We Are Dancers, an outreach and community-building project by and for exotic dancers in New York City, is seeking a current or former dancer to translate our website into Russian.
The website, http://wearedancersnyc.com/, is approximately 10,000 words, and we can pay our translator $500. We need this work to be completed within the coming weeks, ideally by July.
If you are interested, please contact us at wearedancersnyc@gmail.com.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
The Day of Res-Erection?
Happy Zombie Jesus day, all! This Easter, our club threw its annual Easter party, and we were all required to wear Easter colors (pastel pinks and yellows and greens) along with bunny ears. This is bullshit for several reasons. First, I don't know what to make of Jesus' resurrection intersecting with adulterous erections in the space of the strip club. Second, I think it's probably a total violation of employment law to have us independent contractors (is that what we are?) spend a day shopping for pastel thongs and bunny ears which we pay for ourselves, but the club requires us to wear. And finally, does any customer even give a shit about this? Seriously, strip club dudes out there - are ANY of you ever like, "Shit, the girls at 'Mixed Emotions' are wearing bunny ears today! I better go get me a beer and a lapdance, pronto!" The same goes for our mandatory naughty-Santa themed outfits the month of December, or the "Dominican independence day" Dominican flag outfits. I did a little bit of calculating, and it turns out that in my four years of stripping, I have probably spent about $350 on 'theme' days at various clubs. Do you know how many dicks I had to sit on to earn that $350?! Not to mention the penises I had to press against...
As if that wasn't weird enough, I had to hear a customer passionately digress on his favorite subject, "Euphology." Well, that's how I erroneously assumed it was spelled. Actually, Guillermo is passionately into UFO-logy. The study of UFO's. Now, I'm not so arrogantly human-centric that I've ruled out the strong likelihood of life outside planet Earth, but Guillermo told me that he woke up from a nap the other day, looked out his window, and "I swear to god. There was a spaceship there." See, Obama and the other heads of state around the world are actually all in on this huge secret, which is that the earth is but one planet of many that needs to be governed and ruled. And what we perceive as our government is actually part of a much larger assembly of universal leaders or heads. Our local leaders distract us with day to day shit so we don't notice that there are aliens who really run the universe. (They are humanoids, by the way. The look a lot like us. But their brains are millions of years more evolved.) If I would just look at the sky on a clear night, I might see a UFO and start to understand some of what Guillermo was talking about, and he can also recommend some fabulous books to me the subject.
Finally, I gave a dance to a customer who told me that he would "tear my ass up" if he got ahold of me. That he'd "destroy my pussy. Just totally destroy it." What would happen if I reversed this dynamic for sexy talk with men? Say shit like, "I would RUIN your cock. I mean just tear it off and put it in a vase with water in it. Maybe those little stones at the bottom for a decorative flair. I mean I would just bite that shit off and, you know, chew on it like a Tootsie Roll. And then spit it out like chewed-up paan on a Bombay sidewalk for some pigeon to eat. Yum."
As if that wasn't weird enough, I had to hear a customer passionately digress on his favorite subject, "Euphology." Well, that's how I erroneously assumed it was spelled. Actually, Guillermo is passionately into UFO-logy. The study of UFO's. Now, I'm not so arrogantly human-centric that I've ruled out the strong likelihood of life outside planet Earth, but Guillermo told me that he woke up from a nap the other day, looked out his window, and "I swear to god. There was a spaceship there." See, Obama and the other heads of state around the world are actually all in on this huge secret, which is that the earth is but one planet of many that needs to be governed and ruled. And what we perceive as our government is actually part of a much larger assembly of universal leaders or heads. Our local leaders distract us with day to day shit so we don't notice that there are aliens who really run the universe. (They are humanoids, by the way. The look a lot like us. But their brains are millions of years more evolved.) If I would just look at the sky on a clear night, I might see a UFO and start to understand some of what Guillermo was talking about, and he can also recommend some fabulous books to me the subject.
Finally, I gave a dance to a customer who told me that he would "tear my ass up" if he got ahold of me. That he'd "destroy my pussy. Just totally destroy it." What would happen if I reversed this dynamic for sexy talk with men? Say shit like, "I would RUIN your cock. I mean just tear it off and put it in a vase with water in it. Maybe those little stones at the bottom for a decorative flair. I mean I would just bite that shit off and, you know, chew on it like a Tootsie Roll. And then spit it out like chewed-up paan on a Bombay sidewalk for some pigeon to eat. Yum."
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Polling Place
Now that election madness has passed, and we've all returned to a world in which BOTH parties agree that we should block climate change prevention measures, continue funding state terror, and use drones to kill civilians around the Muslim world, I figured it was high time I blogged about my experience working at the club on election day last month.
*
This one chatty ass stripper started talking to me about the election. She had cast her vote earlier that morning.
"Do you want Obama to win?" she asked.
"I don't want Romney to win. If that means Obama wins, I suppose I'll be relieved."
"Yeah, well I think Obama is better. I mean, I'm a minority and from a poor neighborhood and I definitely think Obama is better for like minorities and older people and women."
"Yeah, to a certain extent that's true."
"But I voted for Romney."
"Oh...wait, what?"
"Well like I said, I think Obama's better. But like, with Romney, I mean, Romney's new. And American should always be about doing something new. Like, having a new person in the White House. That's going to send a message to the rest of the world that America's not afraid to try something new."
Seriously, we're going to disenfranchise convicted felons and let this weirdo vote? Democracy, you so crazy!
*
There's this right-wing white Zionist guy who sits at the bar and talks mad shit about Obama all the time. "He's a socialist Muslim," he once told me. "Any Jew that votes for Obama is full of self-hate." On another occasion, he told me he was really excited that the club hired an East Asian woman because "there's nothing hotter than a little Oriental girl."
The day of the election, he was at the club drinking. When I stopped by for my tip, he told me he was nervous because he'd trusted the club's valet with his car. But then, he added "We'll trust a black crackhead to run this country, so I guess I can trust one with my car, what do you say?"
Post-racial America, you say?
*
I have a regular customer, Steve (two years now and counting!) who's a die-hard Obama supporter. And while he is anti-war and generally further left on the spectrum than 'Bam (which is true of just about everyone except Ann Coulter and the Koch bro's!), he always defends Barry O with gusto. I'll always press him with my critiques, to which Steve predictably responds that the only reason Obama played to the right wing so much was because he was trying to get reelected. A week or so before election, we made a little wager: He said Obama would, in his second term, stick up for Palestinian statehood and stop backing Zionist apartheid in Israel. I disagreed.
Sadly, just a few weeks following re-election, Obama fully proclaimed his support for Israel to 'defend' itself against Hamas attacks from Gaza. (Might I, here, offer a pithy quote from my boy Chomsky: "When Israel, in the occupied territories now, claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population that they’re crushing.")
For me, this meant I got a $200 shopping spree at Sephora, and I didn't lose the bet (which would have meant me treating him to a steak dinner). A tiny silver lining of our country's upsetting foreign policy for this Gaza stripper!
*
This one chatty ass stripper started talking to me about the election. She had cast her vote earlier that morning.
"Do you want Obama to win?" she asked.
"I don't want Romney to win. If that means Obama wins, I suppose I'll be relieved."
"Yeah, well I think Obama is better. I mean, I'm a minority and from a poor neighborhood and I definitely think Obama is better for like minorities and older people and women."
"Yeah, to a certain extent that's true."
"But I voted for Romney."
"Oh...wait, what?"
"Well like I said, I think Obama's better. But like, with Romney, I mean, Romney's new. And American should always be about doing something new. Like, having a new person in the White House. That's going to send a message to the rest of the world that America's not afraid to try something new."
Seriously, we're going to disenfranchise convicted felons and let this weirdo vote? Democracy, you so crazy!
*
There's this right-wing white Zionist guy who sits at the bar and talks mad shit about Obama all the time. "He's a socialist Muslim," he once told me. "Any Jew that votes for Obama is full of self-hate." On another occasion, he told me he was really excited that the club hired an East Asian woman because "there's nothing hotter than a little Oriental girl."
The day of the election, he was at the club drinking. When I stopped by for my tip, he told me he was nervous because he'd trusted the club's valet with his car. But then, he added "We'll trust a black crackhead to run this country, so I guess I can trust one with my car, what do you say?"
Post-racial America, you say?
*
I have a regular customer, Steve (two years now and counting!) who's a die-hard Obama supporter. And while he is anti-war and generally further left on the spectrum than 'Bam (which is true of just about everyone except Ann Coulter and the Koch bro's!), he always defends Barry O with gusto. I'll always press him with my critiques, to which Steve predictably responds that the only reason Obama played to the right wing so much was because he was trying to get reelected. A week or so before election, we made a little wager: He said Obama would, in his second term, stick up for Palestinian statehood and stop backing Zionist apartheid in Israel. I disagreed.
Sadly, just a few weeks following re-election, Obama fully proclaimed his support for Israel to 'defend' itself against Hamas attacks from Gaza. (Might I, here, offer a pithy quote from my boy Chomsky: "When Israel, in the occupied territories now, claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population that they’re crushing.")
For me, this meant I got a $200 shopping spree at Sephora, and I didn't lose the bet (which would have meant me treating him to a steak dinner). A tiny silver lining of our country's upsetting foreign policy for this Gaza stripper!
Monday, November 26, 2012
Dancers are Special!
Hi, avid blog readers (all four of you...)! Here's a really awesome project I hope you'll be able to help out with -
http://www.indiegogo.com/wearedancers
Please take a minute and watch the video. And then, of course, donate!
http://www.indiegogo.com/wearedancers
Please take a minute and watch the video. And then, of course, donate!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Let's have a toast for the scumbags.
Ah, another autumn at the strip club, when the summer slump ends and horny boys need someone to keep them warm. Thankfully, things are picking up after a ridiculously slow summer - new faces and return offenders are all stimulating the economy - and themselves - this fall!
I was on stage the other day, dancing my ass off during my set. Four years into my stripping career, I've fully resigned my goal of learning a pole trick or two. Instead, I channel energies into my pole-less art - you might say I have a No-pole-eon complex. Regardless, there was a young, clean cut white dude sitting at the edge of the stage, watching quite intently. He greeted me warmly when I went over to collect my tip, and told me to come by when I was done on stage. I went over to him, threw and arm around his shoulder, and asked how he was doing. "Fine," he replied, and glanced down at his crotch. There, under the ledge of the bar, were the shortest pair of short shorts I've ever seen, made of what seemed to be the flimsiest material ever. It doesn't end there - peeking out of the bottom of said shorts was the tip of an erect penis. Yikes! Nice knowing ya, buddy.
Also, in creep-show news, there's been this British customer who shows up at the club once a week or so. He'll buy a dance or two from each of his favorite dancers. For me, the dance has consisted of me dodging his aggressive touch and spitting dirty talk such as "Look at you, you dirty little Indian girl." "I could just ravage you in a sari." And, my personal favorite, "I can just picture you getting fucked hard on the streets of Calcutta." All that is fine, but the last time he managed to get a hand free and use it to both give me a painful titty-twister AND a ridiculously hard slap on the ass. (Thankfully, my "dirty Indian girl" skin is dark enough to not bruise that easily...) So when he came back to the club last week, I let the bouncer know he needed to watch us during our dance, and I also stood about 1 foot away from him for the duration of the dance. When the song was over, he looked at me, disappointed. "That's it? THAT was my lapdance?" "Yup." "Wow. That was the shittiest lapdance I've ever received in my laugh. It was absolute rubbish. What a joke." Well, chap, the jokes on you. (Tucks $20 into rubber band bundle, walks away.)
I was on stage the other day, dancing my ass off during my set. Four years into my stripping career, I've fully resigned my goal of learning a pole trick or two. Instead, I channel energies into my pole-less art - you might say I have a No-pole-eon complex. Regardless, there was a young, clean cut white dude sitting at the edge of the stage, watching quite intently. He greeted me warmly when I went over to collect my tip, and told me to come by when I was done on stage. I went over to him, threw and arm around his shoulder, and asked how he was doing. "Fine," he replied, and glanced down at his crotch. There, under the ledge of the bar, were the shortest pair of short shorts I've ever seen, made of what seemed to be the flimsiest material ever. It doesn't end there - peeking out of the bottom of said shorts was the tip of an erect penis. Yikes! Nice knowing ya, buddy.
Also, in creep-show news, there's been this British customer who shows up at the club once a week or so. He'll buy a dance or two from each of his favorite dancers. For me, the dance has consisted of me dodging his aggressive touch and spitting dirty talk such as "Look at you, you dirty little Indian girl." "I could just ravage you in a sari." And, my personal favorite, "I can just picture you getting fucked hard on the streets of Calcutta." All that is fine, but the last time he managed to get a hand free and use it to both give me a painful titty-twister AND a ridiculously hard slap on the ass. (Thankfully, my "dirty Indian girl" skin is dark enough to not bruise that easily...) So when he came back to the club last week, I let the bouncer know he needed to watch us during our dance, and I also stood about 1 foot away from him for the duration of the dance. When the song was over, he looked at me, disappointed. "That's it? THAT was my lapdance?" "Yup." "Wow. That was the shittiest lapdance I've ever received in my laugh. It was absolute rubbish. What a joke." Well, chap, the jokes on you. (Tucks $20 into rubber band bundle, walks away.)
Friday, July 27, 2012
Hot Dog/Vendor
Wow. I thought I'd heard and seen it all after my four (yes, four!) years stripping. But then, yesterday happened. You know how they say men are dogs? Well, if that were true that might make this story a little better.
Remember t-shirt guy? He's a t-shirt vendor in Times Square, and he's a generally good, generous, drama-free customer who comes in every couple weeks. He strikes me as your average "family man who loves to cheat on his wife," pretty standard for the strip club scene.
Background on Vendor Man - he lived most of his life in India as a Tibetan refugee. Hence, he loves India and hates China. I feel him on hating China's relationship with Tibet, but then I get puzzled about his years in the Indian army, especially his time in Kashmir. Why is it okay for him to participate in India screwing over Kashmir, given his critique of China's relationship with Tibet? Well, whatever, it's clear he's no Edward Said or whatever. Anyway, he is a little quirky - like the time he started crying after several drinks because he just "loves Gandhi so much" (read about that here).
Anyway, back to yesterday. He was telling me about his time in the Indian army, and how much he used to love visiting the brothels of Delhi.
Me: Did all the guys visit sex workers in the red light district?
Him: No, I'd say about half. Many of the men were actually really faithful to their wives. I'm sure they were still doing this...(makes a jerking off gesture)
Me: Oh, yeah? As many as half?
Him: Well, some of the guys were really, really into sex. Not just with "whores" (he was using the Hindi work "randi" to describe the sex workers).
Me: So who were they having sex with? Each other?
Him: No! No, they're not GAY! (exasperated) But like one night, I saw three of my colleagues trying to fuck a donkey. A female donkey.
Side note - I love how an implication that they're gay is shocking, but the donkey-fucking is reasonable.
Me: (flabbergasted)
Him: I didn't tell them I saw that, because I didn't want to embarrass them. But, yeah, they were trying to fuck a donkey. Oh man, I knew a guy once who told me he fucked his dog.
Me: (more incoherent astonishment/disgust/shock)
Him: It was a "kutti" (female dog) and he used to fuck it.
Me: That's pretty terrible!
Him: Well, yeah, but then again, have you ever seen a dog's pussy? Especially of a pregnant dog? Ssssss, mmm, they look kind of nice. The lips are nice and plump. It looks so good. Sometimes I think about it too.
Me: (shitting myself)
Him: Americans love to fuck dogs, I think.
Me: Why do you think that?
Him: Well, I've met so many people, like the vendor next to me in the city - he says he's a dog person. What can that mean? It must mean he likes dogs to fuck. One guy I saw in Central Park walking three dogs, and I asked him why he had so many. And he told me he likes dogs more than people. I mean, you know what that means, don't you?
Then he got distracted and, already drunk, began singing this Hindi movie song.
Remember t-shirt guy? He's a t-shirt vendor in Times Square, and he's a generally good, generous, drama-free customer who comes in every couple weeks. He strikes me as your average "family man who loves to cheat on his wife," pretty standard for the strip club scene.
Background on Vendor Man - he lived most of his life in India as a Tibetan refugee. Hence, he loves India and hates China. I feel him on hating China's relationship with Tibet, but then I get puzzled about his years in the Indian army, especially his time in Kashmir. Why is it okay for him to participate in India screwing over Kashmir, given his critique of China's relationship with Tibet? Well, whatever, it's clear he's no Edward Said or whatever. Anyway, he is a little quirky - like the time he started crying after several drinks because he just "loves Gandhi so much" (read about that here).
Anyway, back to yesterday. He was telling me about his time in the Indian army, and how much he used to love visiting the brothels of Delhi.
Me: Did all the guys visit sex workers in the red light district?
Him: No, I'd say about half. Many of the men were actually really faithful to their wives. I'm sure they were still doing this...(makes a jerking off gesture)
Me: Oh, yeah? As many as half?
Him: Well, some of the guys were really, really into sex. Not just with "whores" (he was using the Hindi work "randi" to describe the sex workers).
Me: So who were they having sex with? Each other?
Him: No! No, they're not GAY! (exasperated) But like one night, I saw three of my colleagues trying to fuck a donkey. A female donkey.
Side note - I love how an implication that they're gay is shocking, but the donkey-fucking is reasonable.
Me: (flabbergasted)
Him: I didn't tell them I saw that, because I didn't want to embarrass them. But, yeah, they were trying to fuck a donkey. Oh man, I knew a guy once who told me he fucked his dog.
Me: (more incoherent astonishment/disgust/shock)
Him: It was a "kutti" (female dog) and he used to fuck it.
Me: That's pretty terrible!
Him: Well, yeah, but then again, have you ever seen a dog's pussy? Especially of a pregnant dog? Ssssss, mmm, they look kind of nice. The lips are nice and plump. It looks so good. Sometimes I think about it too.
Me: (shitting myself)
Him: Americans love to fuck dogs, I think.
Me: Why do you think that?
Him: Well, I've met so many people, like the vendor next to me in the city - he says he's a dog person. What can that mean? It must mean he likes dogs to fuck. One guy I saw in Central Park walking three dogs, and I asked him why he had so many. And he told me he likes dogs more than people. I mean, you know what that means, don't you?
Then he got distracted and, already drunk, began singing this Hindi movie song.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Titter Bar
It was Greg's birthday last week, and he came to see me as a "birthday present to himself." Greg's been my on-and-off regular customer for a good 2 years now! He's generous, a non-rapist, and generally good company. On his birthday visit, he put a small cash gift to me in an envelope, along with perhaps one of the cheesiest Hallmark cards I've ever seen in my life. You know the kind, with a raised pastel flower motif along the front and embossed gold lettering spelling out some corny-as-hell poem about belonging together, growing old together, enriching each other's lives. The kind of card you gag-gift someone! He waited for me to read the card, which I primarily regarded as a "cash holder," but it's clear he thought otherwise. "I read that card, and I knew it was for you. It just spells out exactly how I feel about you. I couldn't have said it better myself." Over the next hour of his visit, he repeated no less than four times how "perfectly" that card summarized how he felt about me.
Like I said, he's a good guy. I'd put him low on he list of awesome guys I've met stripping. The hot half-Asian dude who became politicized as we'd drop antiracist political chit chat between lapdances, Irish Gold, Hot Guy (this intensely sexy construction dude from Serbia who I should have been paying for lapdances), Chester Brown guy (a funny lawyer dude who'd gift me graphic novels from my wishlist every time we met up), and the studly Chicano "friend" I made at the strip club all rank much higher than him, though.
Actually, he's starting to annoy me.
He'll make these stupid jokes and wait for me to laugh at them. For example, he asked me if I was going to be working last week on Friday the 13th. When I told him no, he asked, "What, are you a triskaidecaphobe?" I suppose he thought the punchline of his "joke" was knowing that there's a word for the fear of the number 13? Anyhow, I didn't laugh, but he started chuckling pretty hard. When he saw I wasn't laughing, he said, "You know what that means, don't you?" And I said yes. And then he stared me down, waiting for a laugh. Eventually, I obliged.
He does this all the time. He'll make some remark that he finds funny, start laughing, and then - if I don't laugh - he'll explain the joke to me. Greg! It's not that I don't get the joke! It's that it's just not funny! I swear, next time this happens it's going to come to some kind of standoff - picture his sweaty brow...me, twirling my hair in tension, a tumbleweed rolls through the club. Will she laugh, or won't she?
Like I said, he's a good guy. I'd put him low on he list of awesome guys I've met stripping. The hot half-Asian dude who became politicized as we'd drop antiracist political chit chat between lapdances, Irish Gold, Hot Guy (this intensely sexy construction dude from Serbia who I should have been paying for lapdances), Chester Brown guy (a funny lawyer dude who'd gift me graphic novels from my wishlist every time we met up), and the studly Chicano "friend" I made at the strip club all rank much higher than him, though.
Actually, he's starting to annoy me.
He'll make these stupid jokes and wait for me to laugh at them. For example, he asked me if I was going to be working last week on Friday the 13th. When I told him no, he asked, "What, are you a triskaidecaphobe?" I suppose he thought the punchline of his "joke" was knowing that there's a word for the fear of the number 13? Anyhow, I didn't laugh, but he started chuckling pretty hard. When he saw I wasn't laughing, he said, "You know what that means, don't you?" And I said yes. And then he stared me down, waiting for a laugh. Eventually, I obliged.
He does this all the time. He'll make some remark that he finds funny, start laughing, and then - if I don't laugh - he'll explain the joke to me. Greg! It's not that I don't get the joke! It's that it's just not funny! I swear, next time this happens it's going to come to some kind of standoff - picture his sweaty brow...me, twirling my hair in tension, a tumbleweed rolls through the club. Will she laugh, or won't she?
Thursday, June 14, 2012
No Arrest for the Weary
On Sunday, June 17th, I will march in silence with thousands of other New Yorkers who are fed up with police brutality, stop-n-frisk racism, and the routine harassment of young men, LGBT folks, and (increasingly) women of color. I'll march as a woman of color, an immigrant, a socialist, an educator, and - yes - as a sex worker.
Why should sex workers - strippers, more specifically - give a shit about this march, and join me for it?
For starters, the legal system we have is, at its core, about economics. More specifically, a larger atmosphere of 'neoliberalism,' the reigning economic system in which nebulous 'market' forces are presumed to be the best arbiter of the fate of humanity, in which the 'public' sphere quickly disappears, in which blame - for poverty, criminality, marginality - is to be doled out strictly to individuals for their own personal failings instead of to a system of capitalism that's failed them.
This might explain why corporations like the CCA have actually been buying state prisons and operating them! Yes, a private corporation, with a goal of turning a profit, merges with a system that (we're told) aims to keep those on the outside safe and reform those on the inside. But no, the CCA and other private entities have benefited from incarceration of (mostly poor, non-white) young people. To keep their revenues a-rollin' in, they've lobbied and even had some buddies elected to office, campaigns aimed at introducing Draconian laws and law enforcement. Gotta be tough on crime - those prisons won't make any money if they're empty, will they? Meanwhile, those of us who work in the sex industry - walking the fine line of legality and criminality - are thrown into the mix. Those of us who have experienced a raid, an arrest, or worse for consensually selling sexual services know just how much of a numbers game law enforcement is. That's probably why your lawyer and everyone else present when you got arrested encouraged you to take a plea deal, even though you insisted you were innocent. (After all, no one told you sitting on a guy's lap during a lapdance could technically count as prostitution...) It's what they call "maximum throughput" - the prison industrial complex can only be profitable if it's massive, if it cranks people through it enough to be the kind of growth machine capitalism needs.
Notice how these ginormous prisons are usually in rural, white towns? Many prison towns, usually all-white, were plunged into a terrible type of poverty when they lost their jobs after deindustrialization (thanks again, neoliberalism!). Those jobs were not lost, just sent somewhere else where brown folks can do the work dirt-cheap because their government is giving the US a huge blowjob and keeps labor and environmental regulations super-low to attract dollars. What fortuitousness that mega-prisons could occupy such a convenient niche: at once incarcerating now-redundant workers of color from urban areas (can't have 'em roaming the streets, can we?) and employing poor white folks who'd otherwise be unemployed - as prison guards, food service workers, medical staff, etc. So these poor white folks - who'd largely do well allying with people of color around economic injustice - are now given a token of authority over criminalized people of color. The divide & conquer circle is complete...
As sex workers, we are fodder for the business of criminalization. No one knows exactly what constitutes a violation of the law in terms of 'sexual contact.' Stripping and pornography are legal, provided that money is not being exchanged for sexual services...Wait, what? Isn't stripping for cash a sexual service? Where is the line of legality drawn, exactly? We've all had customers blow a load in their pants during a lapdance (and if you haven't, Goddess bless you, child) - is this tantamount to giving a happy ending massage? Can I be hauled away, labeled a "prostitute," and lose my teaching job as a result? Would I even have time to investigate these issues if I were hauled to central booking in the middle of a shift at work and urged to take a guilty plea to avoid legal costs I can't afford? Would I accept a criminal record permanent enough to affect future career prospects, custody battles, and housing?
My first year stripping, I had a late night customer buying tons of lapdances, begging me for a blowjob in the champagne room. I refused, and his offer became more and more generous. By the time he realized I wasn't going to do it, he'd spent all that money on lapdances while he'd tried convincing me. After the lapdances were done, he flashed me a police badge. He told me I did the right thing, not taking him back there. I had another customer who was going through police academy confess that he'd seen over 200 sex workers during his lunch breaks. I had a retired-cop-turned-strip-club-bouncer confess to me that, during his career as a detective, he made several arrests because he "didn't like the way the person looked." (A very thinly veiled racist statement, since he quite often cursed out "niggers" without much hesitation.) Yes, these are the police who will raid our clubs, banking on the fact that we don't know our rights, and have so few to begin with. These are the police who serve and protect Bloomberg and his cadre of Wall Street cronies and criminalize more and more of us with impunity. These are the police who shot and killed Ramarley Graham, beat the hell out of peaceful Occupy protesters, spied on Muslim students and businesses. The same police who, with each day that passes, get more authority over enforcing immigration law. The same police that can decide that, if you are carrying a condom on you, it can be used as evidence against you in a prostitution case.
The time is running out to raise hell about this issue. How many more diligent mothers will be stigmatized for work that allows them to support a family? How many trans sex workers will be felt up in "gender investigations" by police on the streets of Jackson Heights? How many more university students will be arrested or beaten for simply protesting a tuition hike? Dancing girls, this issue is ours. Let's do this.
Why should sex workers - strippers, more specifically - give a shit about this march, and join me for it?
For starters, the legal system we have is, at its core, about economics. More specifically, a larger atmosphere of 'neoliberalism,' the reigning economic system in which nebulous 'market' forces are presumed to be the best arbiter of the fate of humanity, in which the 'public' sphere quickly disappears, in which blame - for poverty, criminality, marginality - is to be doled out strictly to individuals for their own personal failings instead of to a system of capitalism that's failed them.
This might explain why corporations like the CCA have actually been buying state prisons and operating them! Yes, a private corporation, with a goal of turning a profit, merges with a system that (we're told) aims to keep those on the outside safe and reform those on the inside. But no, the CCA and other private entities have benefited from incarceration of (mostly poor, non-white) young people. To keep their revenues a-rollin' in, they've lobbied and even had some buddies elected to office, campaigns aimed at introducing Draconian laws and law enforcement. Gotta be tough on crime - those prisons won't make any money if they're empty, will they? Meanwhile, those of us who work in the sex industry - walking the fine line of legality and criminality - are thrown into the mix. Those of us who have experienced a raid, an arrest, or worse for consensually selling sexual services know just how much of a numbers game law enforcement is. That's probably why your lawyer and everyone else present when you got arrested encouraged you to take a plea deal, even though you insisted you were innocent. (After all, no one told you sitting on a guy's lap during a lapdance could technically count as prostitution...) It's what they call "maximum throughput" - the prison industrial complex can only be profitable if it's massive, if it cranks people through it enough to be the kind of growth machine capitalism needs.
Notice how these ginormous prisons are usually in rural, white towns? Many prison towns, usually all-white, were plunged into a terrible type of poverty when they lost their jobs after deindustrialization (thanks again, neoliberalism!). Those jobs were not lost, just sent somewhere else where brown folks can do the work dirt-cheap because their government is giving the US a huge blowjob and keeps labor and environmental regulations super-low to attract dollars. What fortuitousness that mega-prisons could occupy such a convenient niche: at once incarcerating now-redundant workers of color from urban areas (can't have 'em roaming the streets, can we?) and employing poor white folks who'd otherwise be unemployed - as prison guards, food service workers, medical staff, etc. So these poor white folks - who'd largely do well allying with people of color around economic injustice - are now given a token of authority over criminalized people of color. The divide & conquer circle is complete...
As sex workers, we are fodder for the business of criminalization. No one knows exactly what constitutes a violation of the law in terms of 'sexual contact.' Stripping and pornography are legal, provided that money is not being exchanged for sexual services...Wait, what? Isn't stripping for cash a sexual service? Where is the line of legality drawn, exactly? We've all had customers blow a load in their pants during a lapdance (and if you haven't, Goddess bless you, child) - is this tantamount to giving a happy ending massage? Can I be hauled away, labeled a "prostitute," and lose my teaching job as a result? Would I even have time to investigate these issues if I were hauled to central booking in the middle of a shift at work and urged to take a guilty plea to avoid legal costs I can't afford? Would I accept a criminal record permanent enough to affect future career prospects, custody battles, and housing?
My first year stripping, I had a late night customer buying tons of lapdances, begging me for a blowjob in the champagne room. I refused, and his offer became more and more generous. By the time he realized I wasn't going to do it, he'd spent all that money on lapdances while he'd tried convincing me. After the lapdances were done, he flashed me a police badge. He told me I did the right thing, not taking him back there. I had another customer who was going through police academy confess that he'd seen over 200 sex workers during his lunch breaks. I had a retired-cop-turned-strip-club-bouncer confess to me that, during his career as a detective, he made several arrests because he "didn't like the way the person looked." (A very thinly veiled racist statement, since he quite often cursed out "niggers" without much hesitation.) Yes, these are the police who will raid our clubs, banking on the fact that we don't know our rights, and have so few to begin with. These are the police who serve and protect Bloomberg and his cadre of Wall Street cronies and criminalize more and more of us with impunity. These are the police who shot and killed Ramarley Graham, beat the hell out of peaceful Occupy protesters, spied on Muslim students and businesses. The same police who, with each day that passes, get more authority over enforcing immigration law. The same police that can decide that, if you are carrying a condom on you, it can be used as evidence against you in a prostitution case.
The time is running out to raise hell about this issue. How many more diligent mothers will be stigmatized for work that allows them to support a family? How many trans sex workers will be felt up in "gender investigations" by police on the streets of Jackson Heights? How many more university students will be arrested or beaten for simply protesting a tuition hike? Dancing girls, this issue is ours. Let's do this.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
I love both my husbands...Isn't that big'o'me?
"Pretty Woman. Memoirs of a Geisha. Firefly. The Girlfriend Experience. Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Moulin Rouge. I began to see a trend: The media says that if you are a person in the sex industry, even one who consensually entered sex work, you will always have to make a choice between love and work. Sex workers, you see, cannot afford to love. Cue dramatic music and wistful looks into the long distance."
Check this interesting discussion of loving and sex-working.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Cultural Capital
Below is one of the saddest, funniest, most fucked-up, succinct quotes from the mouth of a strip club customer (self conscious working class dude) reacting after I told him what I do when I'm not stripping.
"Yeah, see, you sound like someone who goes to Columbier University. I sound like someone who got ass-raped on Queens Boulevard."
Aaaaand...that's a wrap.
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