Stripped Bare- Surviving the Industry: The Good, Bad and Downright Ugly Truth

First off, this is NOT IN ANY WAY RELATED TO SEX WORK OTHER THAN STRIPPING!! I love all my sex worker sisters and I'm not bashing escorts. Escorts are NOT strippers who do extras inside a club. If you do both, just keep it outside the club. So to all my sex worker sisters, this is only meant to educate strippers as to how they're damaging our industry by doing extras inside a club. Imagine you're a stripper and in desperate need of extra cash; what do you do? There's always the option of picking up an extra shift but maybe you don't have time. Business is slow and you're about to lose your apartment. You and your two kids won't have a place to go. A customer offers you extra money if you allow him to finger your pu$$y or suck on your nipples. You do it because you feel you need to and your justification is that you're doing this for your kids. The customer then proceeds to offer you a decent amount of cash to meet him at a hotel after work. You're

There are multitudes of stigmas surrounding stripping including the fact that people think we don't respect ourselves. We get nude in front of crowds. We put ourselves out there. We should "expect" to be disrespected, have our boundaries pushed, and being sexually assaulted. Stop that! Stop thinking what you're thinking RIGHT NOW! "But are they wrong?" Yes. The answer to that is, always has been, and always will be "YES"!! 1) "You're getting naked for strange men and you don't expect to be touched?" You're damn right I expect not to be touched! The basic decorum and laws of society don't stay at the door. They very much apply within. You wouldn't get away with grabbing a random woman's pu$$y out on the street, so don't do it to strippers; it's NOT okay and it IS absolutely considered sexual assault. Just. Don't. Do. It!  **If any sort of contact is allowed it's still illegal {and immoral

I've often asked many women which they would rather have; would they rather have him go to the strip club or a regular bar, with the "boys"? Most women immediately choose the latter.. Here's the thing, his chances of finding a girl to sleep with are GREATER at any average bar than they are at the strip club. Ladies, we're there to get paid to give him blue balls; after that, he's all yours, and we've already forgotten his name. The only thing we want that's in his pants is his wallet! That brings us to girl 1, the most common, and most obnoxiously frustrating female.. 1) "The Babysitter" This is the girl who comes in with her man so she can watch him and make sure he "behaves". Typically this girl is like stripper repellent because we don't want that drama and it's not like she'll "allow" her man to spend any money.. Sometimes if I'm feeling bitchy and a girl's snarl is annoying enough, I WILL go ov

There's an acronym taught in every Economics class in every school everywhere; TINSTAAFL- There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch... Can someone relay that message to the gentlemen who visit clubs? Anymore, it seems, the harder you work, the less you have to show for it. I don't know about anyone else, but when I see a girl sweating her ass off, walking around the pole on the ceiling, and doing out if this world acrobatics, I TIP! It's not a free show and talent used to be valued. Having spent 10+ years in the industry, while waiting tables in between, I can honestly say that tipping is lost on people. Before anyone comes back with bullshit responses like, "Then get a real job", or, "Then why do you do it?", let me say this; ANY JOB THAT PAYS MONEY IS A REAL JOB! I've never been paid with Monopoly money.. Now, back to my original point. It's just common sense that you tip your waitress and that dancers work for cash. So being cheap isn't goi

Some say everything in life is a choice while others continuously insist they have little to no choices. Some believe our choices ultimately define our happiness or our misery. Some say choices that seem right end up being all wrong. There's some truth in all points of view but all have varying levels of judgment behind them. Telling someone to choose to be happy isn't always the best advice; there's a time and place, depending on circumstance. However, it is never really wrong to advise someone that making a difficult choice COULD ultimately lead to blissful happiness; this leaves room for error and also allows someone to be less likely to blame themselves if things don't go as planned, or hoped. That said, I found myself in a rough situation the summer of 2013; I was homeless, living on a campground (with showers THANK GOD!!), and had no other choice but to dig up my dancer bag and go back to my home club, even though I thought I was done dancing; my dancer bag ha

I am the worst blogger ever! Let me just start by saying that I've had time for absolutely nothing but work and kids. I think I may have had a margarita sometime in the last two months; and that'd be the extent of my "social life". I'm an agoraphobe & exotic dancer. I have major social anxiety but I love the stage. I have degenerative arthritis in my back, scoliosis, but you can find me climbing a pole and walking around it with my feet on the ceiling on any given Friday. How?? Discipline, self motivation, and yoga! Sitting? Bad. Standing in one spot? Bad. Wearing 7" platforms and doing acrobatics? What back pain?? That answers about 8,000 questions. So how does someone with a list of ailments, aged 32 (33 this year), and complete cynic handle such a physical & considerably mentally draining career? For younger girls the whole, "I'm young and cute" thing works, for a while... Realistically every dancer makes what we call "new gi