oh-so-envied access to it…).

Discipline, or Pun-ish?

2011-02-18T07:23:00.001-08:00

This evening, I'm reading some of my reflections on my career as a stripper at an event that's meant for scholars to share what they do in their creative/less academic moments. For me, there's no greater gulf than the one between my stripping and schooling. Grad school for me has often been alienating; I sometimes feel my brown skin and less-than-academic pedigree sticks me out like a sore, subaltern thumb. While I've found some buddies along the way, in general I feel that the grad school experience has been depoliticizing at times, or maybe pseudo-politicizing. In other words, a whole lot of sitting around and reading about stuff, and not so much interrogating how we - right there in the left-leaning academic department - are perpetuating, encouraging, even relying upon the oppressions we critique in our dissertations and panel presentations.

This will be the first time I go in front of an audience of people - many of them peers, some of them "superiors" - and talk about my work. At first, I wanted to talk about race and intersectional issues around dancing; I realized pretty quickly that it felt like pandering to the thirst for Third World Feminist knowledge that I anticipated my audience to hope to hear. (I thought they might expect some high-brow theoretical, overtly political reflections on sex work, race, and gender.) So I scrapped that, and instead I'm going for the raunchy humor - stories about gross customers, good customers, loyal customers, customers with funny nicknames, etc. Yeah, I'm sort of worried about the raunch factor. It's sort of giving a middle finger to all those Foucauldian ideas about how sex should be talked about, right? I mean, no one has a problem with Elizabeth Bernstein teaching a class on sex work politics, or with critiquing the law that has cast "unnatural" sex acts by prostitutes in Louisiana into the same category as pedophilia.

But, why then, do I perceive a greater anxiety emerging when an actual sex worker - not only incidentally a brown woman - talks about boners and grinding and bikini waxes. Is it in my head?

Sneak Peek

2011-01-22T22:58:00.001-08:00

Several months ago, I heard rumor that Sanjay Leela Bhansali was going to make a movie about Heera Mandi (entitled Heera Mandi!), the famed redlight district. More interestingly, it was to star Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan! I thought the two families hated each other since loser Abhishek broke off his engagement with the equally-unremarkable Karishma Kapoor (Kareena's sister) several years ago. I guess there's no business like (s)ho(w)business and the two are speaking again. I mean, if Abhishek's dad can make out with Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek still goes on to marry her, what's a broken engagement here and there? Am I right? Am I right? (crickets chirping)

Well, anyway, if and when this movie is made, it's sure to be done in the regular Bhansali fashion: very high production value, very heavy handed, about as pretentious as the chopstick-in-hair girlfriend (Patrice) George Costanza dumped in the episode The Truth. (more crickets) Here's hoping Kareena's two-facedness (dollar for every Seinfeld reference in this post?) veers closer to hot than not in this film, and that Bhansali is able to score some good song and dance numbers. And, of course, that the sex worker doesn't end up a) dead b) widowed/abandoned by her lover, or c) being rescued from the profession.

Remember how fuckin' boring Black was?

Many happy returns of the day

2011-01-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

A bit of a belated post, but one I've been meaning to do. I went into work on December 31st, hoping to pull a double-shift. New Years Eve, after all! A lucrative holiday to be at work! Luckily, the club was raining by 2 p.m. and I had a feeling I would be able to countdown with friends at a party instead of counting stage tips after a set.

First, there were SO FEW girls during the day at the club, and SO MANY customers! I'm not sure if the dancers preferred to celebrate the holiday and take the day off, or if they assumed that it'd be a slow shift, but thankfully, there were just a few of us to a club FILLED with customers by 12:30 in the afternoon. And generous customers too! Everyone was in the mood for buying you a drink, tucking a fiver into your g-string when you walked by, or (and this was actually rarer) buying a lapdance. It wasn't much of a lapdancey day; it was more like groups of guys starting their parties early and feeling real generous and festive.

I was flagged down on stage by an Eastern European guy who had some cuteness potential, so I joined him after my set for a round of drinks. He could tell right away that there was no alcohol in my drink (my vodka tonic = tonic) and insisted that the bartender mix my drink right in front of him. She looked at me sympathetically, but somehow managed to mix me a real alcoholic drink and STILL (through some sleight of hand) slip me a virgin drink without him noticing. God bless her! Cuz, this guy was hell-bend on getting me drunk. It was one "vodka" tonic after another, so I got to fake a guilty tipsiness - "I better stop drinking, I think I've had too much!" and increasing sloppiness as the drinks went on.

Suddenly, he turned to me: "Do you like Shakira?" He gave me a $50 bill, told me to give it to the DJ to play a Shakira song and put me on stage to dance to it. I went up on stage and got showered by $200 in singles - which was quite the production, but very hard to gracefully squat down and scoop up, and even harder not to slip upon while I was dancing on stage. About an hour later, I got called up for my next stage set and while I was up there, another customer asked me if I'd have a drink with him after my set - I obliged, got a small tip from him, and then returned to Mr. Hips Don't Lie. He told me he was disappointed in me, he couldn't believe I talked to another guy, and asked me to get lost. I did, but laughed all the way to the bank as I walked away.

I'm not quite sure why, but the DJ has been playing these weird censored versions of songs at the club. For instance, he'd play a version of Kanye's Runaway that says "I sent this girl a picture of my . I don't know what it is with females, but I'm not too good at that shit." So, apparently, "shit" is okay, but "dick" needs bleeping out? Also, the censored Runaway version goes "Let's have a toast for the douchebags. Let's have a toast for the ." So, no assholes? Aren't we in a strip club here? I'm practically EXPOSING my asshole to all the douchebags when I bend over to gather my freshly showered bills, anyway...

Regardless, to a 2011 filled with good tips, no raids, and awesome new customers for all!

Slush Funds

2010-12-29T06:40:00.000-08:00

On Monday, I took a look outside at the inches - nay, feet - of snow that were piling up and glanced sadly at my heels. I was on the schedule for work, but I wasn't sure if the club would be open or not. Also, with the entire tri-state area crippled by the snowfall, I wasn't sure if a day at work would even be worth my while. The blizzard just had to come between Christmas and New Years, the most lucrative few days each year, didn't it?

I decided to brave the storm, heading out into crazy winds and thigh-deep snow drifts. Each step I took, I glanced back at my building and wondered if I should turn back. But the fact that I'd already trekked across the street seemed like a big enough feat, so I proceeded to endure the craziest commute ever - including having to hold on to a deli door so wind didn't blow me away, switching three trains before I found one that was actually going to my club, and getting to about five feet from the club entrance and seeing snow drifts so high that it seemed impossible to cross those five feet and enter the club. I managed, though (crawling, holding onto the tops of cars as my foot sunk into ice - at one point, I swear, I got an icicle enema...) and got inside the club. I'd given up on making any money that day, but just looking forward to the warmth and refuge of the club.

There were only three girls there! I wasn't sure if there were going to be lots of customers, but whoever did come in would have the simple choice of curvacious Latina, bookish South Asian, and large-breasted blonde. Yes, the three of us had free reign over every customer that entered the club!

I guess having a snow day - office closings and transportation problems - made it easier for certain customers to show up. While it was generally a slow day, the people that did make it into the club were there to stay (there was no leaving! the wind was ridiculous!), which was good news for us. Surprisingly, I had a pretty good day! My regular Tibetan customer came in, raped my face (tried to lick my mouth during lapdances!!!) and I slapped him, but he bought a few dances anyway. Then there was this UN guy, who found himself without a return flight to Africa, who totally was able to cum during a minimal-contact lapdance (and tipped nicely as a thank-you).

And, finally, the highlight of my day: a DEAD FUCKING RINGER for Liam Neeson was sitting at the bar, nursing a vodka tonic. This guy was gorgeous, and when I went to get my stage tip from him, I said: "Oh my GOD, it's Leslie Nielson!" He gave me a playful injured look, and I realized my mistake, and we had a good laugh about it. This Hungarian hottie was totally funny, and charming - not to mention drop dead gorgeous. He was the spitting - fuck it, the SWALLOWING - image of Neeson, which made fantasizing about my celebrity encounter that much easier as we enjoyed some flirtatious banter and lapdances in an otherwise empty club.

All in all, I'd highly recommend working during blizzards. Chances are there will be no girls there (in fact, management was trying to get me to stay for a double shift because none of the late girls showed up, and they were probably going to have to close), customers will be likely to stay put once they get inside the club, and the empty/warm/intimate feeling inside is likely to spark some generosity.

I had reservations, but I came anyway.

2010-12-16T07:46:00.000-08:00

There's this new regular at work. He shows up early, starts drinking, and by around 7 p.m. he's totally hammered and asleep at the bar! Anyway, we had a brief encounter about halfway to his 7 p.m. demise, and he told me that he'd never been intimate with an Indian woman before. "You're so exotic," he told me. Because he seemed somewhat intelligent, I asked him what he meant, and that exotic was a fancy way of saying "not quite normal-looking" - but he got a little defensive and asked me if I couldn't just take it as a compliment. I could, sure, but show me the money! As a newbie to the strip club scene, he was nervous about getting any lapdances from me because he "had danced with that other girl earlier and I don't want her feeling bad." After a couple hours and several Jack and Cokes, those reservations disappeared and he waved me over for a lapdance. He was out of cash, and wanted to use the ATM in the club, but was too drunk to coordinate. What did he do? Told me his ATM pin # and asked me to withdraw $200! Thank his lucky stars that I'm not a thief, and curse me and my law-abiding ways (takes a long toke, continues typing). He was so far-gone, I totally could have taken cash out of his account and pocketed it, or better yet pocketed his card!

During a moment of respite in the dressing room (the club's heat was funky and it was FREEZING on the floor), we started sharing "crazy customer" stories. I told them about Sissy James, and this dancer Champagne responded with the story of a customer she used to freelance with outside the club. He would watch gay porn while she fucked him in the ass with a strap-on, and all the while be telling her "I'm not a fag, you know?" I had a similar champagne room experience once in Manhattan, minus the fucking. This ABCD took me back for an hour and, rather than lapdances, he wanted dirty talk - most of it revolving around all the things I'd do up his asshole, and how I'd share him with another man. After the hour was up and he was spent, he told me, "This is just dirty talk, you know? I'm not gay or anything." By far the best tale came from Alina, who told us about a guy who took her into the champagne room, got a bunch of clean lapdances, and then asked her to move out of the way. He unzipped, leaned back, put his legs up in the air, and ejaculated - into his own mouth - then smiled at her, saying "I like to recycle."

Cultural Capital

2010-12-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

There are a few things I *never* want to happen to me at work, even though they seem sort of inevitable.
- Getting my period on a guy's lap: I'm hopelessly out of tune with my cycle and hence don't know when to expect it, and totally worried I'll be on some married guy's white linen lap or something when Flo arrives)
- Falling on stage (or off stage, for that matter): I've never become fully comfortable with these heels, and the floor is uneven and sometimes quite slick. The physical pain of falling would be way outdone by the embarrassment of it!
- Having any sort of run-in with the cops!

I was on my way to work, running a couple minutes late, when the subway turnstile rejected me. Insufficient fare! I ran and quickly purchased a new Metrocard. There were two cops standing around the machine and, as always, I felt a sense of discomfort and annoyance as I quickly fumbled with my debit card and backpack zipper. As I ran down to catch the E train, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around, face to face with one of the pigs. Gulp. What? Could he tell I'd eaten the best magic brownie of my life the previous day? I took my earbud out and smiled at him.

"You dropped your phone, maam, and we were calling at you but you didn't hear us. What are you listening to, anyway?"
"Breeders."

He hands me my phone after delicately inserting the battery that had fallen out.

Whew! Well, I got to work on time in spite of it all, and quickly put on my new ChristmAss outfit: this clingy red and silver gown with little rhinestone accents, fire engine red lipstick, and green and gold glitter for the eyelids. I was expecting a couple good customers and sipping a cup of coffee when the housemom comes up to me in a panic.

"I need your help. You're not only the MOST intelligent girl here, you're also the only intelligent one, and the cops are on their way. I need you to talk to them when they get here and tell them there's no prostitution or drug dealing going on."

I'm stunned. The cops are on their way? Is this cuz I dropped my phone?! And, why am I supposed to be the go-between for the club?

So apparently what happened is that someone called the cops and said there's drug dealing and prostitution happening at the club (generally not at all true, though I'm sure there's been a handjob or dime bag exchanged on the rare occasion) and the cops called to announce they were on their way.

First things first, all the girls starting talking about their relatives who were cops. One girl's father is a vice cop, and she was worried he'd be one of the raiding officers. Another girl has a detective uncle. Literally each of these women is closely related to someone who'd be there shortly to arrest their ass!

Next, the club said we weren't allowed to give lapdances for the day. So, let me get this straight, I'm supposed to sit down and wait to be interrogated by the 5-0 AND not have any money to show for it? Not at all a risk I'm willing to take. Plus, I'd already been shown some mercy by cops earlier in the day; what are the odds of having such good luck twice in a row? I wasn't interested in finding out.

Suddenly the girls were all summoned to the dressing room, where a bunch of freshly printed legal forms were there for us to sign. From what I could tell, they were statements that absolved the club of any responsibility for actions of the girls, and we were all supposed to put older dates on them so it looked like we'd signed them earlier. Sketch!

So I told the housemom I wanted to go home. She said I was being paranoid, and just to relax. "It's not an immigration raid, I promise you," were her exact words. What? I'm a U.S. citizen! I told her I was worried about the possibility of arrest, and didn't want to jeopardize my other job. She didn't want to hear it.

I spoke to our (sweet, kind-hearted) manager, who told me I should go home. He told me that he was charging all the other girls a $40 fine if they left, but I had a legitimate reason (i.e. "a university job" - I suppose the other girls who were saying "I have 2 kids at home" or "I don't want to pay the sitter if I'm not going to make any money here" don't have legit reasons?) and I should just go home.

As I was getting dressed, the other girls started asking me why I wanted to leave. They all started talking about their previous raids, arrests, and run-ins with the law. I explained that I hadn't had any such experiences, and wasn't looking to start today. "Oh, no wonder, girl! I always thought you seemed like a doctor or lawyer or something, and I was always asking people what a girl like you was doing here!" And all of a sudden all these girls (many of whom I've never spoken to) took this sort of protective stance, telling me to go home, dodge the cops, etc. It was a very strange show of solidarity, even as it seemed totally strange to me to be cast into this elite/protected category.

I left before the cops got there, but realized as I saw my reflection in a deli window en route to the train that I looked more like a prostitute out on the street in my full stripper make-up in broad daylight than anything in the club. (I also quickly emailed all my customers from my phone, telling them I wasn't there today. Customers first!)

Ugh! A few options:
1) Go back to my Manhattan club, which is full of bullshit, fines, fees, and being pimped out in the champagne room
2) Get a 'straight' job for a while to keep the income a-flowing
3) See what happens at this club in a few days and possibly go back

Regardless, fuck.

Cunning Linguistics

2010-12-04T08:32:00.001-08:00

Ah, holiday season at the club. It's always a jolly time, and the months of December and January always seem particularly lucrative! Last year, my Manhattan club had us dress "festive" (I had a long strapless sequined red clingy gown that worked well, and a short white and silver dress that did the trick too). This year, though, my new club wants us to dress in either green or red with white (faux, I'm hoping) fur trim, basically looking like Mrs. Claus back in the day. They want us to be ho, ho, ho's! Of course, they are selling outfits that fit convention for like $90 each at the club, which is a total rip-off, so now I have to spend time this weekend trying to find cheap alternatives in the real world.

In other news, yesterday a customer, clearly aroused by my gentle ear-whispering at the bar, expressed his interest in a lapdance. I told him to follow me to the lapdance area, but he seemed hesitant. "Do you think I should go the bathroom first and jerk off so that I don't cum during the lapdance?" he asked earnestly? (Of course, I was right to be skeptical of his desire to buy a lapdance immediately after getting himself off...)

Another customer, who is always at the club and a very generous tipper on stage, finally waved me over to sit with him. I introduced myself and we started chatting, and I asked him what his holiday plans were. "I'm going to be with the kids." "Oh, that's nice! How many kids do you have?" "I have 57." (quizzical look from me) "I am not their father, but I built them a halfway home. They are orphans or abandoned. I was just trying to do my part." "I see. So are you on the board of this organization?" "I am the only sponsor, I'm a philanthropist." "I got it. So what do you do for a living otherwise?" "Oh, it'd probably all go over your head. But let's just say I have several businesses and properties everywhere, and at this point they're all making me so much money that I don't have anything to do." (he pulls out a bundle of $100 bills and puts them on the bar in front of him) The conversation continued, with him bragging about all the countries he has beach homes in, assuming I was geographically/historically completely challenged, and then him bringing up Slumdog Millionaire and how much he loved it. I was so irritated with him at this point that I said, "yeah, if you love poverty porn" which sparked a conversation about how this film would never have been successful if it actually brought up issues of neoliberalism, postcoloniality, and a general contextual discussion of why India has such concentrated wealth and extreme poverty. At this point, he decided I was "smart" and asked me if I got bored having uninteresting and unintelligent conversations with people in the strip club. I always loathe such questions that pit me against my colleagues and customers, especially when they come from arrogant douchebags, but that pile of $100s was reflected in my dollar-sign shaped eyes so I endured. Anyway, basically the conversation turned into how, at this point in his life, the only thing that excites him is getting in bed (or a shower, pool, limo) with three girls at a time. Then he told me which of the girls in the club were lesbians, which would fuck me good with a strap-on, which were boring to him since they weren't into girls. I told him I was totally into girls, but he dubbed me a "cherry" - someone inexperienced in the world of threesomes and foursomes. He said he wanted to get me in on some of his world travels with his posse of lesbos (I guess I'd be the "cherry" on top!) The best was that he had me pick a girl to get lapdances from, and he gave each of us a handful of cash to retreat to the lapdance area for a bit. (We just sat back there and chatted and laughed, cuz he wasn't even interested in looking.) Then I came back, told him that this girl had gotten my pussy real wet and even gone down on me for a while, and thanked him for the good times.

Speaking of lesbians, I got into a conversation with another dancer about cunnilingus, and she told me how much she hated it. "God gave men a dick so they could fuck!" she told me excitedly. "If I wanted someone to lick my pussy I'd just be a lesbian. You have a dick, man, now use it!"

One of my favorite old customers resurfaced (the one whose whole family is on Lexapro) and we had a blast together. He's really nice, and (back to the topic of erections at the strip club) he popped a boner for the first time ever in our year and a half of friendship! He said he hasn't gotten a non-Viagra induced erection in several years and was very pleased with himself for getting some all-natural wood.

The Daily Grind

2010-11-25T06:49:00.000-08:00

My last shift was spectacular! It was exactly my kinda day, because I didn't have to hustle anyone new. It was one loyal regular customer after another until my shift was over. Hot!

First was Alan. Alan has been my customer for a little over a year, and he's one of the most interesting people I know. He's half white American, half Puerto Rican, and (like lots of biracial folks) has developed some really radical race politics and I find him apologizing for his white half a lot. He went to Yale for college, then went off to fight the Gulf War before coming back to the U.S. and making it HUGE in the hedge fund world. Apparently, he's the big cheese. Ordinarily, I'd think that's no good, but there's something about Alan that's really fucking awesome. We have this hilarious pun-peppered banter that genuinely cracks me up. Also, he has random pockets of knowledge about things (i.e. he's read up a whole lot on Zora Neale Hurston) and is totally non-pretentious about talking about stuff he knows. Since I switched to this new club, I haven't seen him - but he finally made his way over and we had a blast! A bunch of lapdances, a couple "drinks," and a lot of laughing were the perfect way to start my day! Halfway through Alan's visit, I noticed Irish Gold was there. I wanted to kick it with Alan longer; he'd made the special trip just for me, plus he's got LOTS of money. It's rare that I feel bad for rich guys from the investment world, but I do remember several times at my Manhattan club that Alan's generosity and wealth made his strip club visits miserable. Like, usually he'd take me to the champagne room for like 2-3 hours straight, but one day he just wanted to sit, have a few dances and drinks with me, and that was totally fine with me! But the other girls at the club and the champagne hostess were going insane trying to figure out why he wasn't spending so much money, and eventually their gentle coaxing turned into not-so-gentle cursing as he politely declined all offers to visit the champagne room! He was getting sort of pissed, remarking on how you'd think spending tens of thousands of dollars (true: this guy must have spent at least 12 grand in my presence alone at my last club) would earn him stress-free visits, but no such luck...

I excused myself to say hello to Irish Gold, and right off the bat he was pissing me off. I think I've jinxed him with too much praise, but the truth is: Irish Gold is the perfect customer when times are slow at the club. He's reliable, generous, and a sure thing. But when the scene is busy, he fucking sucks! He tries to hijack all my time! When I went over to talk to him, he wanted me to "finish up" with Alan before I gave him any time. (Knowing Alan, he could spend a full day at the club, hopping in a car service to Southern Jersey well after my shift ends...and spending good money all the while!) I told him my customer wasn't likely to leave any time soon. So then he starts on this long rant about how seeing me with this other guy reminded him that I have "smart, educated" customers who can make me laugh, and he's just a guy from humble beginnings and he got all insecure on me. The good thing was, he ended up spending a bit more money than he usually does (if I "had to give a dance" to the other guy, he'd be like: let me just take you instead!). But still, most of the day was conversation not about our usual subjects (settlement freezes in Palestine or the strategic use of the word "terror" in the US media or animal testing in the cosmetic industry), but about how much he hated sharing me with these other guys, and did I see him as "just" a customer?

Also, Academic Asshole is now my customer! You may remember him from here. If you do, you read my blog way too closely :) Anyway, Academic Asshole never wanted any dances from me, but always wanted to sit and chat about Said, Cesaire, Malcolm, and others and why he felt compelled to only consider "black women as potential wives". While I do enough of this in my other grad student existence (and don't get paid for it), I slowly started ignoring him because I never made a penny off of him and I don't need to waste time at work chatting about antiracism with someone who'd have Fanon turning in his grave. So a couple weeks ago, during a lull (Academic Asshole was the only one there), I was in the corner reading (incidentally, it was Freire I was reading!) and Asshole fetishist guy came over, interrupted, and sat down to chat. I guess he hadn't picked up on my strictly-business approach...After a brief chat about qualifying exams, health benefits for adjuncts, and why we both find Gilroy boring as hell, the conversation turned to stripping. I inevitably turned it on, telling him that I get really aroused giving lapdances, and that his assumption that I was just doing this to put myself through grad school was all wrong. Before long, he asked for a dance, and ended up spending a whole chunk of time with me in the lapdance area! Well, he came back the other day, and again, our banter followed the academic-sexual trajectory, with lucrative results for me!

Next was a guy I call Ketchup Popsicle. I'd met him randomly several months ago and we hit it off. He's a salesman, as he told me, and I told him that he was so smooth he could sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in white gloves. (Name that movie reference!) Anyway, he gets a bunch of dances and does the unbuttoning his shirt through them. On the one hand, I really like when the guy sits down for his dance and opens his shirt: it probably means he wants you to scratch and stroke his chest (and not suck his dick!), which is good news for me. But on the other hand, I feel like the visual image of a bare chested guy getting a lapdance screams "brothel" and would not look favorable in a raid or on a surveillance camera. Regardless, he's got these interesting red freckles on his chest, which make me think maybe he WAS eating an actual Ketchup Popsicle earlier in the day, and thus, my nickname comes full circle.

I ended my day with my favorite new customer. He's this half-Bengali, half-Italian (yes, crazy mixture!) 24 year old kid, who's so cute I'd adopt him if there weren't some background check procedure that prevented strippers from legally adopting their strip club patrons. He's been coming in for me for about a month or so, and he's so drama-free and adorable that it drives me nuts. I took off a shift last week, and he actually "spent the money he would have spent that day" before and after my day off to make up for lost time! (And in this case, time IS money!) How cute is that? Hernik's his name, and sometimes I feel he's too innocent for his own good. Like, one time he said "I'm so glad we're both single." And I was like, what do you mean? And he said "Well, if we weren't, neither of us would be here!" Cute!

And that was my day! I saw another customer of mine lurking, but I actually bypassed him because my good regulars were there, and I LOVE when I can afford to be picky. I avoided that gross guy because he only gets 2 lapdances from me and spends both of them convincing me to meet him outside. Check out what he said to me last time! He was like, "We don't have to meet for sex. Just for blow job and breast massage." Ew, I think I just lost my Thanksgiving appetite. I told him that's not something I'm into. But THEN (get this!) after the lapdances, he asked me if I had ever had sex, and I told him that the last person I'd had sex with was my ex-boyfriend. He gave me this long speech about how I shouldn't sleep with my boyfriends, because otherwise none of them will marry me and it will take the allure out of marriage for the guy if he's already slept with me. Yes, this was right after he propositioned me for hotel room fellatio, which, apparently, screams marriage material.

Thanksgiving thankfulness for all the wonderful customers who pay my bills, make me laugh, or remind me that strip club patrons aren't all douchebags!

Heart On

2010-10-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

I met the most awesome guy at work the other day! He was Lebanese American, about 50 years old, and was born and raised in the U.S.

In other words, he was Tony Shalhoub! Adrian Monk! Absolutely adorable! He showered me with bills when I was on stage and told me to come sit with him. I did; he asked me where I was from. I did my standard "If you guess correctly, I'll sit on your lap. If you guess wrong, you buy a dance from me." Irani? Nope! Well, you're too well spoken to be Hispanic. (I'll pretend he didn't say that.) Afghanistan? Nope. Finally, I told him.

He was great, because he kept sticking four or five singles down my dress every few minutes, telling me I had wonderful breasts and should never get implants. (To me, that's code for "I like 'em sort of small!")

"Jesus, you're driving me crazy. Let's go for a lapdance." On the walk over to the lapdance area, he told me that he'd just had a _ put in his heart (can't remember the word) and that he was recovering nicely, but was supposed to avoid overexcitement. Halfway through the second lapdance, he gets up and says "I just got an erection, and I'm not supposed to get an erection, so I need to stop." He paid me for more than the two dances, and excused himself.

So I just got to thinking about erection stuff in the strip club. (If it were a dissertation, it'd be "De-Boned: The politics and poetics of erections in the gentleman's club scene".) I mean, I sort of assume that all guys get a boner during a lapdance, especially if it's high contact, and that ALL guys get hard with the heavy grinding/contact of the champagne room. But every once in a while, you get a character who says something like "sorry about that, I guess you can feel that I'm excited." And I'm like, umm, yeah! Isn't that the whole point?

But then of course, you DO have the other extreme, the rare guy with the raging hard-on sitting and watching the stage set, titillated by all the public displays of breasts, thighs, and ass. I actually met a guy once who came INTO the strip club wearing a condom (and a pair of pants, of course), sat around for a long time, and then blew his load during lapdance grinding. And who can forget the lanky guy in the suit who used to come into the club, sit in a dimly lit corner, and actually jerk off through his pants while watching the stage set!?

I guess we'd be in grave error to essentialize penis behavior in the strip club environment. The sexual fulfillment these boys look for can range from something shy of an erection to something that ends up requiring a mid-lunch hour trouser change!

No Common Ground (Zero) Between Us

2010-10-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

Tiffany: perhaps the most stereotypical embodiment of what lay people think of when they hear the word stripper. Tall, slender, very tanned, bleached blond hair, a couple tattoos, fake breasts. Constantly in the middle of drama. Last week, it was that her boyfriend was doing steroids and lying to her about it. The week before was a feared accidental pregnancy.

She's also quite the freelance artist. She has one customer - a middle-aged Jewish lawyer - who comes in to drink with her and point out the other girls he likes. She plays broker between the other girls and him, convincing the girls to meet with her and the guy outside for a thousand bucks, and all they have to do is engage in two-way oral sex. Apparently, a lot of the girls are down for this.

Whatever, her and I don't interact too much.

But during a lull, her, me, my stripper friend Sheila, and the house mom are chilling in the dressing room and Tiffany begins with how much she hopes Donald Trump buys up the Ground Zero mosque property while she sucks on a cigarette and adjusts her clip-on hair extensions.

"We definitely don't need any more of that Arab, Muslim stuff. This is New York."

Sheila glances at me nervously and sympathetically. I shrug at her. Our exchange goes unnoticed.

The housemom responds like it's a no-brainer. "For real. I don't understand why people have a problem with Trump fixing this whole problem."

Remember the good old days when people would keep their bigotry private? You know, wait till the brown Muslim woman isn't in the room before you even go there? Or, is there something about the fact that I'm in a thong and clear heels that de-links me from my Islamic identity?

The whole "what Muslims are like" has surfaced several times at the club among the girls (and on my favorite Stripperweb forums as well!). I've heard girls talking about Muslim/Pakistani/A-rab customers as, of course, repressed and hypersexual. Well, what do you know, the military aren't the only people still subscribing to the bullshit put forth in The Arab Mind!

You know, for imperial armies it was/is often important to know the culture and psyche of those who were being conquered so that total domination would be that much easier. (Hence, the recruitment of "culture experts" for the Iraq/Afghanistan war efforts!)

But, I wonder if the same is true of strippers and sex workers? Like, are there off-the-book ethnographies of "how to be a good sex worker for your (insert race here) customer"? If so, my people sure do have a bad rap. They don't treat their women right; they are undersexed and oversexed all at once; they're really bad in bed; they cheat on their wives; they honor-kill when their daughters wear tight pants.

Also, there are ways that black, Asian, and Latino sexualities are essentialized as well, in this context of commodified sexuality. What goes unmarked is white male middle-class sexuality - totally normative and unmarked.

The already-depoliticized identities of terrorists are evident in the sexual identities attributed to them too. Of course, you don't have to hit a strip club dressing room to hear that: we already know that the War On Terror has gained mainstream gay and feminist supporters through the rhetoric that the Arab world's gender dynamics are fucked and need to be fixed. In other words, the need to bring our sexual-rights superiority to the rest of the world justifies bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan.

Alas, Muslim women DO really need saving. It's just, we need to be saved from hearing anti-Muslim sexualized bigotry while we're just trying to eat some animal crackers in the dressing room during a break between lapdances and stage sets.

Hannibal Lecture

2010-10-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

Last week, I met a couple of guys who were visiting NYC from Puerto Rico. They both took a liking to me, but weren't quite generous enough to be noteworthy (I.e. one lapdance each). One of them (his middle name is Hannibal, FYI, and no, I don't normally share any "real" info about my customers but it was just too perfect to pass up the pun) was very friendly and asked for my email address so he could get in touch next time he was in the city, and of course I obliged. Sit back and enjoy the following e-mail "exchanges" (if you can call them that) that ensued:

him: its the PR guy you met

me: was great meeting you [please note: this is my first, last, and only response to him]

him: I wrote poem last year in a dream of this woman believe it was you I wrote as soon I get back I will send it to you I really enjoy it

him: In few hours I will be flying back to the island I wish I had the guts to take u with me

him: here's me [photo attached]

him: i wrote this a few years ago
Por el fuego de esos ojos...
Me he perdido en mi mismo
le declare la guerra a mi razón,
conocí el cielo y el infierno
una historia de amor...

Yo que era palabra.... me volví silencios,
y fui prisionero de esa luz
tenían esos ojos, el misterio,
el Cristo y la cruz.

Por el fuego de esos ojos...
Que dolía mirarlos,
era el mar más azul... Una risa
era el negro más oscuro... Una herida
y un color de adiós.

Gitana de magia y sombras
quiero ser tu aliento,
para estar en ti
cuando me nombras...

Por el fuego de esos ojos...
He mentido y he pecado,
tengo un padre nuestro
y la marca de los clavos en mis manos.

Llevo en mi pecho tu nombre
y en mi corazón diez mil latidos,
y cuando te marchas todo se vuelve oscuro,
si hasta la luz he perdido...

Por el fuego de esos ojos...
Vendería mí pasado
mi Dios.... Y mi destino.

Como morderé tu boca en el aire?
Como regalarte la ultima lagrima
de mi andar cansado?

Como decirte que soy el que esperas?
Si nunca...
Nunca me has mirado...

him: I never got your name but that’s one of the things i don’t like about NY, you never get warm enough. Just giving you a piece of me to remember me by, I don’t expect much but I would love to hear from you. Let me know the real you and if you don’t have any trouble this is my number xxx-xxx-xxxx Have a nice day and fulfill your destiny

him: i'm back on the island

him: here's a translation of my poem [for some reason the translation was into Hindi, in Devanagiri script; he must have gotten his hands on google translator]

him: How are you today? I know you wont answer my email but i will keep my promise to write to you. Today under heavy rain we were workng for a new project for homeless person, a construction of a safe heaven. Though we dont have a winter as yours we do have rainy season like this one. We hope to build this project in a few months / Well have to go , kisses

him: here, you can translate this with Babylon translator
Hay maderas oscuras y profundas
como tus ojos y tus cabellos.
Porque tus ojos y tus cabellos son
como maderas profundas y charoladas.

Hay maderas suaves y livianas
como tu piel y tu alegría.
Porque tu piel y tu alegría son
como maderas suaves y livianas.

Hay maderas recias y macizas
como tus piernas y tus espaldas.
Porque tus piernas y tus espaldas son
como maderas recias y macizas.

Hay maderas húmedas y rojas
como la piel de tus labios y de tu lengua.
Porque la piel de tus labios y de tu lengua es
como una madera roja y empapada de savia.

Hay maderas olorosas y vivas
como el olor de tu cuerpo.
Porque el olor de tu cuerpo es
como el olor de las maderas
cortadas en los tiempos de lluvias.

Hay maderas que al ser trabajadas
dan notas musicales y perfectas.
Tu amor es una nota musical y perfecta
como el sonido que dan ciertas maderas
cuando son trabajadas.

Hay maderas que se quejan en las noches de lluvia
y en las tardes de tormenta.
Porque eres triste, y esto te embellece y purifica,
te pareces a esas maderas que se quejan
en las noches de lluvia y en las tardes de tormenta.

Hay maderas que tienen un sabor y perfume
tan propios que, cuando se las huele o se las besa,
ya no son olvidadas nunca más en la vida.
Porque eres fatalmente inolvidable,
te pareces a esas maderas que se recuerdan
hasta la muerte cuando se las huele o se las besa.

him: Hi , Im still waiting for that miracle to receive a email from you. The last two days has been wonderful, sunny and breezy very nice for the beach. You met my brother that day and all my family is the states. Im the only one living in Puerto Rico. Just to give you some information about me. I was born by accident the six day of _ of 1957 in Fort Brooke, in the left side of landmark of Puerto Rico call the Morro (fortresses build seventeen century by the Spain). The accident was that I came to this earth two months earlier. The reason my mother was a singer with a big band called the Nighthawks and they were celebrating the day after they play at the Escambron Nite Club for member of the US army. At midnight she went to a fairy’s wheel at the third turns she broke water and this kid was born in a US military base in the old San Juan near a fortress a 3 king day at 2:17 am by name _ Hanibal _ ,jr.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I'm assuming this isn't the last I'll hear from Hannibal...But can someone please tell me what his problem is? Feel free to submit thoughts in any language; I can use Babylon translator if need be ;)

Guy Ritchie/Gigolo Complex

2010-10-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, my title is a failed attempt to come up with something like the gender-opposite equivalent of the "Madonna/Whore" complex. You know what I'm talking about; the psychological complex in which a male begins to see all women as either (and only) pure and non-sexual, or dirty and whorish. Fine, fine, Guy-Ritchie/Gigolo does nothing for this. Celibate/Stud or Priest/Player?

I think I'm starting to embody something like the female equivalent of Madonna/Whore! You're either a strip club perv OR a regular guy I'd be into.

This goes against everything I (theoretically) believe in! I certainly don't think there's anything inherently wrong with strip clubs, pornography, or paid sex. But you (o blog readers!) are familiar with the frustrations I've dealt with relating to customers. In general, the fact that a guy is a strip club regular, or pays for sex, automatically just serves as a turn-off - even if he's attractive in all other ways.

I found I've (problematically) divided the world up into two types of men: The guys who (1) lie to their partners (i.e. cheating when they're supposedly monogamous) and/or spend spare time and cash at strip clubs, and (2) the guys who aren't "overly" into porn, ogling women, or getting more sex than they already have in their lives. And the former category of men I want nowhere near my vagina. This sucks for me. I believe that sexual freedom between consenting adults is necessary and should be unstigmatized. And I think it's sad when women "don't let" their husbands watch porn (or get into watching it themselves!) or forbid their boyfriends from a lapdance or two at the strip club.

But at the same time, I can't deny the rising resentment I have toward straight men who (and not that these are necessarily connected factors) suck in bed because they're oversaturated with images of a world of plugging various holes being the definition of sex. Who secretly cheat on their partners. Who assume a sense of entitlement to getting themselves off, or see getting you off as a favor of some sort rather than a sexual act itself.

At work, I'm obviously confronted with the "Gigolo/Player" type (though certainly not all guys at strip clubs are that way!), and in my personal life I'm close to the other "type" of men. Of course, in recent months this dichotomy has become more and more complicated - with nice guys in the strip club space and pervy sketchos in my personal space, and I'm ending up frustrated!

But regarding my world view: what kind of dichotomy of heteromasculinity am I dealing with here? What would Freud say (other than to give birth to a boy...)?

How much do you want Tibet he's crazy?

2010-10-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

My Tibetan-Indian customer who sells t-shirts in Times Square is interesting. Married, 2 children. We converse only in Hindi with each other. He's very easy - he never forces me to drink, never forces physical contact, never tries to get me outside the club. He's good for about $150/visit, plus a few drink tickets. He's also, notably, the ONLY desi guy I've ever met with a serious foot fetish. He'll grab my foot and put it on his crotch during a dance, or simply gaze at my big toe.

Anyway, last time we were talking, and he asked me (in Hindi): "Did Gandhi-ji have a wife?" I went into way too long an explanation of how Gandhi was married, had several children, and then declared himself celibate. I was looking at the stage while I told this story, not at him, so when I felt a drop of moisture hit my foot, I assumed it was my sweaty "fake" vodka tonic. Not so! It was a tear from his eye! He started crying during my Gandhi story!!! I was puzzled, but he said (in English): "I just like Gandhi so much." (Okay, but if you like Gandhi so much, wouldn't you have known about his celibacy proclamation?) Then I went on to tell him a few more facts about Gandhi, including his romps in the sack with the "bed warmer" Abha, and he fought back tears.

I'm sorry, but if you're going to cry about Gandhi, wouldn't it be when you hear about him shedding his South African English-speaking lawyer bullshit and spinning cloth in India? Why, oh, why, would you choose to get all choked about Gandhi's unusual celibacy? And why, when I google "Gandhi celibacy" does a photo of Nadia Suleman come up? Great, great mysteries...

True-ancy

2010-09-02T06:55:00.001-07:00

"I can't come here anymore."

Eventually, your regular customer *will* say this, and may even disappear for a while.

In my experience, it's NEVER true. In fact, I have a hunch that "I can't see you anymore"/"I can't come here anymore"/"I'm done with strip clubs" is the guy's way to see if you'll get sad, ask him not to leave, offer to meet him outside, etc. Classic pathetic bullshit.

Remember "we are on a lake" guy? He'd emailed me the following: "we are on the lake. this is a fine evening.....not very hot....nor very cold....cool breeze from the lake....i am there....and you are there too....

now we are at the middle of the lake.....no other boats are near by......far away we can see the sun setting slowly.......full bright red sun.......sometimes hiding in the clouds....and sometimes peeping out of it.....slowly immersing into the water.....we can see ducks moving around.....maa goes in front and the ducklings follow....in a line. some times it lifts out of the water and shake its body....we are standing in the openness.....you standing in front of me....i am holding you from behind.....we are just standing there ... looking into the vastness....staring at the stars now slowly emerging.....the moon slowly ascends.....your face is shining in the moonlight.....what a beauty to look at your face......you smiling with your eyes closed now.....touching my heart you telling me 'what is inside here matters'......i am deeply touched.....tears come into my eyes.....how soon you found it, oh my baby......you are always with me since the moment i saw you.......always,always thinking about you......

my dear...i can't wait any longer to see you......i miss you....."

...and I'd shamelessly mocked him on my blog?

Well, several months ago he'd told me he wanted to take me to Macy's and buy me whatever I wanted, and I'd told him I can't go out with a customer. He got all sad and said he couldn't believe after all this time I thought of him as a customer (even though I faithfully charged him for each and every lapdance) and said he couldn't come see me anymore.

By August, after a several month absence, he emailed me to see where I was working, and moved his poetic ass over to my new club to patronize me. (Or maybe I patronize him. It's hard to say.) This new club, with it's privacy and lax security, has brought out a part of him I'd never seen before. Yep, the good ole cock 'n balls, which, upon whip-outtage, made me leap a good three feet away and demand that they be hidden from sight. His cock-eyed scheme to whip it out just didn't mesh with his previous romantic, teary eyed, sentimental persona, but hey, we've all got multiple voices, yes? (Yet, this incident had me thinking more Bactine than Bakhtin!)

There's another customer who I must have meet over a year ago. He's not a big money guy (maybe a few dances per visit), but he really wants to meet for dinner. (He asks all the dancers this, by the way.) Upon being told I don't date customers, he says the classic idiotic line: "Then I won't be your customer anymore!". I finally shifted my approach with him to "I heard you asked Viva and Alina to dinner to, and it sort of broke my heart because I thought I was special." Anyway, he "quit" strip clubs back in May and is back in full swing as of last week, still persistent with his dinner invitations.

These guys that try to terminate their strip-club penchants? They'll be back...

Chased Women

2010-07-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

"What's the difference between an orthodox Muslim woman and a stripper?"

No, this is not a setup for some terrible joke (for once), it's a serious question. The more you think about it, stripping and veiling are like two sides of the same coin.

Both assume a certain inherent tendency for men to ogle or objectify women's bodies.

Both presume that the way a woman dresses is responsible for deflecting or attracting that inherent masculine gaze.

Both strippers and hijabis are presumed, popularly, to be exploited, oppressed, perpetuating patriarchy, or suffering from a false consciousness. (And, I would argue that in several cases, both have actually subverted the power of the masculine gaze by controlling it themselves - either by veiling or charging a fee.)

As someone who has both worn a hijab and clear heels, I can say that the experience of each is a dramatically embodied one. Just as strippers pick gown cuts that minimize belly fat or colors that would look appealing on stage, hijabis hem (often times, literally) and haw over just what length tunic is feasible over jeans or a long skirt to conform to their interpretation of appropriate Islamic dress code.

The sad thing is, I've heard enough hijabis throw around words like "ho" and "skank," and enough strippers talk about the barbaric Islamic oppression of women, for either group to realistically - and substantially - get together to realize that their marginalization, stigmatization, and even their sources of empowerment are more similar than they'd realize.

Hated Hiatus

2010-07-07T12:07:00.001-07:00

I've been on a short leave from work for personal reasons, which is likely to extend to a total of 2 months away from the clubs! It's been 2 weeks and already, since I started dancing two years ago, this is the longest I've gone without getting naked for money. It fucking sucks! I keep trying to justify to myself that everyone needs time off, and that this will give me time to do schoolwork, socialize, take care of my body. But guess what? I do those fucking things all the time, AND I get to strip/make money/have fun at work.

Being away from work is strange. I looked down the other day and saw something I haven't seen in a long time: pubes! I thought Bush's term was over, but nope! Shorn muff, I mean, shore'nuff, it's back!!

I had sort of a 'working lunch' with Irish Gold yesterday. He gave me a nice chunk of change to meet him in the real world (movie, followed by lunch and beer), since he can't meet me in the club these days. I generally don't go out with customers, but I'm starting to think that if the customer is a) attractive, b) not-sociopathic, and c) willing to pay for my time so we don't lose 'client' status, then why not? Okay, several reasons: 1) They may think it's the first step toward paid or unpaid sex. 2) Now that they can see you in the real world, they may not want to see you at the club anymore. 3) For the nice/charming customers you have to dejectedly turn down for dates, it's sort of hard to transition into the "yeah, I'll meet you for coffee. Wanna know my rates?" conversation. But him and I had a good time, and there was no pressure for anything beyond seeing me. Then again, he's decidedly "less sexual than most guys," according both to him and my assessment of him, which may be why it genuinely seemed that he just wanted to hang.

Regardless, it isn't the same as working at the club. This might be the first job that I both love and am good at; also, this is the first time since age 14 that I've been jobless.

Self-Plug

2010-07-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

I'm pumped! One of my blog posts will be read tonight at the Red Umbrella Diaries event tonight! Check it out - from what I've read, Audacia Ray's work is pretty awesome.

The Production of Space

2010-06-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Imprisoned by four poles
(to the left, the swively one I hate dancing on
to my right, a drunken customer,
behind me, the mirror,
ahead of me, four investment bankers)
I did sexy-squats, but received no tips.

-Hat tip, Octavio Paz

Yes, LeFebvre might be horrified by my flippant and frivolous blog posts. But here's my nod to him in an attempt to understand the ridiculous, arbitrary, and orthodox ways in which strip clubs produce their social geographies and construct identities all their own.

This is based on my recent migration over to a third NYC club. The first club I worked at, a neighborhood-y club known for it's lax champagne room rules and range of "types" of women, was radically different from my second club, in midtown Manhattan - a commercial NYC strip club catering to a very particular type of "classy" experience (i.e. $11 for a bottled water at the bar). The third club is neither of these, and perhaps having some sort of identity crisis as it tries to package itself as a "classy" club to avoid the inevitable impending gentrification shut-down of local topless bars.

It got me thinking about the specific ways clubs manufacture this notion of "classiness" (and the inherent bullshit, racism, and - as the word classy itself implies - classism) of the process.

Is your strip club a dive? Are you trying to upscale your club and bring in top notch girls and clientele? Follow these simple steps and CLASS YOUR CLUB.

1) Dim the lights. I mean, way the fuck down. The dimmer the lights, the more you can get away with projecting an image of myriad girls without stretch marks or acne without actually hiring them. Also, dim lights serve as a mask for the very same skeezy behavior (heavy grinding, nipple contact) that happens in other clubs without it being easily visible.

2) Put your bouncers in suits and matching ties. At dive bars, the bouncers and customers are barely distinguishable. In fact, at my first club the bouncer used to wear t-shirts that read: "6.9: A great idea, fucked up by a period", or "I support single moms: I go to strip clubs." No joke. However, he did look out for me, even in the absence of being uniformed in a gold tie and secret service earpiece.

3) Have your girls cover up their tattoos. This will look tacky as fuck, largely because covering tattoo sleeves with Dermablend every other day at work is exhausting and not always entirely effective (depending on the ink). Also, there is a chance that a customer will have to explain to his wife just how he got heavy foundation on the front of his shirt. But still! Tattoo-less girls on stage will suggest that they're college-educated, drug free, and worth spending an hour of time with in the champagne-room.

4) Schedule only a small number of black girls per shift. This rule can be modified if the black girls are half white, very light skinned, or can pass for something other than "black." In fact, you might want to give your DJ explicit rules (as did my former club) not to put two black girls on stage at the same time. Don't worry, lawsuits about sexual harassment or racial discrimination don't apply to you.

5) Infantilize the girls who work at your club. Fine them for being late, talk down to them when they don't comply with your rules that they squeeze money out of customers from drinks and champagne rooms (even though you give them no commission for ordering drinks and a very small share of the champagne room earnings), scold them when they chat with the DJ, and limit the amount of time they can spend relaxing in the dressing room while taking breaks.

6) Two words: Fictive Commodities. Karl Pole-anyi would be proud. Find ways to commodify anything and everything in the club. Sell themed g-strings, offer half-price "fully clothed" lapdances at the bar, offer a $2,000 "blue room" (likely a glorified brothel) for those who are above the $500 champagne room.

7) Monitor the girls' whereabouts. Make sure they aren't chatting with the DJ in the DJ booth, that they are sitting at the appropriate end of the bar during slow hours, and that they are on stage for "roll call" at the beginning of their shift. Defiance of these rules can be addressed through scolding, fines, or both.

Follow these simple steps, and you can sit back and relax as Long Island-dwelling finance execs, Columbia University med school professors, and Park Slope-gentrifying artist types patronize your fine establishment!

Yes, the difference between the classy club and the others is mostly smoke and mirrors. Or, more appropriately, no-smoking except in the champagne room and well-placed mirrors to make the club seem more spacious. The $10 Heineken is just as cold and tasty at the dive bar where it costs $4, but the extra $6 you're paying ensures you don't have to sit next to a construction worker or guy in a du-rag, and you won't be disturbed by happy hour guys hooting and hollering at whatever game is on ESPN.

Lexapro? Sex a pro!

2010-06-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Is it me, or is every strip club regular on Lexapro? (Or maybe the strip club population just mirrors the antidepressant-popping general population.) Something about visiting a topless bar makes you Lexa-prone, it seems. This is the new It Drug, and apparently it should be taken with a full glass of water and a high-contact lapdance.

Or maybe it's just depression in general. Something about being bummed out makes you want to see girls with their bum out? Down in the dumps, like a truck, truck, truck?

My first Lexapro-loaded customer was last year. He has, on this blog, been referred to as "Tuition Guy" or "DVD Guy" on separate occasions. He took Lexapro because he said he suffered severe anxiety because of his extremely high-pressure, high-ranking job. (Note: He designed movie posters.) Okay, I'm being mean. I really liked him before he got annoying. But anyway, he said Lexapro was great for treating his anxiety but he "didn't like feeling like he needed his head shrinked" and hated visiting the psychiatrist. He also said it made it easy to get an erection but very hard (puns intended) to come. Weirdly, he used to say he was on "LePRAXo" (and so I thought that's what the drug was called at first). Then again, he also pronounced "Biopic" the way you'd say "myopic" and when I said I use turmeric in my cooking he corrected me and said "you mean toom-AIR-ic?".

Japanese Architect is also on the drug. He started off awesome, but as the weeks go by he starts demanding more from me. (This week's request is a topless photo. Last week was that I "lick the tip." I think I made some joke about not wanting to put my tongue on gratuity.) Anyway, he's been married since his early 20s and he's miserable with his wife. He's just not attracted to her anymore, even though they're still friends. He just can't seem to get sexually aroused by her and is mad depressed by it. He also feels powerless to move out or get divorced. Anyhow, he tells me the drug sort of helps with his depression, but not really. He also tells me that his dick doesn't get up on this drug, even though he gets extremely aroused.

The third Lexa-Bro is an awesome awesome customer of mine. He's really smart and sweet, and totally gets what the job is about. He's also written some books that I recently ordered and am planning to read this summer. He actually told me his whole family is on the drug (wife, daughter, himself). He says he hopes that being on the drug will make his 16 year old daughter stop calling him a "motherfucking asshole." I'll drink to that!

Khanvict Music

2010-05-18T19:26:00.001-07:00

So I have this new customer. He buys seven or eight dances, and then leaves. He's an Indian guy who must be close to 70, but his dye-job hides his age very well. I think he fell for me because he likes my Hindi and my heiny. Our lapdances consist of him trying to perform cunnilingus on my bellybutton and my pushing him away, then him telling me he'd give me a generous mehr if I agree to be his second wife, and various lackluster conversations in Hindi. (FYI, he also told me he fucked one of his "servants" back in Calcutta. His wife found out and was pissed, hence the move to the US. See! I told you reasons for immigration are complex!!!) The lapdance dirty-talk is repetitive and hilarious, as it mostly consists of: how much he wants to fuck me, but he would only do it after we got married; that his dick can't get hard unless someone sucks on it for about 5 minutes; recollections of the 75-100 occasions on which he's paid for sex.

Anyway, last time he came in and told me he dreamed about me. He said he lay in bed, put lotion on his hand and "massaged" himself thinking about me. Then he told me he wrote me a song, and he began singing to me in a very ghazal-singer-esque voice: "Tumhe chutne ko dil karta hain. Tumhare gaand khaane ko dil karta hain." (Roughly translated? My heart wants to fuck you. My heart wants to give you a rim job.) Basically, he's singing me an Akon song in Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan style...Let's call him Akhan!

Okay, okay, I'm doing that thing again where everyone sounds like a crazy/perverted customer. Not true! Simply just fun to blog about! Irish Gold and I had an awesome conversation today about Pat Buchanan's wicked conservatism yet fierce pro-Palestinianism and the American obsession with abortion and "life" debates. I also kicked it with this new guy who said he'd never heard someone discuss the Malcolm X assassination while topless, leading to a hilarious whole conversation about what appropriate strip club banter usually consists of. Not to mention, I air-guitared on stage every time the DJ played a shitty song (i.e. Live's "Lighting Crashes"). A fun day!

Tiring Tirade

2010-05-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I got a new customer, James. Or, as I began calling him, Sissy James. Sissy James gets turned on by humiliation. The first time we met, he asked if I was into domination at all. Of course, I indulged. He ended up coming in every time I was working, flashing me the bra he was wearing under his manly outerwear, and bowing his head in shame as I mocked his humility during a few "lapdances." "No, mistress, I'm not a man, I'm just a sissy." Sometimes he'd give me a $20 bill to go dance for another guy so he could feel ashamed. When I'd dance for him, I wasn't quite sure what to do, especially since I'd established that I was his goddess and he wasn't worthy of even glancing at my beauty. It was sort of hilarious, but I felt it getting kind of repetitive. I'd call him a sissy, a pansy, tell him he wasn't worthy of me, tell him he wasn't a real man, all with slight variations, on shuffle. Sometimes I'd lightly slap him across the face or pull on his hair. I'd tell him about how some day I'd put a leash on his neck and take him for a walk on all fours. But there was only so much I could do! (My friend rightly pointed out that it was fucked up to mock him for being effeminate, and that perhaps I should instead mock him for having bad gender politics! Hat tip, RP!) The last time he came in, he was wearing adult diapers under his clothes, and also brought a makeup kit so I could put lipstick on him. (He told me that I should use his face as my toilet seat. I didn't, of course, but I did tell him I'd love to.)

The thing is, I got really bored with him, as easy as the whole thing was. (I didn't even have to undress for him!) Or, not bored, but (and, perhaps for the first time ever) at a loss for words. I just couldn't do it anymore. It's like I got domme and dumber. I called him a sissy, a pansy, a nobody, a pussy, a loser, a wimp, "not a real man." And then, I would start at the beginning again. When I ran out of words, I'd ask him to worship me. But all he could produce was a very stifled "You're so excellent, I'm nothing compared to you." Bo-ring. I think he caught on that I wasn't into it, or maybe I just stopped doing it for him, because he hasn't showed up since last week.

Anyway, if you see a guy wearing a Yankee's jacket with a brastrap peeking out, tell him his goddess is going to punish him for going AWOL on me.

Maid In India

2010-05-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

Jesus Christ, for the third time I had an Indian customer today relay to me the memory of fucking a "servant girl." Today's customer was this guy Arun who works in IT and lives in Jersey. (Sorry for helping you narrow it down to about 45,000 possible people!) He told me that when he was a teenager up until he was 21, he was always very horny. (He quantified this by telling me that one day, when he was 20, he masturbated 18 times in 1 day.) But, being from Hyderabad, there was very little time he got to spend alone, particularly with girls. Prostitutes, he said, were out because of fear of the law. Girls from college "were risky, because some issue might develop. They might get pregnant or start pressuring you for marriage. Which, I guess, is the right thing to do. So one time, this girl was cleaning my hostel. I mean, she was like a servant girl. And she used to come all the time to clean, and she was very sexy. I mean, in that village-girl way, wearing her sari and what not. She was Hindu, not Muslim. So anyway she would always complain about her husband, and how bad he was to her, and one day she just fell in my arms crying. And what could I do? I'm a man, and there's a sexy woman in my arms. There was no option. So, it happened." I was like, "oh so you lost your virginity to her?" And he was like "No, I mean, how can you call it losing virginity? I was so excited that I finished in like 2 minutes, less than that even. I like you."

Wow, though. Seriously, I know that domestic workers are often - and have always been - sexualized, often sexually abused, and usually thought of as readily available for appropriate sexual release for men who live in the homes where 'domestics' work. They're like sex workers in maid uniforms! Except instead of black fishnet stockings and a frilly white trim on a black skirt, it's a hand-me-down sari and a revealing blouse.

I appreciate his honesty. He told me that his dick was "practically Muslim" from masturbating so much. (I can only imagine what this means. My guess is that it has something to do with foreskin and circumcision, but lord knows.)

Banal Sex & Restrained Refrains

2010-04-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

I think I speak for all dancers when I tell customers not to consider themselves original for saying any of the following. If I had a crumpled g-string dollar for every time I heard these, I'd be able to buy the house mom's whole stretchy-dress inventory!

-I really only just come to this place for a beer and to look at some pretty girls, but I can't believe my luck finding you.
-You don't belong here. You're way too smart and beautiful. (or any variation on the "you're not like the other girls here/you shouldn't be here" theme)
-I'd rather just give the champagne room money directly to you, so you don't have to give the house a cut. Shall we meet somewhere outside the club?
-There's a connection here, and I know you feel it too.
-With you, it isn't just about sex.
-If you don't have any customers, come sit with me.
-Nothing is sexier than brains and beauty.
-I'm actually not really a strip club guy.

----

Solid Gold Irishman got a little wacky on me today for a minute. Maybe I jinxed it. So I had spent something like 2 hours just chatting with him and giving him some lapdances during the slow hours. Any time we've hung out before he is always really self-conscious & polite about not wanting to monopolize my time, and being completely cool about my talking to other customers.

So today, I was kicking it with him and I saw this customer of mine come in. He's a really cool guy, and has a reputation as Mr. "Never says no to a lapdance", so girls were all over him. I didn't want him to deplete his whole cash stash on everyone but me, so after my stage set, instead of going back to Irish Gold, I went straight to him, chatted, and did about 5 dances for him. As soon as that was done, I got called back on stage again for another set (which included the Third Eye Blind Song "Semi Charmed Life"), and "never says no" guy left. Irish Gold came to tip me on stage and says "What happened to you?" And I said, "I was taking care of another customer." And he was like "Well I was waiting for you, sittin' over there like an idiot." I was stunned, because it's the first time he's been possessive, and his rude tone totally caught me off guard.

When I went back to sit with him he apologized and said he had no right to say that, sorry sorry. And I was nice, and forgiving. But still, shit!

I was in a bad mood after that. There's this weird guy who came in and rapidly earned a reputation for being really cheap. I saw him in the corner and all the girls were steering clear like he had swine flu or something, so I did the same. Then, at one point, there were no customers at all so I was like, what the hell. So I sat next to him and started chatting and had some sort of flashback to him giving me lots of money! I never forget a face...unless it's in the distance under a blacklight. Up close, I totally remembered him having cash. And he totally remembered me, and told me all these facts about myself I'd told him last time (including my fake real name) and then he proceeded to get like 17 lapdances from me. Awesome. He was drunk enough that I didn't have to do anything, really, but sit on his lap. He speaks with an Indian accent, and looks South Asian, but he swears he's from Cairo. He can't speak a lick of Arabic, nor can he answer any basic questions about his supposed hometown, so I get the sense he's totally lying about himself. He also claims to be a resident of Los Angeles, where he pumps gas at a gas station, and is visiting NYC for business...yet he didn't know there was an earthquake there last week. He has a thick Indian accent yet swears up and down that he was born and raised in LA. Okay, so he's totally lying about himself, and he's really socially weird. He looks like an unattractive version of this hot guy I went to high school with. So during a dance, he grabs my ass and my thigh and squeezes/scratches really hard, enough to draw blood. (Cut to image of Egypt Boy at a Pictionary party attempting to sketch "blood" on an easel...) No, okay, he didn't draw blood, but it hurt! That, plus my bad mood, and I totally smacked him, open palm, across the face and shoved his chest, and then made him give me $40 for "being an asshole." He did.

Other than that, a good day. I'm having trouble adjusting to this new house rule... Wait for it: Any DJ who plays "R&B or Hip Hop will be fired ON THE SPOT". Yes, that sign hangs right under the invisible sign that says "No dogs or black folks." For real, the owner of the club threatened the DJ's who were playing "hip hop and R&B." It's totally fucked, especially since I always used to request the Roots and Outkast to make my day go by a little faster. Not only have I lost that, we have no more Kanye West or R. Kelly jams, AKA Strip club anthems! For real? This is New York City! So now, I spend stage sets entertaining myself with the aforementioned "Third Eye Blind," along with "I touch myself," "Friday I'm in Love," and of course, I also go dancing with... Mr. Brownstone!

Bollywood Beats

2010-04-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

So there's this girl who dances at the club. She's from Tibet, but lies and tells everyone (except me) that she's either Chinese or Hawaiian. It's a confidentiality thing for her. But she does speak Hindi and knows her Bollywood tunes, and once she even played me this song in my honor.

Anyway, the other day we were getting dressed and I started whistling Aap Jaisa Koi. She chimed in, of course, and by the time we got to "baat bun jaaye" I realized that two of the Russian bartenders were singing along! I was like "Damn, girls, you know Bollywood songs?" And they were like "Yeah, we love Bollywood in Russia!" And then the slew of Brazilian girls to my left were like "Bollywood EVERYWHERE!" And they started singing "Pehal Nasha." This Boricuan girl nodded in agreement and said "Acha, acha."

Lesson learned! Bollywood rules the fucking world. Though I suppose the alternate theory is that watching Bollywood turns you into a stripper. Wouldn't that be funny? Instead of pole dancing, it'd be garba-raas on stage. And rather than lotion on the legs and baby oil on the arms, the girls would use henna on their hands and coconut oil in their hair. I already have the perfect stripper name for Madhuri Dixit...(too obvious.) Ahh, imagine a world with more desi strippers. We could take the "poor" out of Kapoor, and all the Singhs could dance.

Aaja nachle, indeed!

A Few Good Men

2010-02-18T17:48:00.000-08:00

The Good Customer. Elusive, rare, often just an illusion. But I have to say, there are some guys who are just solid, solid gold.

My new Irishman regular has reminded me that I need to stop stigmatizing/ridiculing "strip club customers" as some sort of homogenous group. Yes, perhaps many of them are grabby, or stingy, or sexist, or stalkery, or highly self-absorbed. Yes, maybe some of them have questionable STI's. (Who can forget this guy?)

And even with the GOOD customers, there's usually a catch.

For instance, take my aformentioned architect friend (blueprint blueballs guy). He's really nice, and very sweet and kind and respectful of my time as an employee of the club. But it only took him two visits before he started pressing me to meet him outside. As of this week, now that he knows I am not likely to go out with him, he's told me he probably won't be visiting me at the club anymore.

Then there was DVD/girlfriend guy who was hot and interesting. But then he went and split up with his girlfriend because of hopes of being with me and started showing up at the club all the time and got massively annoying.

Generally, "good customer"ness is a short-lived trait. It's a matter of time before you get tired of me, start doubting my motives for being nice to you, start spending less money, or press me to meet you outside.

Mr. Ireland has reminded me that the good customer doesn't always need a fatal flaw. Like I said in my last post, this guy is super politicized, really intelligent, humble, and generous. He never talks down about strippers, never makes excuses or feels the need to justify why he's in the place to begin with, and has no delusions about the commercial nature of our relationship. In other words, he's perfectly happy to fork over money for a good (bounded-authentic) afternoon with me, without trying to turn it into a date, sex, or therapy. (I seriously need to knock on wood... Quick! Get me a customer's crotch!)

Mr. Ireland goes on the list with this guy, and my favorite flamingly gay customer who takes me to the champagne room to chat and get drunk on mimosas.

Then again, this isn't a tough list to top...

Valentine's Pay

2010-02-12T20:19:00.000-08:00

Holy crap! Today was our work Valentine's Day party. All the girls had to wear lingerie, which was awesome because it beats the synthetic glittery stretch material we wear normally. It could have been topped only by a "pajamas + slippers" theme. But, wow! The boys were out today, and a-spendin'!

The day started with this customer, a new guy, taking a liking to me and grabbing me for a couple of dances. A Japanese American architect, I had him at some pun about blueprints and blueballs. Generous tipper, nice guy, and definitely in the mood for love. So he's been married for 10 years, and hasn't had sex in 5. I, apparently, am the first person he's told this to.

Then came Mr. Ireland. This guy is a total sweetheart! He's deeply political and loves to talk about the similarities between the Irish and Palestinian people's history. He's also awesomely generous, very much into me, and a complete gentleman.

By the end of the day, the list of "nice, generous, and sweet" customers was a lengthy one! There was only ONE asshole today, and he's sort of a regular customer of mine who got completely hammered. Yes, he was an asshole. He told the bartender "I'm a dentist, and I know bad breath when I smell it, and you have bad breath." He told me, "You have small breasts. You should get a boob job." It was annoying, but he followed up most of his insults with a FIFTY DOLLAR tip. No joke. Every time he pissed me off, he'd drunkenly fumble through his pockets and pull out a crumpled wad of $50s and hand me one. (He'd also mumble "Now don't look at all my money!") He did the same thing with the other girls he'd offended. Then he told me, "I came here just to see you today. Wouldn't it piss you off if I took another girl to the champagne room?" And he actually did it. It would have been annoying except that he'd already given me a lot of cash.

Randomly, Thomson Thomson showed up!!!! I haven't seen the guy since before the raid, months and months ago. I thought I'd never see him again, especially since the time he tried to "shush" me when I told him not to finger-fuck me and he complained to another girl that I "lack dedication." But apparently, he's been hanging out at the strip club across the street from my previous club, and a girl who works there told him where to find me. He came by, gave me a nice tip, and said "I can't buy dances from you here because it's all out in the open, and you know how much I like intimacy." Gawd, whadda loser.

But seriously, we milked Valentine's Day for all it was worth. The Brazilian non-English speaking girls brought notebooks with them that had English messages written in them, and when a customer showed up, they'd reach into a Duane Reade bag and pull out a blank Hallmark card and copy a message from their notebook into the card. I wonder if these guys keep their stripper gifts in a secret drawer at their desk at work so their poor wives don't find them.

These boys have been struck by Stupid's Arrow! And I ain't complainin'...

Not sequitur

2010-02-04T19:48:00.001-08:00

The following songs will always remind me of work:

I really miss my stripper buddy Sheila I used to talk about from my old club. In the raid, we all scattered, and I think she left the country for school, and I genuinely miss having a buddy at work. And I also just missing having her around as an unlikely friend.

My prof gave me an A on the paper I posted (segments of) below... She also gave me a hug when I saw her the other day, and told me I lead "such an interesting life." Ego massage, a guilt free party!

Never drink 3 glasses of Metamucil for the first time on the day before a shi(f)t at work.

Does anyone else find the "Call me Mr. Flintstone, I can make your bed rock" song at once an insult to the world of music and utterly catchy?

Stripping as sex work, stripping as "race-work"

2010-01-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

So, here are some excerpts from a paper I wrote for school about stripping. It's not as finessed or put-together as I'd hoped it would be, but it's sort of my first theoretical engagement with the topic - be gentle!

*

It was mid-June, and my first day of work as a stripper. I had just finished my audition and was told I could start work that very day. After the DJ explained to me the rules of dancing at the club, he asked me where I was from. “India,” I told him. He told me that he would have “either guessed South American or Middle Eastern” for me, and that the club had never had an Indian girl before. “You’re going to do well. You’re exotic, and that’s going to be an asset for the club.”
This was perhaps my first racialized experience as a stripper, and that it happened within minutes of being hired is no accident. Almost two years later, I am keenly aware that working in strip clubs is not simply a form of sex work; it is a form of race work. Indeed, race figures prominently in my daily experiences in the club. In fact, the space of the gentlemen’s club is not only gendered, it is deeply racialized and classed. Frank argues that “part of the way race becomes real is through the organization and meaning given to particular spaces, through the ways those spaces are experienced, perceived, and imagined” (2002; 58).
In this paper, I explore the racial organization and meaning of the space of the strip club based upon my experiences in two New York City strip clubs over two years. It is my contention that race is a critical dimension of how the strip club is experienced by dancers and customers; much of the literature on gentlemen’s clubs examines the racialized terrain of the strip club as auxiliary, secondary to its gendered and classed dimensions, doing injustice to theories of intersectionality. By bringing race to the center of my analysis, I hope to demonstrate the ways it is impossible to isolate any of the intersectional variables in a spatial analysis of power.
The strip club is a place where both strippers and customers display and assess symbolic and social capital (Wood, 2000). In my experience, much of this capital has rested visibly along race lines, with race fetishization, exoticism, racism, and a concern with racial authenticity being among the critical components of how this capital is appraised. A stripper who presents herself as the girl-next-door, for instance, is constructing a normative identity that not only summons up notions of “Americanness,” innocence, approachability, and middle-class identity, but also whiteness.
Anthropology of the body and embodiment are theoretically important foundations for this paper. Complicating the Cartesian mind-body duality is essential for understanding the work that strippers do, no less so when interrogating the role of race in this work. It is only through the fallacy of disembedding the body from its sociopolitical realities that the simplistic statement of strippers “selling their body” can be made. The body is always already discursive, politicized, and social. There is, Csordas says, a distinction between the body as an object to be studied and the body as a subject of culture (Csordas, 1990). In this paper, embodiment takes a central role as I ask about the racial subjectivities of dancers and customers, and the ensuing perceptions and performances that take place.
Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu are two important thinkers for understanding embodiment (Csordas, 1990). Merleau-Ponty’s concern is with the domain of perception, the complicated duality of body-as-subject and body-as-object. He emphasizes the need to understand the experience of perception, as perception is a critical starting point in how we understand objects. He says that it is “as false to place ourselves in society as an object among other objects, as it is to place society within ourselves as an object of thought, and in both cases the mistake lies in treating the social as an object. We must return to the social with which we are in contact by the mere fact of existing, and which we carry about inseparably with us before any objectification” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Thus, Merleau-Ponty suggests that what he calls the “preobjective” is deeply concerned with the ways humans take up and inhabit the sociocultural world. For Bourdieu, it is habitus – a set of dispositions which both collectively and unconsciously structure both practice and representation – that is critical to understanding embodiment. Bourdieu’s discussion of aesthetics, for instance, is an example of this (Bourdieu, 1984). While we may think of taste as bodily, it is certainly social, cultural, and political.
For Appadurai, objects that enter exchange relations have social lives (Appadurai, 1988); this may seem like a foregone conclusion when the exchanged ‘objects’ are social beings. Yet, if we understand the social life of things being exchanged, what does it mean to buy and sell deeply social experiences and services? What sort of commodity is a stripper selling? In a commercial setting like the strip club, it seems that the body, the social self and personhood are imbricated in particular ways.
To look at the body as an object, as objectified, and the mind as the locus of subjectivity overlooks the myriad ways strippers explicitly use their physical bodies to portray subjectivities around age, race, class, and other crucial dimensions. The commodified setting of the strip club often leads people to (inaccurately) assume that strippers are (simply) commodifying their bodies. This overlooks the ways the body itself carries racial, political, social, and gendered identities; this assumption ignores the ways the body is discursive and politicized. What, then, does it mean to present one’s body as a commodity? What does the body signify? How do strippers present their bodies in ways that are both objective and subjective? How is the so-called objectification of one’s own body rooted in sociopolitical realities? Ethnographically, how do dancers bring to life or make explicit the social and political dimensions of their bodies in their everyday practices? How are body and mind imbricated in the presentation of the (racialized) body as commodity?
My interest in the strip club as a particular site for this investigation (after all, our daily experiences everywhere are racialized) stems from the fact that the strip clubs specifically – as are several types of sex work in general – are at once intimate and fantastic settings. Racialized performance, perception, and embodiment in strip clubs rest in a terrain that is explicitly commodified, sexualized, and exotic. Frank’s trope of “touristic practices,” for instance, suggests that the strip club is a peculiar site in the way it is perceived by patrons (and, I would add employees) who “desire to have a particular kind of experience rooted in the complex network of relations between home, work, and away” (2002; 90).
In the pages that follow, I will use autoethnographic analysis of my experiences as a stripper to address the following concerns. I examine my experiences to understand the role that race plays in the strip club in shaping the perceptions of dancers and customers. I also explore the way racial performativity is an everyday practice in my work at the clubs. I examine my experiences at the club that suggest certain assumptions about racial categories and authenticity. I end with a discussion about why theoretical and ethnographic analysis of race in strip clubs is worthy of analysis.

......

Each of these stories, in different ways, speaks to the way racial perceptions operate in a strip club. The club itself is an important site for understanding how these perceptions work. First, those inside the club seem to have some sense of communitas; in the case of the strippers commenting on my body shape, my very presence in the club separates me from those “skinny” Indian girls in their imaginary and brings me into a dialogue with them. For Ricardo, my nudity separates me from the “covered up” Indian women he sees on the city streets. Being a stripper, then, brings me into an intimate social environment in which people can see and comment on my body and racial identity in ways that might not be possible outside such a space.
The anecdotes provided here are but a short sampling of instances in which I was perceived in accordance with, or in exception to, some preconceived notions of what an Indian/Muslim/South Asian woman is expected to be. Very rarely does a day go by at work where I am not drawn closer to a customer because of a perceived racial alliance (i.e. with a Muslim man, a South Asian, an Arabic speaker, or even a white man who backpacked across India in college). Often, these encounters bring with them explicitly racialized statements about what other strippers are like and how I am different from them. The site of the strip club is significant, for it is only in a place like the strip club that an independently wealthy man can spend an afternoon dancing with naked women from Brazil or the Bronx; the emotional, mental, and physical intimacy of the space is intertwined with the racial contours of the club.
In other words, the racial discourse within the strip club reveals unique nuances that general conversations about race (in other settings) do not. In the club, these conversations rest explicitly along sexualized and classed lines. In few other instances would an older Turkish man have the opportunity to express to a young, South Asian woman his ideas about promiscuity, Islam, and marriage. Outside of the club, I do not sit patiently and sip champagne while talking to a married conservative man about how the Republican party can revitalize itself.
The body itself is brought into discourse as the foundation for these racial perceptions. The construction of race as a biological fact is perpetuated by this discourse. For several of my customers, my race indicates that I am free of HIV or any other STI. I have been assumed to be a virgin by several customers. Dancers have asked me if I had “butt implants” because my body did not seem to them to be truly Indian. Wall Street hedge fund workers have praised me for educational capacity rare among other dancers, and credited my Indian background for it.
In this way, my investigation is a deeply spatial one; the spatial confines of the strip club may actually reveal and conceal in particular, telling ways. “The clubs,” says Frank, “offer a fantasy space where the demands and limitations of the everyday could be escaped or transformed” (2002; 33). Understanding the club as a fantasy space, and yet an intimate one, allows us to understand the peculiar racial discourse that is expressed inside its walls. Communitas forms between separate people; connections that are otherwise not possible become commonplace; intimacies form that are fleeting yet telling.

......

With these cases, we see race being performed by dancers, management and customers. We see the strip club as a place where racial pretenses are presented, where race itself is constructed. Playing reggaeton and rap might pigeonhole the club as a “black” club, or a less classy establishment, as might a girl “booty-dancing” on stage. Requesting music that constructs my own ethnic identity as authentically Indian or Asian has been financially lucrative for me, as illustrated by the Bengali economist anecdote. In other words, symbolic capital is critical for the way the club itself, as well as individual dancers at the club, are perceived. Egan explores the use of music as a type of resistance, a way to build intimacy and romance, and a way to exercise creative license in the strip club (Egan, 2006). For myself and other women I have worked with, music selections and dancing styles are a clear way to indicate a race and class identity.
The deliberate presentation of this capital has, for me, been conflicted terrain. While strippers find themselves on what Barton (2006) calls a “Mobius strip” in terms of gender power (at once contesting and perpetuating heteronormative, patriarchal regimes) , the conflicting relationship to power and subordination has been explicit along racial lines, too. When customers praise me in comparison to “ghetto” girls who work at the club, or make offensive statements about other dancers’ English competency, it becomes financially lucrative for me to use my cultural capital in the club along those very racialized and classed dimensions. By fulfilling a customer’s fantasy by playing the part of a virginal Indian girl, a Muslim woman rebelling against the repressed sexuality of her childhood, or the “intellectual” with an exhibitionist streak, I at once reinforce stereotypes about myself and the other strippers from whom I am differentiated by accepting and performing these roles. At the same time, however, by playing these parts, I am able to make sums of money unimaginable in any other part-time job. It is at once a disturbing and rewarding performance.
The daily scene in the dressing room is explicitly racialized, as well, as girls flatiron their curls, put on wigs, use body makeup to cover “ghetto” tattoos and stretchmarks. Conversations about “nappy” and “good” hair abound. Management enforces these internalized desires, as certain women are encouraged to wear wigs and body makeup. A sign in my club’s dressing room reads: “TASTEFUL JEWELRY ONLY. NO ‘BLING.’ NO GHETTO GOLD. NO BAMBOO-STYLE EARRINGS.”
The bodies we commodify are not simply bodies; they are embedded in material realities and salient social constructs. The dancers, management, and customers work to perpetuate these constructs in everyday decisions. The music, dancing styles, attire, and accessories are all deliberately chosen to create an image of a particular type of club, a specific sort of femininity, ethnicity, or class.

......

While popular understandings of strip club culture often suggest a vulgar, visual objectification of women by male customers, the literature suggests that customers are often in search of something radically different from a place where women’s bodies are ogled (Frank, 2002; Wood, 2000). Strip club customers are usually not just in search of a sexual experience or even visual stimulation from the presentation of women’s bodies. In Frank’s work, the strip clubs she studied contained a “social geography, a landscape that was raced, classed, and gendered, populated with a variety of Others who lent an air of excitement or danger to the men’s experiences” (74). Strippers, then, become black, Latina, white, gothic, innocent, or vampy to produce this social geography.
The examples above suggest that the dynamics in the strip club anticipate a particular type of essentialized racial purity, conformity, and authenticity based on these perceived categories. In our interactions at the club, we “allow the customer to imagine the personality and history of the dancer who is attending to him” (Wood, 10). While Wood’s major assertion is that these imagined personas that are created by dancers and customers alike often “affirm cultural notions of masculinity” and gender (18), my observations suggest that they often affirm essentialized notions of race, culture, and ethnicity.
In my experience, assumptions of racial essence and purity are explicit and abundant at strip clubs. On numerous occasions, being able to speak Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, or “standard” English has been instrumental in establishing a long-term, lucrative connection with a regular customer. Linguistic skills were proof that I was a particular type of immigrant woman, separate from the many Brazilian and Russian women who often lacked legal documentation for work in the U.S. or had limited English proficiency. Several times, customers have told me that even the way I introduced myself “gave away” my race and class identity within seconds. Linguistics is not the only way I am perceived and perform a racialized identity. My status as a graduate student often came into question by customers. One man, himself a university professor, said that several girls lied and pretended to be graduate students, but “it’s clear that they’re not actually in school, and it’s clear that you’re some sort of graduate student.” In fact, the “Indian emphasis” on higher learning has come up several times by customers with whom I discuss my career and schooling.
On numerous occasions, customers have asked me for information about my family life. Do my parents try to arrange my marriage? Aren’t they really strict? Are they accepting of my choice to be in graduate school? Several of these questions reflect assumptions about what my people are expected to be like; my responses to these questions are part of the racial performance that I argue is a critical component of the social geography of the strip club.

......

The autoethnographic examples above are part of my attempt to begin to understand the myriad ways race impacts the social geography of the strip club. By looking at racial performance, perceptions, and assumptions, I hope to draw attention to the ways strippers (particularly those who are women of color ) navigate an overtly racialized terrain. The hiring process, the daily act of getting dressed, and the ways we choose to introduce ourselves to customers all suggest careful calculations about race and ethnicity.
The strip club as a site for investigations about race seems to be a compelling one. In very few sites do racial and gendered performances work so closely together for the purpose of commodification. It is also a site in which extremely disparate people (in terms of race, age, class, and national origin) are put together in extremely close, even intimate, settings. Crack dealers and graduate students get dressed in cramped spaces and help each other with make-up; investment bankers get drunk while talking to Brazilian immigrants about their marriage; married men with children talk to me in a single conversation about their sexual fetishes and their experience of immigration. These unusual scenes suggest that the social intimacies in the strip club allow atypical scenarios to emerge, enable unexpected contacts and social scripts.
In Barton’s work, she finds that strippers view race as “less a site of stigma than just another distinguishing characteristic that enabled her to make either more or less money on a given night” (2006; 13). Several dancers Barton interviews find race inconsequential or secondary to their ability to negotiate with customers, their physical features, or their level of education. Barton, however, contextualizes these views with the views of other dancers, for whom race is not thought of as irrelevant. “Racial images permeate our culture. Representations of the “Asian Flower,” “Hoochie Mama,” and “Blonde Playmate” color the expectations of customers. Dancers understand this. In the strip club, in which every interaction is a market transaction, dancers may deliberately perform customers’ fantasies to extract more money from them. These fantasies include other racialized fantasies, such as the subservient lotus blossom, and fantasies that have nothing to do with race, for example, the dominatrix or schoolgirl” (14). Barton approximates my experience best when she says that the successful dancer “swiftly learns to read customer desires and perform his gendered and racial fantasies” (15). Reading the customer’s socioeconomic and racial preferences has been as critical in my work as a stripper, if not more, than understanding the customer’s sexual preferences.
Understanding stripping as exposing one’s body and using nudity for commercial purposes does an injustice to the politics of embodiment. After all, a body is never simply a physical entity to be used, bought, or sold; it exists in a complex constellation of social realities, power dynamics, and material bases that construct it as a commodity. My discussion of race above suggests that not only is stripping about gendered practices, it is fundamentally a racial practice as well. As strippers, we not only present our feminine bodies to (mostly) male customers in a commodified setting, we present our whiteness, brownness, blackness, Americanness, and foreignness.
I find it empowering to use a framework of embodiment to understand the work I do. The separation of mind and body, and the consequent association of mind with sociality/politics and the body with biology/nature does a great injustice to the social subjectivities of sex workers. As Csordas says, “that the body might be understood as a seat of subjectivity is one source of challenge to theories of culture in which mind/subject/culture are deployed in parallel with and in contrast to body/object/biology” (1995; 9).
To understand our very bodies as discursive and political allows us to look at the ways we inhabit our bodies and use them in the work we do. Our bodies are powerful symbols, instruments of daily experience shaped by our very understanding of these symbols. Our bodies are not separate from our minds, from politics, from our social subjectivities. In spaces of commercial intimacy, it is never just a body that is bought or sold.

Union Jack-off

2009-12-13T12:08:00.000-08:00

For some reason, there has been a flood of Englishmen in the club lately. What, cheap tickets crossing the Pond?

Anyway, recently there was this one dude who looked just like an Indian Jeff Goldblum with whom I struck up conversation. It was a mad slow day and I didn't have a whole lot of money, and I tend to do well with the brown guys. We started chatting, and he let me know he was in town from London, and wasn't interested in buying lapdances but really wanted to take me out to dinner.

Me: Sorry, I don't go out with customers.
Him: Well, technically I haven't spent any money on you, so I'm not a customer.
Me: Touche, but I don't really think I can. Sorry. (gets up to leave)
Him: No, no, please sit.
Me: Well, my shift ends in a minute, so I should probably try to make some money before I have to head home.
Him: But, seriously, how often do you meet someone like me? I mean, we're both Indian, we both seem well read. There's so much we could teach each other.
Me: I appreciate that, but you're coming on really strong and I do need to make money.
Him: Listen, I didn't get to be who I am today by taking no for an answer*. Why not just sit and have a drink with me?
Me: I'd be happy to, but again, I'm at work...
Him: Okay, I'll pay you $150 to stay an extra hour or so and drink with me.
Me: You should probably do $200, because they will charge me an extra $50 to stay past my shift.**

So I ended up sitting and drinking with him, and I still can't figure out exactly why, but I wanted to slaughter this irritating-as-fuck man. Maybe it had something to do with his constant references to his years at Cambridge and Harvard. Maybe there was something really pathetic about a grown man asking me "What are your ambitions in life? Where do you see yourself in five years?" Maybe it was that, any time I started to answer any of his contrived questions or engage in a conversation, he'd cut me off and go into a ten minute diatribe about how we should definitely go out together, spend a day together, kiss, etc. Maybe it was because he name-dropped on the Chatham House and the way the staff at Bombay's Taj Mahal hotel treat him like royalty. He also tried teaching me some principles of interpersonal communication he learned at Harvard Business School.

Anyway, a good half-hour of his paid-for-in-advance time with me was spent with him trying to convince me to skip work the next day.
Him: Come on, I'm only here in NY for another day or two. Then it's back to London.
Me: No one is saying you can't come visit me at work...
Him: I don't want to see you there... It's not the kind of interaction I want. I just want to have lunch and drinks, take you shopping.
Me: Sorry, I have to go to work. I have customers who are expecting me and money to make.
Him: Well, I'm willing to skip work for you; you should be able to do the same for me.
Me: Well, I'd be foregoing hundreds of dollars at work and I'd be fined by the club for being absent, and as a grad student, I just can't forego that kind of money.
Him: Please, I know you're well-to-do. You're not broke.
Me: (resists the urge to tell him that's none of his business) You know what? Maybe we should just say our goodbyes tonight.
Him: Okay, I'll give you a thousand bucks for bunking work tomorrow. I promise, no sex, and we can stay in public the whole time.
(lather, rinse, repeat about a dozen times and you have a sense of our conversation)

It just so happens that he DID show up at work the next day. I greeted him warmly and said I was so happy he changed his mind. He told me "I just came to talk, no dances or anything." So I told him the club did not allow us to sit with guys and chat and went and sat alone in the corner. He kept trying to wave me over and tell me to come talk to him. Finally he caved, walked over, and said "fine, give me a dance." Halfway through the dance, we decided to take it to the champagne room, where the asshole kept trying to finger me!!! I was so disgusted by him, and by his arrogance at telling me that I "didn't know how to accept pleasure" and that he "could make me feel really good if only I'd let him."

Before he left he offered me his silk tie as a parting gift/souvenir. I told him to go hang himself with it. (Okay, I didn't really say that...)

* Yes, he actually said that.
** Not true, but I was charging him an "asshole" tax.

Champain Room

2009-11-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

Last week, I had a crazy fucking day. First of all, I spent pretty much my whole shift in the champagne room with different guys. This is noteworthy for me because I'm not a big champagne room girl. I spend most of my time on the floor and make most of my money off of lapdances. I was thrilled - mostly because I pleased management with my lucrative day!

One guy was buying lapdances from every single dancer in the house. When he got to me, halfway through my first dance he called me naughty and asked me if I needed to be whipped into shape for misbehaving. I played along, and he got really really into it. Next thing I knew, we were in the champagne room and he was telling me (in no particular order) that a) I was his little slave girl, b) he wanted to put a collar around my neck and humiliate me, c) that every time I hear the word Daniel I'm going to come, even if I'm in a restaurant, and that I'll feel humiliated whenever that happens, d) that if I couldn't come on command upon hearing his name he'd have to punish me. It was possibly the easiest champagne room I've ever done in terms of physical work, but the emotional work (Hochschild 1979) was ridiculous. I was also confused by the racial dynamic of the whole thing; I know S&M people can be into the whole slavery thing, but what about when it's complicated by race (i.e. me a woman of color and him the whitest)?

Okay, my next trip back was with a guy from Hyderabad. Just turned 30, still a virgin, planning to get married soon. He asked me whether it was better to buy lapdances or go to the champagne room. Normally, my answer to this question is lapdances - I make more per hour giving dances than I do in the champagne room, plus I don't have to worry about unrealistic expectations or unwanted gropes. But this guy seemed pretty tame, and I wanted to impress management with a second room for the shift, so I suggested we retreat. This man was so so into my anus. It "tookus" no more than a minute before we were playing lapoeira , though this time it was anal-tug-of-war. The man couldn't take no for an answer! It's like there was insulin up there, and he was a diabetic (Chris Rock, anyone?). I think he thought the fact that we both speak Hindi gave him free reign over my hindy...An hour of keeping my anus away from him, and...I was exhausted by this Hyderabadass...

Back on the floor, a 1/2 Greek, 1/2 Turkish guy asked me if I was Arab, and if he could do a temporary nikah with me so we could have sex. I politely turned down his booty call/marriage proposal, and then he asked if we could go to the private room. Holy crap, three in one day? Sure! Back there, he revealed to me how much he loves Bollywood music and that I remind him of the Indian movies he grew up watching. Then... he tried to stick his finger up my ass. What, do I have stimulus money in there or something?! I shrieked and jumped away, and then he started laughing and singing Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna to me! I chimed in for the female vocals, and thought we might just have a nice round of antakshri for the remainder of the hour. No "can" do! As soon as he got to the last verse, he went straight for the butthole again! I pulled all kinds of maneuvers to get his hand off of me, and then he resorted to standing up and bhangra-ing with me for a few minutes. Repeat a few times and you have a sense of how my hour with this guy went.

The story ends with a white publishing industry guy waving me over to him and straight up asking me if I want to go to the champagne room with him. Note: This never ever happens!!! I considered myself very lucky... Until I got back there, and he started asking me if my orgasms are mostly clitoral or g-spot. I told him clitoral, but I can also come through penetration. And then, very quickly, he goes, "let me try something real quick" and tries to stick his Finger In My Ass! Call F.I.M.A.!

What is up with this? Should I just take these as backhanded compliments?

There's the rub...

2009-10-15T05:10:00.000-07:00

This customer has showed up twice so far. He's not really picky about which girl he spends his cash on (as long as she's dark-haired), and he always parks himself in the darkest corner of the club. I've danced for him on two separate occasions, and neither time did he allow me to take off my dress during lapdances. He just wanted to massage me. It was actually kind of nice at first - a shoulder rub, fingers through my hair, etc. But both times he's gotten all up in my face, literally and very deeply massaging my cheeks, my forehead, and then repeatedly doing this thing where he'll pucker my lips with his hands. (Picture a fishface being held in place by his creepy ass fingers.) With this pose in place, he may or may not try to kiss me. He'll also try to massage my eyelids or put his fingers in my mouth. The whole thing turns into a sort of Lapoeira-esque push and pull situation, but those caressing hands are strong! He'll "spin my head right round" and go right back to massaging away! It's so fucking creepy. I'm not sure I want his fingers all up in my grill (trying to get me to a hotel) when I have a pretty delicately-applied layer of makeup on my face, when swine flu clings to all sorts of surfaces, and when I think having a smashed, contorted face during a dance is just pretty fucking awkward.

Gentleman's Flub

2009-09-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

A month or so ago, I had this great customer. Really nice, older white dude, very generous. We spent an hour in the champagne room and bonded over our shared politics, and he shared with me some great suggestions for dining and theater. The hour in the back ended with kind words being exchanged, along with email addresses. I went home and Googled him to discover that he's a very successful producer on Broadway.

The following email exchange ensued:
Him: I had a blast meeting you today. You are awesome, and we definitely had a spark. Good luck with the new school year, and write me back with when you're free for dinner.

Me: Thanks, I felt likewise meeting you. You're terrific company. Unfortunately, I don't think I can go out with you since you're my customer; if you find yourself in NYC again, stop by the club!

Him: I know you feel hesitant about meeting me, but please consider it. It's impossible to deny that something rare happened between us.

Me: Yes, I know we had a connection, but I feel very uncomfortable crossing that line. It's not you,* it's just the rule.

Him: Please reconsider. Perhaps we can meet in a very public place, just dine, and leave it at that.

I never responded to that email; I figured the more I said no, the more he'd just step up his persistence.

A few weeks later I was dancing in the cage in the front of the club and some guy was talking to me and tipping me for shaking my ass and in strolled Broadway Guy! I thought he reconsidered and decided it was better for us to hang out in the club than not at all, so I gave him a big grin. He nodded at me, but walked past. I assumed he was being respectful toward me and the customer I was entertaining. Said customer ended up swallowing much of my time for the rest of my shift, so I didn't really get to see or talk to Broadway.

The next time I was at work, Broadway came back again. This time, I was not busy when he showed up. He walked right past me, over to one of the waitresses, and started lavishing compliments on her, holding her hands and playing with her hair, right there in front of me. Another waitress walked by and he did the same thing. Then he went and sat with this dancer, right in front of me, and was talking to her really loud and being showy about all the affection he was giving her. When he walked past me at one point, I grabbed his arm to say hi (I didn't really mind that he was hanging out with others, though I did mind the cold shoulder) and he looked at me and then looked away, and kept walking.

Um, seriously!? You really think acting like this is going to make me wish I'd gone out with you? Were you so busy making millions of dollars these past few decades that you forgot to become an adult? Is it normal behavior for grown men to behave like fucking imbeciles?

Also, he literally just rolled into the club, lavished every girl except me with a few hugs and compliments, and left. If he really wanted to make me regret it, he should have given a very visible million dollar tip to someone, or something. I'm not sitting there like "Damn! I wish I was that girl not making a buck while this rich old fart admires my red toenails!"

*Not entirely true. I generally don't date bald, 52-year old rich white men who spend all their spare time in strip clubs. But, to his credit, he was really charming and funny and intelligent the first time we met.

A wolf in Veep's clothing

2009-08-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

There was this dashing older man in a tie tipping me at the stage, so I pulled up a chair when I was done with my stage set. He didn't seem that interested until I said something about summer almost being over. "You're in school? What do you study?" The conversation quickly turned into a double-entendre-peppered debate between a libertarian trained as a political scientist, and myself. In the real world, I walk away rolling my eyes. In strip club world, I tolerate his elitism and ignorance and embrace a Maria Shriver-esque bipartisan camaraderie so I can take all the money this colorblind meritocracy has allowed him to earn. Indeed, he does end up spending a chunk of money on me, after giving me a very long speech about how confused his penis is, ("He came here looking for anything other than intelligent conversation with a hot cosmopolitan woman!", he tells me, talking about his penis in the third person, I suppose) and how libertarianism is anticolonial. My gentle (still trying to get his cash!) protests only excite him more. He slips me his business card (containing his first, middle, and last name - each of which sounds like a very old-school English last name...) before he leaves, and tells me to get in touch. ("Coffee, tea, or me" were his exact words, I believe.)

Dutifully, I google him as soon as I get home. The man was a nominee on the primary ballot for VP in several states a few elections ago*! I found a gazillion news articles about him, his happy marriage and four children, his Ivy League pedigree, and his views on how libertarian politics can solve all our foreign policy issues. I can't believe I was debating politics with a right wing U.S. politician! It's like playing devil's advocate with the devil himself...

* Apparently there are only a couple states that even have a primary ballot for VP.

Their byte is worse than their bark...

2009-08-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

Giving regular customers my email contact is a great way to let customers know when I'm working, thank them when they make my day, alert them when I'm taking time off. It's also a great site for some absolute hilarity. Checkitty check some exchanges from various customers below:

Exhibit (A)
Him: "Hi, it's Sam from Delhi. I met you today. Care to meet for drinks Saturday night?"
Me: "It was great meeting you too. Unfortunately, I don't go out with customers. Come meet me at the club again!"
Him: "What about Sunday? I can get us a hotel room."

Exhibit (B)
"we are on the lake. this is a fine evening.....not very hot....nor very cold....cool breeze from the lake....i am there....and you are there too....

now we are at the middle of the lake.....no other boats are near by......far away we can see the sun setting slowly.......full bright red sun.......sometimes hiding in the clouds....and sometimes peeping out of it.....slowly immersing into the water.....we can see ducks moving around.....maa goes in front and the ducklings follow....in a line. some times it lifts out of the water and shake its body....we are standing in the openness.....you standing in front of me....i am holding you from behind.....we are just standing there ... looking into the vastness....staring at the stars now slowly emerging.....the moon slowly ascends.....your face is shining in the moonlight.....what a beauty to look at your face......you smiling with your eyes closed now.....touching my heart you telling me 'what is inside here matters'......i am deeply touched.....tears come into my eyes.....how soon you found it, oh my baby......you are always with me since the moment i saw you.......always,always thinking about you......

my dear...i can't wait any longer to see you......i miss you....."

Exhibit (C):
Him: "I will come see you on Friday for sure. And tell me, can we plz have SEX in the champagne room?"
Me: "Looking forward to seeing you, but sorry, I don't break those rules."
Him: "Ooh, don't break the rules, you're teasing me even online. Also, can you please send me a picture of you?"

Exhibit (D):
Him: "Amazing meeting you today!!!"
Me: "Great meeting you too. Pay me a visit next time you're in NYC, please!"
Him: "I have a lot of road time today. May I call you?"
(I didn't respond.)
Him: "Here is a picture of my dog Chuck"
(I didn't respond.)
Him: "Here is a picture of me before a baseball game."
(I didn't respond.)
Him: "My son is enrolling in this honors program at his college this fall. (hyperlink)"
(I didn't respond.)
Him: (sends the same baseball picture of himself in an email, no text)
(I didn't respond.)
Him: "Hey! I haven't heard from you in a while. Everything all right?"
(I didn't respond.)

I think he's playing hard to get rid of. Ick.

Meanwhile, I have this new customer who's absolutely awesome. He's a literature guy and feeds me tons of great reading suggestions, and after a few minutes of talking about Melville and Hawthorne's deep friendship, interspersed with some witty banter, we transition to moneymaking time. He tells me he thinks I'm awesome, pays me, and leaves. It's perfect because he's nice and has good boundaries, but then he'll be like "Oh, I came on Thursday and you weren't here. I was pretty disappointed." My schedule isn't the same every week, so I want to give him my email address, but I think that might be TMI for him given how appropriately guarded he is.

Two Wrist Attraction

2009-08-06T09:52:00.001-07:00

Customer yesterday, mad obsessed with wrists. In the lapdance, he just wanted to kiss my wrists and didn't even want me to undress. Score! That's all I got...

Club Hoping

2009-08-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

So, a full week after the raid, I am gainfully employed at a higher-end Manhattan club and generally very happy.

The cons?
-There are a handful of old customers who I don't know how to get ahold of who won't be able to find me at my new joint.
-This club is pretty strict about scheduling, fees, fines, etc.
-I won't have as many irritating or disgusting stories to blog about.
-The DJ played "Breakfast at Tiffany's" once this week.

Needless to say, the pros are numerous. The club management treats us really professionally, and the physical layout of the space reflects that. I'm fairly certain (not sure yet) that there is no fucking or sucking happening in the club. Lapdances here are actual lapdances; at my old club, they were sitting on the guy's lap and grinding on him. That practice has come to a grinding halt at this new club, where you always keep one foot on the ground, 1950s sitcom style, during a dance. Money comes much more easily at this club, probably because it attracts a professional/touristy blend of customers. And three of my old customers have followed me to this new spot. All in all, I feel good. A week of work and not one guy has tried to get a tit in his mouth, a kiss on the lips, and definitely no one's tried anything below anyone's belt. I realize how different the job feels when it doesn't seem like Lapoeira .

I am sad because I miss my friend coworker from the other club. In the raid, everyone scattered, and she's working somewhere else now. I discovered the raid actually happened because of some discrepancy in the club blueprints or some BS, which to me sounds like code for cops have issues with this club, or something. I think the neighborhood's impending gentrification does not bode well for adult establishments in the area.

Bad Raidings

2009-07-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

I'll give you the bad news first. Yesterday, my club got raided. The good news? I wasn't there. My friend from work emailed me to let me know. I don't know what exactly happened, other than ten cops showing up, and the club now being closed 'indefinitely.' No girls were arrested... Knowing my club, the violation could range from the open and unabashed cigarette smoking to the open and unabashed soliciting (blow jobs and sex are available from many girls for the right price). Then again, knowing how law enforcement deals with strip clubs, there might not have been any real violation, but rather an underwhelmed group of cops dealing with a slow Thursday afternoon.

Anyway, I was less than pleased to discover I would not be able to go to work today. Not only that, but my heels and outfits are all stowed in my locker at the club, so I can't even hit the road and find another place to work, even though there are a half dozen new clubs I'm eager to try. It's kind of like the opposite of all dressed up and nowhere to ho.* From my brief research, it is likely that my club will be up and running in a few days, but the idea of being "out of work" is really unsettling.

Even more unsettling is the realization that these raids happen - frequently - and if I choose to continue dancing, I may not be as lucky to go unscathed. I happen to not offer "extras" in VIP unlike 80% of the girls at my club, but this fact rarely matters when the long arm of the law swoops in... In fact, usually raids end in indiscriminate arrests regardless of what "laws" the girl is breaking.

Speaking of laws, is there a guidebook out there in terms of what constitutes legality in the sex industry? I've talked to dancers who have been arrested for giving a lapdance and being within a half-foot of the customer. I'm sorry, but I've had lap dances where I've had a half-foot in the guy's mouth! Clearly, this is a violation. Apparently when guys tuck stage tips between your breasts, this counts as a form of sex work as well. At the end of the day, it's up to the cops, the connections club ownership has with the police, and dumb luck. If a cop wants to arrest me for prostitution, he pretty much can. I've heard of girls being taken in for patting another dancer on the butt!

Knowing this fucked up aspect of our so-called justice system was actually a big part of why I went into dancing in the first place ... but thinking about how close I am to a criminal charge actually scares the shit out of me. Apparently, it's easy to shake such a charge if you hire the right lawyer, but am I looking to spend all my hard-earned cash on a sex crimes attorney just to clear my name? The recommendation is generally to accept the charge, pay the fine, and have a misdemeanor on my record.

Right now I'm fighting the urge to spend a couple hundred bucks on new shoes and an outfit so that I can start working again today; I think I should let dust settle, let the weekend pass, and see what the deal is for my current club in a couple days...

*Thanks, $pread Magazine!

Cowboy and Indian

2009-07-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

This is another, let's let the transcript speak for itself type post. Friday afternoon, a new guy strolls in the club and flashes me a smile. I approach him.

"Well hello there, young lady. Do have a seat."
"Thank you! You're a new face - nice to meet you."
"Well you are a VERY well spoken young lady. I'm guessing you're hyper-intelligent."
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."
"What are you drinkin?"
"Water, neat."
"Ha, ha. Water neat. Well if I don't have you drinking whiskey by 5:30 then I'll be damned. So tell me, what is an intelligent, well-spoken young woman like you doing working here? I mean, I don't mean this with any level of disrespect toward these girls, but most of them have an abusive boyfriend, who resembles quite closely their abusive fathers, and side jobs selling dope. But you know, you look like an Asian woman, probably someone from a tradition where family is very very important. And you're hyper-intelligent, which is sexy as hell. You could look like Rosie O'Donnell and I'd be coming back from Amarillo Texas just to see you. But you know what the great part is? You're as sexy as you are hyper-intelligent. It's those eyes. You speak with those eyes. I can tell you started off trying to dumb yourself down for me. You must dumb yourself down for a lot of guys in here, which is a damn shame, because it's how hyper-intelligent you are that is a big part of your beauty. That, and your wild hair. Woo! (girl steps down from stage for a tip) Well, hello young lady. Here's a little something for you; I'll tell you, there's nothing a cowboy like me loves more than a beautiful black woman. Take care now. Anyway, see, you're nothing like her. You are hyper-intelligent. But that can be a curse too, because no guy is good enough for you. Let me guess... You hate relationships, because the boys get too clingy and get in the way of your ambitions. And you do have ambitions, let me tell you. You probably appreciate older guys, in their 50s like myself, because we know to give you space, and we know how to make love to you. Do you, let me just ask you this, do you know where your G spot is? Oh, my god, I love how honest you are with me. You know, the biggest medical myth is that every woman's G spot is in a different location. But actually, and I know you appreciate the scientific method, reliable studies have proven that there is actually more variation in size and location of the clitoris and not the G spot. You see, the G spot corresponds to the prostate on the male, it's differentiated earlier in embryonic development. But it's in the same space. Now, let me just take a moment to tell you how breathtaking you are. I'm only in town from Texas now and then, but you call me, on a moment's notice, we could be eating seafood in Barcelona, admiring Gaudi. And the good thing about Barcelona is that there are plenty of men my age with women your age; we'd fit right in. Now, I wouldn't say I have a foot fetish, but there is nothing more erotic than a beautiful, hyper-intelligent woman showing me her feet in stockings, and letting me suck on her toes. Have you ever taken Viagra? Next time I come, I'll bring you some. Don't tell anyone; that sort of thing can get me fired. But it doesn't make you hornier, it just makes your genitals more sensitive; the blood rushes there. Now there is nothing a man loves more than the scent of a woman's genitals. I mean, it's just the source of all pheromones. Men, on the other hand, we need to wear musk and cologne to attract women. Oh, see that girl? I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but she's given me oral and manual stimulation in the lapdance room. I mean, I'm sure she does what she needs to. But I can tell by looking at you that you don't break any rules here, or anywhere. No, you're not looking for a pimp or a sugar daddy. I mean, I won't insult you by paying you a fee for our trips to Spain, but believe me, I will treat you right. We can get a suite, stay there. I will shower you with affection. And if you don't want intercourse, that is fine. I am an old man. I've had enough intercourse in my life. I want you. I want intimacy. If I have to hold you and caress you for three nights straight, and then fly straight back to Texas, I'd be fine with that. Yes I would."

This conversation lasted as long as his supply of $20 bills did - a LONG time.

(The) Skids These Days...

2009-07-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

July has sucked so far. It's been slow, agonizing, frustrating, and uneventful. Money trickles in, but nothing compared to my lucrative spring months. Not only is money slow, other shit is going down that is crazy-making.

1) A bouncer was hired at the club a few months ago. A retired cop (not my favorite category of people... but better, I suppose, than a working one!) was put in charge of collecting money for champagne rooms, house fees for lap dances, etc. He is one greedy motherfucker. He has charged my customers double the rate for champagne rooms, pocketing the extra cash (not only ripping off my customers, but eating away at the tip that would be, ordinarily, mine). He never watches the lapdance area, making it easy for guys to be grabby assholes, and then has the nerve to ask dancers for tips! I had a pretty good day a few weeks ago (before recession hit) and he was complaining to another dancer (a friend of mine who loyally reported back to me) that he was really upset with me, that I should share my earnings with him, blah blah. I did slip him a couple papers, begrudgingly; it was a wise move. Asshole is now the club manager. And to think I was going to go to management with my complaints about him!

2) I have realized that I am not a good stripper on days when the club is slow. I get cranky, I don't have patience to talk to customers, and all I can think about is making the money I need to make. Friday, I even wrote a note to a deaf customer that read "stop staring at my feet and give me $10." This is not an approach I normally use! When money is a-flowing, I have no problems stroking a guy's arm, chilling with him while he orders yet another cheap ass beer, etc. Desperation breeds desperation, I suppose.

3) Michael Jackson died. I get it. Talented, legendary figure is gone. But, does this really mean we expect dancers to moonwalk across the stage in stilettos during a stage set? I'm not quite sure what to do on those multiple occasions the DJ spins Billie Jean, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, or a remixed Smooth Criminal while I'm trying to seduce the portly old guy on the corner of the bar. Crotch grab? It's "bad." "Remember the time" they used to play good ole Sean Paul, Pitbull, and classic rock at strip clubs?

4) I keep running into these conservative, or mainstream liberal, type nationalist guys at work. Maybe they are running on July 4th patriot juice, but I can't keep still and focus on money when these guys go on about America being the greatest nation, how fucked up the Arab world is, how hard work = success. Perhaps it's only in the midst of those conversations I actually find myself wishing an MJ tune would come on... beat it!

Taxing Ride

2009-06-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

The great thing about working day shift in the summer is, it's daylight when you leave! Today I marched out of the club at 8 and straight into a beautiful pre-sunset NYC summer's eve, leaving behind the Summer's Eve vaginal freshness product buffet in the club dressing room. It was nice enough, and early enough, that I figured I'd walk the block to the subway rather than drop my hard-earned cash on an unnecessary cab ride.

But in that one-block walk a very persistent "gypsy" cab driver (what's the non-offensive term for a gypsy cab, by the way?) kept honking and asking me where I wanted to go, he'd give me a good deal.

I thought it over. Here's the thing (we started off friends*) - a big part of me was like, fuck it, take the cab. I had a very, very lucrative Friday at work and the $20s in my bag were burning a hole in it. Also, I had some shitty stuff happen: 1) My regular, generous customer got really sweaty and wet in the lapdance and pushed his dripping, glistening face into my freshly flatironed tresses, turning them into a pile of frizz (and nauseating/disgusting me at the same time!... I know guys tend to think a little sweat on their dancing girl is a turn on -- just FYI, the reverse is NOT true). What could I tell him? He pays my rent! Then, this other customer who is hell-bent on getting me to call him and meet him outside as a date got all teary eyed in lapdance (2nd customer who has cried on me; I think I'm cursed) when I told him I don't go out with customers (or guys I'm not attracted to (I didn't tell him that part.)). And every time I was doing a stage set he would tip me but without looking at me, and instead burying his face in his hands and hanging his head. THEN, the bouncer was telling a bunch of girls that he was pissed at me because I was "doing so well and not tipping him" - (this bouncer is an asshole who has stolen money from girls, the club, and customers on numerous occasions) so I had to abandon my pride and slip him some cash (which he got without having a drop of sweaty guy's perspiration in his fresh coif! imagine!) so that he wouldn't cause any further drama for me.**

Long story not as short as it could have been, I thought I owed it to myself to be spared a subway ride home, so I haggled with the driver for a minute and hopped in. "How are you, M? Same place I dropped you last time?"*** Shit, he KNOWS me? Conversation as follows:

Him: So, you're still working here? Didn't switch over to the other place?
Me: No, still working here.
Him: Is it busy?
Me: I don't think it's busy, but business is fine in general. What about for you, driving-wise?
Him: Slow, slow. But you don't work night time?
Me: No, I do it occasionally, but I hate getting home at 5 a.m. and a lot of times the guys are too drunk and rowdy for me.
Him: So what kind of guys come during the day?
Me: You know, guys who are on their lunch break, or are married, generally a tamer crowd.
Him: You like this job?
Me: Yeah, I like it.
Him: A Pakistani? Indian? Whatever you are? You like this job?
Me: Yes, I like it.
Him: (pulls over the car and stops) You like this job?
Me: Listen, people scrub floors or tell dirty lies in court or pick plaque out from between people's teeth and don't get asked the questions you're asking me now.
Him: Do you go in the private rooms there?
Me: Yes.
Him: And you still like the job?
Me: Yes. I think I know what you're asking, and no, I don't have sex in the private rooms. Just regular lapdances.
Him: Just dances? You don't do everything?
Me: No, not everything. Can you start driving again?
Him: So, I see. How old were you when you were naturalized?
Me: 3.
Him: You parents know what you do?
Me: No.
Him: You know these other two girls I picked up from your club before. Brandy and Licorice, you know, they came out with a customer and had me drop them off at a hotel. Do you do that?
Me: No.
Him: Yeah, one time Brandy even paid me to keep the car waiting for her outside when she was done. But some of the girls are just like you, they go straight home afterward.
Me: Yeah.
Him: So I saw you on the R train last week, kissing somebody.
Me: Oh... (I'm not sure if he really even saw this, or if it even happened, but he caught me off guard so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. He might have just been "testing" me...) What time was it?
Him: 3 a.m. You're married?
Me: No. I'm not a big marriage person.
Him: What are you doing tonight?
Me: Hanging out with friends. You can just let me off right here.

*Excuse the pop music interjection. My life would suck without you.
**In my efforts to not make my job sound like shit, I should mention that not only did I make good money, I also got a visit from my favorite friendstomer who temporarily erased a chunk of my woes and made me laugh.
***Conversation translated from its original Hindi/Punjabi mix.

Cyrano de Berg-her-rack

2009-06-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

It has dawned on me: about 50% of my regular customers who seem to be infatuated with me are actually infatuated with male, hetero friends of mine.

Example 1: One of my customers was absolutely tickled when I explained to him the difference between a movie having been filmed in IMAX versus just being projected onto an IMAX screen. When I said the words "aspect ratio" to him, it was like dirty talk! He got mad excited. But the only reason I really knew that is because a film buff pal of mine nerded out on me and told me all this stuff just a few days before.

Example 2: When I started talking about Pau Gasol's moves on the court (I've already forgotten the information at this point...sports? big snooze!), another customer was like "wow, a girl like you sure does know a lot about basketball!" He was completely floored. I was just glad I was listening the night before while some guys hooted and hollered at a TV screen.

Example 3: I talked to a graphic designer about using Wacom Tabs for design and illustration; he ate that shit up. The only reason I know? You guessed it -- dudes who design.

My conclusion is that a lot of these guys dig a woman's body, but when it comes down to it enjoy the company of whatever it is many straight men are socialized to be. (Showing again the falseness of our ridiculously rigid gender constructs!) Wouldn't it be cool to, like, have an earpiece and transmitter so that my hetero male pals could feed me info to converse about with these customers?

It'd be like the movie Roxanne, except instead of a large nose holding the boy back, it'd be a (large?) dick! "Talk to him about the Manny Ramirez scandal!" "Ask him if he's ever heard of X-Men Noir!" "Tell him your new widescreen TV is 1080p!"

In my Hollywood ending, the customers realize that we all exist on a sexual continuum and genders and sexualities are fluid. (Roll end credits)

A Rock in a Hard Place

2009-06-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

I am a huge Chris Rock fan, with his race commentary and hilarious critiques of U.S. foreign policy. But why are his gender politics so whack? (skip to the 3 minute mark)

As a student, non-abused, day shift stripper, I gotta say - he's way off the mark! Then again, if you're reading this post, you probably already knew that...

In-kind is unkind

2009-06-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

Lately I have had a slew of formerly generous customers show up without cash, but with some sort of gift. Thompson Thompson showed up with a huge box of cookies that he must have picked up at Costco or BJ's or Sams. I wasn't there that day, but Sheila kept them for me until my next shift, and gasped/doubled over laughing when I chucked them across the room into a garbage can filled with tampons and sweaty baby wipes. (I wish I knew basketball lingo; I'm sure I could be more descriptive...) I'm sorry, after that asshole's ever-shrinking wallet and ever-grabbier hands (see previous post), he makes me want to toss my cookies in more ways than one.

Then came Sumit, who has gone from taking me to the champagne room to buying me a few rounds of drinks and tipping me $20 to, most recently, swinging by after work to give me a DVD. I must admit, I was touched; I know he just stopped by to give me the DVD. But I shouldn't let the fact that we're friends take precedence over the fact that this is my workplace, yes? Couldn't he have tucked a $5 bill into the DVD cover?

So my recent frustration with gifts instead of cash had me briefly wondering if I was turning into a materialistic, money-minded automaton: the stereotypical stripper. But, really!? Perhaps this is just a reflection how impactful those 'stripper stereotypes' are; I think teachers, lawyers, and graphic designers would complain if they were given cookies instead of paychecks. I have every right to as well! So, Sumit and Thompson, pay up!! (Actually, Thompson, you're getting to the point where your money won't help you with me; I'm officially disgusted!)

Okay, this is not to knock gift-giving in strip clubs. Some of my best customers have given me comic books*, DVDs, perfume, and Victoria's Secret giftcards. And not in lieu of money, but in addition to it.

*Imagine gifting a stripper Art Spiegelman's "Maus." What would Marcel Mauss say?

Can I give you a laughdance? / Lapoiera

2009-05-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

Laughdance:
Crazy Johnny came in the other day, and my coworker Sheila and I had the same routine we always have with him. He took her for a lapdance, then brought me back to join them for a 2-on-1 menage-a-crazy with him, and then kept her back there for another song or two after I left. He is so fucking hilarious (and not in a "you're so funny I want to date you" kind of way, but in a "how are you able to function in the real world" sort of way) that I can't help but laugh (I mean, hysterically! side-splitting laughter!) throughout every second of every lapdance I give this guy. First of all, he gets us both on his lap and grabs the back of my head, forces it between her legs, between her tits, and does the same to her with my body. Then he tries to get us to finger each other. All the while, he nods along with a maniacal look in his eyes, his mouth almost watering. (Picture the craziest of the three main hyenas from the Lion King.) Sheila is so used to his antics that she just screams "Johnny! I love you! I love you!" and fakes orgasm. At which point he looks at me like we're both in on some little secret, and gives me a nod, a wink, and whispers "she likes it!" At some point, when he gets too aggressive, Sheila says "We can't do that here, we'll get fired! Let's meet in a hotel room on Sunday night and we can all finger each other and fuck each other then." Then he asks me, very seriously, if I'm free on Sunday (hyena mode fades temporarily). Yet, the laughter has taken over my body and I can only manage to nod between gasps for air. Please note: She makes the Sunday promise every other week he comes into the club, and still, we manage to put on the same routine for him.

If laughter is the best medicine, then I will live to be a hundred and have Crazy Johnny's hyena antics to thank for my longevity.

Lapoiera:
They say capoiera is part dance, part fight, created by Afro-Brazilians hundreds of years ago. It combines elements of martial arts, dance, and sport. I swear, a lapdance customer of mine had me feeling like I was learning this beautiful art form! He had thrown a couple hundred at me, so I was putting up with his bullshit more than other customers and trying to be nice. But, man, was he grabby! It was like, he's slowly extend his arms toward my breast, and I'd lean back, or start shaking my ass in his face. Then he'd try to bite my ass, and so I'd drop to my knees and rub my fingers down his chest. Then he'd try to slide his hands between my legs, and I'd start dancing further away from him. I swear, it was part dance, part self-defense, part me attempting to look graceful, part fight! I think I'm going to call it Lapoeira, and start teaching classes to rich white people at upscale studios on the Upper West side. (starts writing craigslist ad)

Bobby Jin-dull

2009-05-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

This guy came into the club on Monday and took 30 minutes of my life I can never get back. At first, I was kind of excited, because nerdy, self-conscious South Asian men are my forte. I was on him like curry on rice. This dancer came by and (I think this was very awkward) was like "Are you in love with our beautiful Pakistani girl yet? All the Indian guys love her." The thing is, I don't think he loved me, or anything remotely close. And the feeling was way mutual. He started yammering and went on uninterrupted for the longest time, and sounded arrogant and boring and irritating as hell. Here's pretty close to a direct transcript of the conversation. Imagine it being spoken in an extremely nasal, Jindal-esque manner. (Note: At first I was nodding along and acting interested, but but the end I was droopy eyed and yawning and glancing around awkwardly. It didn't seem to stop his monologue, though...)

"Yeah, I'm pretty much the whitest Indian you'll ever meet. My good friend, he's Italian, he calls me a coconut. Yeah, I'm a coconut. I mean, like, I was born in India. I don't know where you're from, but I'm from Calcutta. So, yeah, I speak Bengali, and my Hindi is pretty weak. But I mean, I moved here when I was two years old, so I'm pretty much American. But I'm also like the whitest guy you'll ever meet. I mean, I just don't understand why all these Indians have so much cultural pride. I mean, it's cool if that's what you wanna do, but it's just not my thing. Like, my older brother, he married a Bengali girl, and she's a doctor too. So it was like my parents' dream come true. I mean, it wasn't even an arranged marriage. It was like, they met on their own, even though our moms are close friends. It's like that movie the Namesake. But yeah, so they got married, and actually they're having a kid next month. I mean, I'm really happy for them, but I don't think I'll marry an Indian girl. It's gonna have to be a white girl. Yeah, I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. And I don't mean Philadelphia, or like some cool part of the state, I mean, there were like 10 Indians in the whole town, and four of those were my family. So, yeah. I mean, most of my friends where white and stuff, and that's why I'm like a white guy too. Even like, Bollywood, I don't understand why Indians care so much about their movies. I mean, I watch Hollywood films, and I can't understand what the big deal is about going to see an Indian movie. Really. So, yeah. I mean, I kind of broached the subject of marrying a white girl with my mom, and I think it's been a little easier since my cousin married a white girl. He married a white girl, get this, they dated ten years before they got engaged. And they're having a kid too. But I think he broke the ice for me. I mean, like my cousin's mom, and his wife's mom, are like best friends. I mean, they talk on the phone and stuff. Before they got married, I doubt anyone in my family talked to white people on the phone. So yeah. But their wedding, they had a traditional Bengali one and a Greek Orthodox one as well. The girl, my cousin's wife, is Greek Orthodox. And her family actually didn't approve of her marrying my cousin. Her dad didn't even come to the wedding. I mean, my family didn't approve either but at least they showed up at the wedding. And eventually really started liking the girl. But her dad, no way, he didn't want anything to do with it. But I mean, I feel like watching how happily married they are, and stuff, he kind of made it a little easier for me to marry a white girl. I'm not dating anyone or anything right now, but I know once I do I can tell my family about it. I don't know, I mean, cultural pride is fine and everything, but I don't understand why they're so into traditional dance and stuff. And movies, and following politics in India or whatever. I mean, we live here now. So yeah I'm a real coconut. You and me, you know, we're not like the rest of Indians. Or, you're Pakistani? But I mean, we're not traditional like that. I mean, we feel at home in this country. So, yeah. I mean eventually races are all going to disappear, but I feel like Indians, you know, we're slowing that down by just staying within our own community. But like the town in Pennsylvania I grew up in, it was all white. Even the Dunkin Donuts was owned by a white family, probably the only one in the US. So yeah, I mean, I did come to New York a lot, and we moved here when I was young. But my real young years were in that town. But once I came to New York there were all these Indians. It was a new thing for me. I mean, when I go to these family gatherings, it's so annoying. All the men go into one room and the women into another. And the women, all they talk about is who's dating who, and which celebrity got divorced, and fashion and recipes. But then the men try to talk about politics but they don't have a clue. They just talk about Barack Obama and stuff. It's pretty crazy. But yeah. So yeah, I'm a real coconut."
"Excuse me, do you want a lapdance?"
"Yeah, but let's talk a bit more first."
"I gotta go." (puff of smoke in a shape of my silhouette lingers)

Monikers galore!

2009-05-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the year, my coworker and I have amassed quite a long list of nicknames for some regular customers. I just realized this the other day as she showed me the contacts list in her stripper phone. (She has a prepaid phone and stores regular customers' numbers in it -- but not under their real names! She'd be likely to forget them if that was the case. She uses the phone on slow days to call these guys and tell them to come visit.)

-Biracial dick (a lot of the girls in the club have seen it and claims it's clearly two different colors; luckily I have been spared!)
-Vibrating ring man (the guy keeps a vibrator in his pants and turns it on during lapdances...I'm fairly sure that's not the only thing that gets turned on! All I can say is all us dancers hate it...He really wants us to grind up on it real hard! If he were to ask a petite girl if she had double A's, I'm guessing it'd be batteries he was asking for...)
-Teddy bear (I was shocked that my coworker called him this. He was my regular customer for a while until he got a little too aggressive and irritating. When she was like "How come you don't dance for teddy bear anymore?" I realized she was dead on! He does look like a teddy bear! Short, portly, ears stick out, big grin. But there is nothing soft or cuddly about him...)
-Sweater vest (see previous posts; hairy ass chest)
-Tuition guy (Ugh. The first day this guy came in, he told me he would help me pay my tuition. I think he should pay for some therapy for himself, though)
-Crazy Indian (This man from Bihar likes to shake his legs around like crazy during a lapdance! It's like a Sharper Image massage chair gone nuts)
-The Penguin (I think this is actually a rather mean nickname, but everyone in the club calls this guy the Penguin - he kind of walks in this shuffle/waddle way like Danny DeVito in the Batman movie. I'd rather call him Pees in Alley because people have seen him peeing outside the club. He is hilarious! Once he asked me during a lapdance if I minded if he did some dirty talk; I said sure. He proceeded to say "I'm gonna shower you with a hundred kisses!" If that's dirty talk, then I must be one foul-mouthed biatch!)
-Superman (This guy thinks he rules the world, but he's an idiot. He talked to me about Born Into Brothels once and how he just wishes he could save all the poor children in India from their uneducated parents. He once told me that I *have* to be a lesbian; what other girl would work in a strip club? He also buys and sells diamonds, but he must do a piss-poor job because he tried to appraise my $4 necklace once.)
-Academic Asshole (This is a white guy with a black fetish. He talks to me pretty humbly (maybe because we're both grad students?) but the other girls say he uses academic jargon as a way to degrade them and make himself feel cool. What would Franz Fanon say?)
-Lazy Eye Crybaby (I'm gonna devote a whole post to him, so some other time)
-Bearded Blow Job (This guy gets really turned off by girls who refuse to give him head in the VIP. He'll be really friendly at first, but once they say they can't do it, he'll be downright rude. Not so with me! He asked me if I would give him head, and I looked at his crotch and said there's nothing I wanted to do more, but recently club security had been really strict and fired a few girls for said act. I then went on to graphically describe what I'd do and how I'd do it, convincing him that blowing him was something I was really into. He became a semi-regular of mine! Psychology and stripping - strange bedfellows.)
-Rockefeller Racist (also deserves his own blog post)
-200 (A regular customer of mine who has had sex with over 200 prostitutes. We also call him "Tax Return Guy" because he once spent a large portion of his tax return on me.)
-Sweaty Rabbi (A Hasidic Jew who likes his nipples pulled *hard* during a lapdance)
-T-shirt guy (Not very creative. He sells t-shirts in Central Park.)
-Tibetan Fanboy (He's Tibetan. And a fan of mine. That's all.)
-Benjamin Button (See 3 posts back)
-Professor (A teacher who rolls into the club and grades exams at the bar; he has offered me and several other dancers thousands of dollars to have a child with him)
-Crazy Johnny (He's just crazy.)
-Lebanese Greek (Some days he's from Lebanon, other days's he's from Greece. He's the guy whose first name is the same as his last -- previous post. He used to talk to me at length in Arabic, but it was all Greek to me...)
-Coach Purse (This guy claims to work at Coach and has promised several of us a Coach handbag. I'm still waiting for mine, a year later.)
-Serial Killer with Glasses (This guy met me at the club a while ago and we hit it off talking about R. Crumb's drawings. He was super nice to me and I was certain he'd become my regular. Well, the next time he showed up he talked to another dancer and acted like he didn't remember me. I was surprised, but whatevs. Anyhow, later on that dancer he was talking to told me that he was asking her all these questions about me - like my real name, for instance, and where I live - and told her he's really into violent rape sex fantasies. Check, please!)
-Wet Kiss/My Boyfriend (This guy shows up every couple months, and will go up to a dancer and say "Can I get a lapdance?" Once the dancer walks him to the lapdance area, he says "Let's sit for a while before the dance." The naive dancers will sit with him for a minute before realizing he's broke and not about to buy a dance. Once you get up to leave, he tries to give you a kiss on the cheek - the wettest, most slobbery kiss ever. Somehow he got dubbed My Boyfriend recently - I think because one of the other girls, as a joke, told him that I really like him, so he kept following me around annoyingly.)
-Foot Fetish Nerd (Tall, big huge glasses, obsessed with feet. I've only danced for him once, because his favorite girl wasn't there, and he asked me to repeatedly say "WORSHIP MY FEET" and he kept calling me a goddess.)

Note: We generally don't have nicknames for people we like. A) We can remember their names without needed a mnemonic device because they are interesting and memorable enough on their own. B) We like and respect them enough that we're not trying to shit-talk them when they're not around. C) It's difficult to essentialize and condense the interesting/fun guys into a one or two word summary.

ON FIRE

2009-05-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

Pigs, Swine Flu, and Normal Flirtation

2009-04-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

I was already paranoid about this swine flu epidemic and working at the club in close proximity to people. But the fear was amplified when I got to work! Coworkers were talking about it, and the bartender was coughing, so I refused to drink anything she dropped a straw into. I must have washed my hands ten times! The hypochondriac in me gingerly stepped out today. What made it worse was two nasty customers, one who wanted to kiss me and the other who wanted to put his hands near my mouth. Man, did I fight them off! I should have epidemic-mindset at work every day - I'll show customers to challenge my personal boundaries! Anyway, some funny shit came up with a coworker who was even more paranoid than I was. Key quotes? "These whores are probably all carriers of the flu anyway. They give a guy a lapdance, then we give him a lapdance, boom, we're dead." "I don't want to get the flu! If I do, the CDC will be all over me asking where I work, and then boom, the next thing you know there's a front page story about me, the stripper, who spread the swine flu all over NYC."

Flu fears aside, I got to thinking about flirtation. Strippers always say they don't know how to dance like a normal person (not a stripper) when they go out dancing. But I was thinking, I don't think I know how to flirt like a normal person anymore! There are times when subtly stroking your breast or the guys' thigh just isn't appropriate or fun. Like, when the guy is not a strip club customer at all but someone you know outside. in the real world, and you're trying to charm him. How does one make the transition from trying to score a lapdance to trying to score a soft kiss, a date, or a relationship?

Discursively Dissed and Cursed

2009-04-26T14:56:00.001-07:00

An experienced stripper warns a newbie about the dangers of telling everyone what kind of work she does. The newbie naively casts aside the caveat; she knows not to tell people a) dangerously close to family and b) those whose gender politics are questionable*. Other than that, she’s proud of herself as a dancer, and cavalierly lets people around her know it.

The decision is regrettable.

The experienced stripper was onto something. Be very, very selective in who you tell about what kind of work you do. Newbie is sad that this adage holds true; she was hoping that people who are in the sex industry would find comfort in progressive allies and use their tales (the flippant, the funny, and the frightening) from work to illuminate the realities of sex work and bring it into discourse. Not to say this hasn’t happened – indeed, Newbie has opened up a lot of dialogic spaces about sexuality, labor rights, health, and rape in personal relationships where they weren’t there before. But Newbie regretfully looks back at the brazen decision to tell anyone and everyone who didn’t easily fall into groups a and b about her decision to start stripping and provide consequent updates about titillating tales from work.

Experienced stripper thought it was a bad idea to openly declare what we do for a few reasons.

· People will think you’re really rich and have all kinds of opinions about what you should do with your money.
· Guys will think you’re easy and their relationships with you will become hypersexualized.
· Word about your true identity might spread and reach your customers, blowing confidentiality.

But there’s more, Newbie learns…

Because strippers are considered performers in the entertainment industry, the performative aspect of the work may be thought to exist outside of the bounds of the shift itself. In other words, she’s a stripper to prove something to the world. Her stripper identity is as much an act off-stage as it is on…

Whore sexuality is threatening. It’s threatening to non-sex-positive women and men; it’s threatening to people who talk about progressive sexual politics but in practice that’s defined simply by promiscuous fucking.

Well, words are boomerangs, and Newbie’s naïve openness and excitement about her work are hitting her in the head. Can’t take ‘em back, but she can critically reevaluate spaces where she does talk about work, critically assess which allies are truly allies, and think more about the systematic ways sex work is excluded (again and again) from discourse at all levels.

That said, she’s damn proud of herself and the work she does. It takes something to deal with a cop begging for oral sex and flashing a badge; to fight off a 200 lb. guy who’s too aggressive in the champagne room and then be accused of hurting his wrist; to overcome discomfort with being outside of conventional standards of attractiveness and be ok with brownness and curviness; to handle jealousy or concern from intimate partners outside of work related to the job; to reevaluate her relationship to money, men, and her body on a daily basis. It’s a sense of empowerment that may cause discomfort or seem self-congratulatory, but she’s thrilled to embody it.

* Newbie incorrectly assumes that she can easily identify group (b)

The Curious Case of Benjamin's Buttons

2009-04-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a while to get around to this post, likely because I was suffering from PTSD after this incident. A few months back, a stout young chap* came into the club when there were no customers there. He wasted no time; grabbed me, and took me to the champagne room. There, he asked if I would have sex with him. I said no. He told me all the other girls do. I told him I'd be happy to give him his money back and he could spend it on another girl, in that case.** He declined, said he wanted me. Asked me if I'd blow him. I said no. Asked if I'd jerk him off. I said no. Asked if he could "jerk off near my mouth." I said no. I said he could jerk off while I swung around the pole, however, giving me a good four foot distance from any ejaculatory material. After he was done, he congratulated me for not selling sex, telling me that perhaps the reason he liked me more than the other girls was that I didn't do it. He tried to shake my hand as he left -- I politely waved instead. There was something really gross about him. I was actually disappointed when he reappeared a week later, and I was getting myself all prepared to decline the champagne room. Instead, he suggested we go for lapdances instead. I agreed, but gave him "airdances" - he smelled better this time, but I still didn't feel like making real contact with him. At some point during the fourth or fifth song, he pulled out his junk. And I mean, all of his junk. The frank and the beans. And there was something seriously wrong. I tried describing it to a friend of mine who's in public health; I thought she might be able to tell me what the condition was. But to date, we haven't been able to pin down exactly what STI he has. The best way to describe it is this: it seems his balls were covered with what looked like those fabric-covered buttons. I was too traumatized and too busy staying far far far away to get a proper look, but any medical experts out there, feel free to weigh in. What might this have been? Flesh-colored moles? Smooth*** warts? Molluscum contagiosum? (That's the one my public health friend guessed.)

1) If your junk was covered in buttons, wouldn't you warn a girl before you whipped it out and traumatized her with the sight?
2) Why whip out your balls at all?

*I should also mention foul-smelling.
** Classic/brilliant response we use, if I may say so myself.
*** The only thing smooth about this guy.

Nice guys get blogged about last...

2009-04-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

I was chomping down on a lamb kabob after my shift last night and it dawned on me that I only* write about the guys who show up without underwear, who turn into semi-stalkers, who are cheap and grabby, etc. This a) perpetuates the idea that strippers work in demeaning environments, hustling assholes for a buck and b) is completely inaccurate! Maybe this is just part of the whole, using a blog to process stuff thing, so talking about the regrettable shit seems more worthwhile. Or, maybe I just want to make people chuckle with titillating/disgusting tales from work. Today's post goes out to the nice guys, a sizeable minority among strip club attendees! Thanks for tipping well, not insisting on getting my real name/phone number, asking if you can touch, offering good money for my used g-string (I still haven't sold it to the poor bastard), being up front about how much you expect to spend, not getting jealous (often times, even getting excited!) when I go make money off of other guys, bringing presents that are not ugly earrings or redundant bottles of perfume, wearing underwear, not wearing sweatpants, not crying during lapdances**, not asking my friend/the bartender where I live or if I have a boyfriend, and liking sounds other than your own voice.

*Asian gambling man is the exception
** This blog post has been a long time coming

Pun Job

2009-03-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

The following exchange got me a series of lapdances from a guy, who I assume will become a semi-regular customer. Who says guys don't find a sense of humor sexy? (Either that, or take extreme pity on girls who make dorky jokes...)

Customer: So, you going on stage any time soon?
Me: I don't think so, I was just up there. Besides, I'd prefer your lap to the stage anyday.
Customer: Oh, yeah?
Me: Yeah, though I'm guessing both would have hardwood surfaces...
[laughter]

Another nautch(girl) on the bedpost...

2009-03-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

Props to Bollywood and the Indian film industry! Leaps and bounds ahead of its Western counterpart, which only recently began making films about dancing girls, often derogatory/sensationalized and still underrepresented. Unlike Hollywood, the courtesan, nautch girl, tawaif, sex worker in Hindi films has never been invisibile. No, this does not mean that she is unanimously treated with the humanity, agency, and respect she deserves (often the films leave her love unrequited, her lover dead or with another woman, or her honor ruined). But she is capable of love; she can protect herself and impart wisdom; she is a real and tangible part of society; she is visible. Today's post features some awesome musical numbers featuring girls who sell some form of sex from Hindi films through the years...

Mangal Pandey/The Rising - Main Vari Vari

Devdas (remake) - Maar Dala

Umrao Jaan (original) - In Aankhon Ki Masti

Pakeezah - Chalte Chalte

Mughal E Azam - Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya

Umrao Jaan (remake) - Salaam

Pakeezah - Inhi Logon Ne

How to lose a guy in ten dances....

2009-03-27T09:19:00.001-07:00

Dancer-customer relationships are usually short lived. A regular might be a steady, once or twice a week guy for a few months, but my thoughts are that a 'regular' club relationship might not last much longer than that. The guy will either tire of you, be sick of not getting sex/blow jobs/hand jobs, find another girl, insist that the relationship can only continue if you meet outside the club, or feel guilty about his marital issues. Here are some tales of regular customers with whom relationships went the way of the British Empire.

1 - Hot young pushy married designer guy
This guy, Ricardo, comes to our club every Friday during his lunch break. He gets two lapdances - always from a different/new girl - and comes in his pants at the end of the second song. (Yes, we girls have compared notes on Ricardo.) Anyway, a few months back, he brought in his co-worker, Eddie, a real looker. He's from Peru, married, and works as a designer in New Jersey. He took to me right away, and started coming in every Friday. Moneywise he was okay, maybe $60 per visit. But each visit got a little more intense - i.e. on the first visit "Do you cook?" on the second visit "When are you going to cook for me?" and on the third visit "Where's the food you were supposed to cook for me?" - and he started making demands and requests. Will you send me a picture? I brought you an article to read, will you bring me something? Where do you go out dancing, and can I meet you there? He seemed like the really sensitive, egotistic type, so I knew that saying "I don't go out with customers" would have killed our relationship and stopped the cashflowescrow. So I told him, instead, that I think about him all the time and would love to go out with him, but I can't stand the idea of going out with a married guy (i.e. I made it 'his problem' instead of mine.) His brilliant response was that he's never cheated on his wife before me. At least my strategy kept him coming back for a while. On his last visit, he had put roses under his shirt and had chocolate covered godiva strawberries to feed me during a lapdance, which was followed up with a final request/ultimatum that we go out together. Which was followed by my final rejection. Eddie, now, has gone the way of the scrunchie.

2- Thomson Thomson
Yes, his first and last name are the same. His business card told me so. He was my first regular customer! He had me at "hello, here's $20 for your smile." He definitely was not a big money guy - $40 per visit tops - but I could count on him like death/taxes. But then he'd throw in $50 bonuses before I went on vacations, had a birthday, or for Valentine's Day, which was nice. He took to me like a daughter figure, in a weird way, and would shower me with blessings and prayers for an awesome future husband who loves me. (Fyi, Thomson hates Eddie. He would get really irked when I'd spend time with him. He wasn't jealous of any of my other customers.) Anyway, Thomson is probably pushing 65 or 70, and we converse in Arabic at the club (I think I had HIM at "Marhaba!"). He feels this protective, fatherly urge toward me, except when he's subtly pushing his old-man erection against my butt cheeks. Thomson is one of those guys who can reach orgasm just from a tight, long, high contact hug - which is basically what my lapdances with him consist of. Anyhow, he takes the baklava when it comes to club relationships. We have been 'together' for 9 months, and he never missed a beat. But a few weeks ago, the tight hug just didn't do it for him, and he reached down between my legs. I tried to move his hand away, but he resisted, and (get this) he SHUSHED ME. And then promptly ejaculated in his pantaloons. Motherfucker. The next time I saw him, I gave him icy treatment. And the next next time, I told him I was on my period so he could not travel south of the border. I haven't seen him since. Farewell, Tommy Toms, I got better things to do than spread eagle for a guy who doesn't even pay my Visa bill.

3 - Sweater Vest
I call him sweater vest because he took his shirt off in the champagne room, and for a second I thought he was wearing one. Nope, just chest hair. He was a wealthy, white, married, Wall Street character who had recently lost his job. You know shit's scary when a freshly laid-off exec hits the strip club scene to celebrate with his generous severance package and ample savings account! Anyway, he took to me, and became a regular, and treated me as both a therapist and stripper. I don't know what the hell happened to him, but my last conversation with him involved the affairs he's had since marriage and the guilt he's coping with. Since our heart-to-heart about his dishonest ways, he's been nowhere to be seen. I just hope his wife didn't find traces of my eye-glitter in his chest hair! (Lipstick on the collar is so 80's, no?)

Best (or worst, you decide) Quotes from the Strip Club

2009-03-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

5. "Right now, there's just a thin layer of fabric between us. Why not just make it a thin layer of latex?"
(See my post below on "Customer of the Week" for more info...)

4. "We Spanish and black girls have to suck it or give hand jobs to make good money here. But you're the only Pakistani girl, so you don't have to show no one your fallopia."

3. "This thing on my mouth, it's just a pimple, not a herpes."

2. "I'd never actually ask for a blow job at a strip club." (5 minutes later) "Can you give me a blow job?"

1. "What extras do you do in the champagne room?" "None." "And, what do you mean by 'none'?"

Work with me, now...

2009-03-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

Gripe: Relationship between club staff and dancers are so complex, undefined, sexualized, and dependent.

Example #1: When I had first started working at the club, the DJ at the time was obsessed with me. He kept telling me I had a really exotic face (if I had a penny for every time the word exotic was used...) and a nice ass. He'd also intently watch me whenever I did my stage set. Also, the DJ tipout at the end of the night seems kind of low, so I always tip above and beyond that (unless I've had a really shitty day) so I think he started appreciating my generosity. Anyway, one night he stayed past his shift and was drinking, and then started hitting on me, telling me how much I turn him on. He asked if he could buy some lapdances from me, and I agreed. What he didn't tell me was that, as a club employee, he wanted to get his lapdances in the champagne room (i.e. complete privacy) and pay lapdance rates! That's like paying for McDonald's and eating filet mignon...My hands were tied! DJ revenge in a strip club sucks, and DJ friendship is really important. DJ revenge? Well, when a DJ hates a dancer, he might never put her on stage, or play really awful hard-to-dance-to music when she is on stage. Once this DJ didn't like this dancer and whenever she took a nasty-looking pervy guy for a lapdance he'd play really really long songs! On the flipside, there was this one S&M sweaty a-hole who used to come in for me and as a courtesy (probably because of my generous tipping), the Deej would play really really short songs. So I could make $80 in like ten minutes. Anyway, I didn't want to create a tense DJ-dancer relationship with the DJ that night, so I didn' t bother pointing out to him that it wasn't exactly fair to me that he pays me for a lapdance when what he's really getting is a champagne room. Back there, he ended up whipping it out and trying to jerk off (as I gingerly inched away from him, wanting nothing near it, and eventually making him put it away). And after that night, our relationship went back to "normal" in the club.

Example #2: The relationship between the busboy and dancers is ridiculous. The dancers make way more money than the busboy, who happens to be an undocumented immigrant. They send him out for smokes and dinners and pay him only for what he buys, and never bother tipping. It's fucked up. One day he had a few drinks, and started telling me that he really liked me. He told me he watched me on the cameras sometimes and that he knew I was one of the few girls who didn't "do sex" and that he really liked that about me. Could he get a few lapdances? Sure. The lapdances were nice - i.e. he kept his pants on and his hands, generally, to himself. Then he paid me the next day. Since then, I think we have a really nice friendship going. He's attracted to me, but he also respects me as a person (and he says that "Pakistanis are generally very nice and don't cheat on their wives" and he really respects my culture...). But then he has these wierd days where he'll be really horny and will talk to me really dirty - our (or should I say, HIS) running joke is now "you coming home with me?" at the end of my shift. And I say "you can't afford me" and we laugh. It's all very harmless and jovial, but it still occupies this strange gray area. The power dynamics are evident: he is male; he is responsible for my security in many instances. At the same time, I'm a dancer, a US citizen, well-off (certainly when compared to him). So there was this time when he took the joke a bit too far ("Wanna come home with me?" "You can't afford me." "Well I'm gonna wait outside and kidnap you.") and I threw my stiletto at him, laughing, but still pissed.

Example #3: Management! I have dealt with four managers so far, and only one of them wasn't fucking around with dancers. The others? One of them, Eric, was a serial monogamist when it came to the dancers. He would have a long, intense relationship with a dancer, then there'd inevitably be some drama, and then she'd "get fired because she missed a shift" or something ridiculous, and then he'd start a new relationship with another dancer. Eric, FYI, was also a retired cop. The current manager, Larry, has also found himself infatuated with me. Mind you, he hangs out with other dancers, having sex, doing blow, etc. But with me, "he finds himself thinking about me all the time." I think it started because he realized we share some politics (we ended up having a really engaged conversation about Che Guevara once), and then he realized I don't turn tricks (which always gets the guy to think of you 'respectfully' instead of as a ho, which is fucked up in its own way), and the rest was history. I've found out that he actually asks other dancers in the club for personal information about me, like, do I have a boyfriend? would I ever date him? etc. etc. Luckily the only dancer I actually share personal information with is an absolutely loyal friend to me, and would never trade info about me.

Conclusion? There is something really strange about the relationship with male staff at the club. I've had many a customer throw $40 or $50 at the lapdance bouncer so we can have more "privacy" (i.e. "Don't interrupt me when you see me grabbing her tits") during our dances. I know that money talks in a club, and dancers should never have any illusions that the bouncers are truly there to ensure our safety. Not only can they be tipped to turn a blind eye, often times, they want to break rules with the dancer too. I was reading a great article about the sex work industry and how feminists would never try to protect sex workers they way they try to protect women who are looking for abortion services. It's true, the dancers, tricks, and whores - especially those of us who don't fulfill the image of the downtrodden, oppressed, rape/trafficking victim - are hardly worthy of energies of "the feminist movement" to make sure we get home safe, to make sure that even a joking threat ("I'm gonna kidnap you!") is seen as profoundly offensive. And so we've turned to hiring males to do the work in the club of ensuring our safety. This option, it turns out, has been largely problematic as well.

Customer of the Week

2009-03-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

I must share the tale of, let's call him Dave...Dave. He truly made my week last week. Dave's a semi-regular customer of mine. I can expect to see him once a month, and he only spends money on me. He spends good money too - he'll buy a couple of lapdances, take me to the champagne room, and tip $90-150 depending on the day. He's an Asian statistician at some bank that pays him a lot of money - enough where the company car drives him to strip clubs and the driver rolls around the city while he has fun inside with me. Anyway, he's great! His generosity is awesome, but any dancer will tell you that money alone does not a great customer make. (Some day, I'll post about Billionaire Asshole and you'll see what I mean.) It's also that he's really a blast to hang out with... He must be like 40 years old. He's really into Indian girls (hence, me) - and educated and open-minded ones at that. He told me that Chinese guys like Indian girls because of our thick black hair, the fact that we have full lips, and that "we have more ass than Chinese girls."

Anyway, he cracks me up. He comes to the club, and we sit and talk for a few minutes. The conversation inevitably starts out by talking about work, school... and then he shifts gears into dirty talk (the line he used last time was - "When I walked in and saw you on stage I immediately went from 6 to 12."). The dirty talk usually involves more frank conversation about our likes (he likes medium sized breasts, missionary style sex, and penetrating with his fingers) rather than the "ooh you get me so wet" variety of dirty talk. Shortly after a few minutes of talk, we retreat to the champagne room, where he playfully begs me to allow him to finger me (the playful tone makes the whole thing rather comforting, rather than extremely annoying, for me, which is hard to explain). He also once asked if I'd insert a finger in his ass, which I politely declined. Had just had a manicure, see. He always wavers between begging for sex and commending me for not doing it. (He's not the only one! I've had way too many guys say "I think the reason I like you more than these other dancers is because you don't break too many of the rules. I know you're clean, and I like that you're a challenge." I hate that when it comes from most guys... It's patronizing as hell, plus it doesn't stop them from begging for sex...)

But usually our time in the champagne room is a combination of dirty talk, laughter, and lapdances. He really makes me laugh back there! He'll say stuff like "After the age of 20, hand jobs just don't work anymore" or "Do I have the Asian curse?" (in reference to his dick). He's really self-deprecating and humble, and it's hilarious! He'll also told me, during a lapdance, "The only thing between us is a thin layer of fabric. What if that were just a thin layer of latex instead?" which cracked me up pretty hard. Coming from any aggressive or dirty pig, it'd piss me off, but his neurotic, funny, and generally harmless demeanor makes it really endearing.

Anyway, last time he had some more hours to kill so he ended up spending a lot of time in the club after his champagne room. He made my day! He kept doing this thing where he'd make bets with me, like "If you can get a guy to take you for a lapdance in the next 20 minutes, I'll match whatever he spends on you!" And he kept his word! And then, he kept doubling the odds and "making it interesting." Wow! That day, needless to say, I broke my personal record! I came home with a nice chunk of change. Wouldn't it be cool if there were some way to combine the following two vices: compulsive gambling, and stripper fetishes?

Onions make me cry...

2009-03-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

A big thumbs-down to The Onion, a usually funny and satirical paper that really pissed me off for the following:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/stripper_putting_herself_through?utm_source=a-section

The piece denigrates those who *do* strip as a way of life, and implies that dancers are stuck in abusive relationships and abysmal work conditions.

And boo to me for every time I politely smiled and nodded along as a customer commended me for "having something else going" for me in my life, not like the other low-life girls at the club who didn't have education or politics.

Recent uses of babywipes

2009-03-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure who uses baby wipes more: a new mother or me at a shift at the club. Baby wipes are as crucial to strippers as exotic natives are to anthropologists! Anyone? Anyone? okay, anyway, What would happen if one were to do like a commodity chain ethnography of baby wipes in strip clubs? (Wenner Gren leans in, tantalized...)

Baby wipes - Use #1
The obvious: freshening up any and all parts of your body after a stage set and before a lapdance.

Baby wipes - Use #2
High-friction lapdances can often get guys really hot and bothered. Actually, low friction and no-friction dances can do this to. But even just a little knee-near-the-groin action can get some guys to blow their load in their pants. I would say this probably applies to somewhere between a third and a fifth of the strip club customer population. Actually, once I gave a guy a lapdance and halfway through the first song he told me I could stop, that he'd already finished his business. I was hardly making any contact with the region!!! Thus proving that orgasms are as much in the head as they are in the ... other head. Anyway, there is nothing like a sweatpants (or trackpants) customer whose bone-on you can feel pretty plainly. I tend to hover above these boys in dances rather than actually sit on their laps. I call it hoverdancing. The skill of being able to hoverdance is known as hovercraft. Anyhow, the last thing I want to come (pardon the pun) into contact with is semen. I have successfully (knock on wood -- not too hard, though! that's friction!) avoided such contact since starting the job. Still, when a guy comes in his pants during a lapdance, baby wipes are necessary mostly as a psychological cleansing tool...

Baby wipes - Use #3
This customer I nicknamed Slouchy Hussain came in last week. Usually he takes me to the Champagne Room, which is where he earned his odd moniker. I call him slouchy because he does what so many guys do during lap dances - they gradually slide down till they're almost horizontal, laying flat on their back! What is it about sitting up straight that is so loathesome to them?! Usually when guys start doing this I pull them up by the back of their neck and have them sit up straight again. But Slouchy Hussain looks so intent, so focused, that it would really be a shame to break his concentration by adjusting his posture. Slouch away, 'Sain! Anyway, last time he came in it was pretty empty so instead of a Champagne Room we just went for lapdances. And usually, common courtesy for boys is to empty their pockets of wallets, phones, keys, exacto knives, whatever things they have in their pockets that might jab or poke at you*. Slouchy didn't empty out his pockets, so when I started giving him his lapdances, I felt what I thought was a key poking at my thighs, side, stomach, butt, throughout the dances. Afterward I went to the back to freshen up (7 lapdances! I was a hot mess.) and noticed that I had a dark, brand-new vein in my thigh! For a split second, I thought I might have to quit dancing or get laser treatment to erase it when I realized that it was no vein, but PEN scribbling all OVER my back, thigh, butt... ARGH. Who the hell a) doesn't empty sharp objects from their pockets before a lapdance and b) has an UNCAPPED pen among those sharp objects? Anyway, use #3 for babywipes involves erasing pen markings from your body.

Baby wipes - Use #4
There are oh so many ways to violate someone sexually! It doesn't have to involve whipping out a dick or penetrating anything. There was this guy who KEPT trying to make out with me during a lapdance. He would grab my hair, my back, the back of my neck/head, anything! Eventually I had to turn around and give him the kind of dance where you're clapping ass in front of their face most of the time, because I wanted nowhere near his mouth. After the dance he asked if he could kiss me on the cheek, which I obliged. But I feel like he must have been collecting saliva or something that whole time because he refused my cheek and went instead for my ear (which was so NOT okay) and gave me the oral equivalent of a wet willy. Needless to say, I gave my ear a thorough rinse-out and scrub down with soaped0-up wipes (and gave the guy a dirty look). Does anyone make colonics for ears?

*except their penis

A dancer's right to shoes

2009-02-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

My first pair of dancing shoes weren't really dancing shoes. Huh? What? Erm, how could that be??? ... Well, it so happens that the closest thing I've come to wearing a heel was having a large wad of gum stuck under my shoe. So, the idea of putting on a pair of stilettos was particularly frightening to me, almost frightening enough to keep me from dancing altogether! Seriously, the idea of baring my chest in a room full of people was less daunting than the idea of walking (forget the gracefully part) in a pair of heels.

When I was toying with the idea of dancing, I called a club I was interested in to ask what their audition requirements were. The guy said, "Bring an outfit and six inch heels." I dropped the fantasy of becoming a dancer for a few weeks.

But alas, I found these chunky heels in a Union Square shoe joint that were really high but looked really sturdy. There were straps on the shoes and all. They were like the SUV's of high heels. So I bought em and used them for my audition, and danced in them for almost a month!! But then the other girls were like 'Honey you really should get stilettos.' Some of the girls were even nicer, like "Do you want to borrow my shoes until you can afford a pair of your own?" And some of the girls were really nasty, like "You should get stilettos, it'll distract from all your flab." Either way, it was clear I needed real dancing shoes!!!

So I went to this place that sells stripper stuff and looked at their least intimidating shoes. In my mind: Still. Really. Intimidating. But I settled on this clear pair that had little rhinestones across the top. (Note to self: these little rhinestones may get caught in fishnets, leading to three things: 1) Torn fishnets. 2) Broken shoes. 3) Potentially embarrasing fall on stage mid-set. -- Only 1 and 2 actually happened, but 3 was a close call.) Anyway, I walked around in them at home for a while but they still scared the crap out of me. I got used to them, though, and I make a habit of taking my shoes off during lapdances so it's not like I am wearing them the whole shift. I also run around the club with the shoes in my hands when I'm feeling casual (aka my feet are killing me!) and want to come across as the quirky fun-loving gal you just want to throw money at. (Guys are always surprised by how short I am without them!)

But like 7 months later, those shoes started to fall apart. And for some reason, all the stripper shops in town had limited stock of shoes, so I couldn't be picky and choose the friendliest pair. Well, I got this black pair that had monster high heels and a HUGE platform. They are like stilts! And they have these little silver heart detailing, just what horny bankers like to see before they shell out the big bucks, right? I realized that my shoe phobia had just been dormant for a while, but was still definitely there. That pair was the best I could do, though, and I really wore out my clear pair until I had no choice but to go to the new pair.

Well, good news, once you go black... Okay, forget it. What I mean to say is that these stilt shoes are way more comfortable than the clear and superficially friendly ones! Maybe it's the extra padding from the platform, or maybe the height of the platform translates to a "net" heel height that's actually lower (any stilettomaticians out there?), but whatever it is, knock wood, these shoes are nice! At some point, I'll upload the pic I took of them with my camera phone.

Tricky situations...

2009-02-25T15:11:00.000-08:00

Tricks happen. Sometimes they happen intentionally (a condom left precariously in the VIP room might be evidence of that) and sometimes they happen accidentally, believe it or not (you'd be surprised how far a little fully clothed friction can go!). I'm not sure what constitutes a trick, exactly... Fondling? Fingering? Handjobs? Handjobs through pants? Customer masturbation during a low-contact lap dance? High contact lap dances? Kissing a customer? The definition in the eye of a dancer, customer, and most importantly, a law enforcement officer, is constructed, shifting, and unclear! That said, there are some things that clearly *are* tricks and not stripping (sex and blow jobs, for instance). And some things that clearly are stripping (no-contact lap dances, for instance -- provided the guy isn't pleasuring himself). I've been really interested in watching dancers negotiate who's turning tricks and who's not.

I've seen fights break out in the dressing room between girls where the lowest insult was "at least I'm not giving $30 blow-jobs in the champagne room, bitch!", or "how many broke as n*'s did you f* today in the back?" Clearly, whether or not one is engaging in sex work is something associated with shame. I often wonder how successful an organizer would be in my club if (s)he were trying to recruit dancers/sex workers who work there for a rally, or a conference, or any type of organizing around sex worker rights. These girls who *are* having sex for $350 in the back hardly identify as sex workers, and in fact use the term as an insult, are highly unlikely to be game for any type of organizing! Yikes, but I don't want to go hollering "false consciousness" either...

As a girl who's not doing the BJ's, HJ's, or home runs, (and apparently, easily pegged as a girl who's not) I hear a lot from my sisters-in-arms. Here are some snippets...

"That guy took me to the champagne room last week and just wanted to suck and kiss my neck the whole time. It left a hickey and my boyfriend was so pissed! He called me a whore, and said I'm probably doing all kinds of stuff at work. And I'm not! I mean, you know, a guy who kisses on your neck is harmless, a dream come true in here. But Sam was so pissed! And I started thinking, god, I'm just like those girls who work here who are whores. I mean, they give away sex, but I'm not different than them. I just give away a different kind of intimacy. I just felt so depressed after that whole thing, I couldn't bring myself into work on Tuesday."
-Sarita

"There whores need to stop doing this stuff here! I found a condom in the VIP yesterday... I mean, if the cops come and raid the place we're *all* going to get arrested, not just these girls. They should just take their customers outside instead of doing it here."
-Soleil

Of course, I believe that women who want to sell sex should be able to, and I cringe at the use of the term whore, ho, and trick. But then, I wonder about the spaces women are putting themselves into and the risks it exposes them to. Shayla, a dancer, said the cops busted a club she was working in once and almost arrested her. She said she explained that she has a kid and has to be home and isn't among the girls who turn tricks, and the cops were "nice enough" to release her.

So, how do I resolve this tension? Women who are fortunate enough or simply not willing to or interested in turning tricks are exposed to punitive action because other girls in their clubs are. Yet, those women who are selling sex shouldn't be criminalized to begin with! What's the solution?

Getting started...

2009-02-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

Before deciding to go into dancing, I had been to a strip club once, as an undergrad, years ago. My roommate and I thought it would be fun/funny to see what the big deal was. (Or, as neither of us was willing to admit to ourselves or each other, we were probably a bit curious about women...We were in a heteronormative space where admitting that seeing women undress piqued some curiosity would have sentenced us to some type of ostracism by our pious girlfriends.) The commercial, un-intimate, and artificial setting in the club was somewhat comical, and guys kept on hitting on us and trying to buy us cigarettes. We had good laughs about it afterward, but neither of us ever returned.

But I'm always asked by friends and customers at the club why I decided to start stripping. (FYI, some people think "dancing" is the politically correct term, and stripping is derogatory. I feel that, but I'm trying to 'take it back'! Here, I use the terms interchangeably. Plus, I don't do a whole lot of dancing...sexy squats, butt-cheek movements, and flirty gestures is more like it. Poles scare me.) Anyway, it's hard for me to pinpoint why or how I started... I have a good friend who was an escort for a while, and she totally revolutionized and forced me to rethink the way I view any type of sex work. It seems the mainstream is divided into two schools of thought: 1) That all forms of the sex trade are evil and dangerous and should be eliminated, or 2) That the women in these industries have no other choice and are often exploited, victimized, or don't know any better. Of course, each of these viewpoints is simplistic, problematic, and don't fully represent the range of experiences of women throughout the sex industry. I thought about it more and began to feel very disappointed with most representations of dancers, sex workers, escorts, and trafficked women. More importantly, I noticed that those categories (and the fractures within them) were hardly distinguishable for most people.

I realized that according to popular representations, there was something inevitably oppressive, objectifying, exploitative, and unsafe about women selling their bodies for sex. Yet, these same popular representations overlooked the ways women are often necessarily oppressed, objectified, exploited, and endangered by factory jobs or domestic work, and the manifold ways women sell sex without it being labeled as such. Furthermore, I began to notice that sex work as a type of labor was invalidated by these representations. Sex work, by occupying a place in the social imaginary of an immoral AND exploitative industry, became an easy target, while other types of labor were precluded from being critiqued on the same level. I wonder why people ask me about resolving any ethical dilemmas I may have about being a dancer, but my corporate attorney brother is never asked the same questions, nor is my cousin who's a p.r. rep of a pharma company. What is it about "sexual" ethics that comes to occupy a particular place, and how is this process linked to other socioeconomic processes?

I also learned very rapidly that the law is hardly on the side of women in the sex industry, while men who pay for various types of sex are often untouched by these draconian laws. The way that sex work is defined and policed unfortunately perpetuates much structural racism, sexism and classism (I use those categories intersectionally and not separately/additively). The more thought I gave to the place the sex industry occupies in the global economy, the more I realized that it was a critical site of many of the biggest socioeconomic injustices. We can understand a lot about how power works - imperial power, race power, gender and heteronormative power - by understanding the positioning of the industry. Along with blogging about mundane anecdotal stuff about my day-to-day experiences here, I hope to get at some of those issues too. (Don't worry, you'll also get to hear about the 60 year old lawyer who can come in his pants just from hearing you say the word "pussy" during a lapdance!)

Of course, I wasn't the first to think about these injustices. I was shocked to find a huge corpus of white, highly educated, tenured women professors who had made a living off of writing about sex work and stripping, many of them in a very sex-positive way, a way that encouraged the decriminalization of sex work. Yet, their involvement with any type of the sex industry was often as privileged voyeur. Some of them gave lapdances at high-end clubs for a while, but many resorted to standard sociological methodologies like interviewing escorts, hanging out at strip clubs, and conducting focus groups among johns. Also, they often glamorized the idea of 'choosing' to be in sex work as some necessary component of the work these women do, overlooking the range of privileges and disadvantages faced by women who sell sex. The elitism around scholarship and activism in the sex industry was, again, another site of some of the gravest inequalities. Of course, I was pleased to find some scholarship about the agency of women of color in the sex trade, such as work written by Kemala Kempadoo. Her work, for example, gives nuance to the complexities of the experiences and realities of being a sex worker.

I've never kept a regular blog before, and I understand that it might seem a bit presumptuous to assume I have anything of import to tell whoever stumbles upon it. Yet, at the same time, I think writing and processing work in a somewhat interactive setting might be useful in a number of ways. I hope to report on everything from racial dynamics at the club, the recession, the niche that stripping occupies in a neoliberal economy, religion, the constructed division between sex work and dancing, the law, citations and articles about stripping, cute guys who come to the club, creepy guys who come to the club, cattiness between dancers, sisterhood between dancers, stilettos, hair, and a whole lot more!