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

  Since age 22 have been in the adult industry in some form or another. Mostly dancing with some bartending thrown in there. 14 years later I am 2 years into retirement, and then I was featured in a story that rocked not only the adult entertainment industry, but major news outlets from east to west coast and Europe ran the story; it was OUR story. The story strippers around the world have been trying to tell the rest of the world  and nobody ever really listened. People hate labor unions, but I used my status as a legitimate DOL recognized union officer and my pull to get the story out in a way anyone who can read at a fifth grade level can comprehend. People still reach out to me from time to time, but our time is over thanks to COVID and mom n pop owned clubs are belly up. Unless some evil corporation picks them all up, our industry is in pretty piss poor shape. The economic stimulus packages equal out to a weekend night's worth of cash when the club is bumpin'. What the he...

  The snake who ate his own tail is an obvious euphemism or metaphor for "vicious cycle". Many career strippers are in denial or not ready to admit that they're caught in a nasty cycle. I, myself, have experienced the aforementioned cycle; but hindsight is 20/20 and I can see most of my sisters are still in it. Even girls like me who've danced for the better part of the last decade don't always see it. This cycle is hard to break and may be slightly confusing unless you think like I do. Quit dancing. It isn't just "quitting my job", it's breaking a cycle and I will, as always, explain myself.   When I first quit dancing, I wasn't just leaving behind a job, I walked away from a lifestyle to which I had grown accustomed and in my case, the only "home" club I was at since moving to the town it was in. I danced there off and on, mostly "on", from  2011 to 2018. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't walk away from what mos...

Interview one: Adriana 1) How long have you been in the sex industry and what is your occupation?   A: I have been a stripper since I was 17. I had  a fake ID and  now I'm 32. Oh wow.. Fifteen years of this and I'm ashamed to admit that I am not doing well in this pandemic. I thought I had my life together. It scared me." 2) Elaborate further if you will. Why did you start stripping so young and still underage? If you don't mind my asking. What about all this is scaring you? Covid aside.   A: My parents weren't exactly the best so I left home at 16. I did some things I'm not proud of and I still feel shitty about it. For my own safety I got a fake ID so I could strip and not hate myself afterwards. I been to over 25 clubs in different states and they all scamming girls. I'm an hourly employee but they don't even give us tax forms half the time. The white strippers are treated better and get paid on time. He targets us and promoted us but we don...

THIS IS THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF STORIES, AS TOLD BY THOSE WHO LIVED THEM AND NOT THE AUTHOR'S VOICE! LISTEN TO THEIR WORDS, DON'T JUST READ THEM!  *"I think I was naïve like we all are as baby strippers. Armani and I (Chloe) have always been a package deal. We look like twins and we decided to capitalize on that. We're both part black & Filipina mixed, so we get pushed out by black people and Asians. Like, hey my blood is half like yours. WTF?! But it's like that everywhere you go, sometimes worse than others but in the stripper world I think that mix is what saved us! We look exotic to men and we stayed together. We did stage shows as a team. But over time it was like we stopped having control and the club capitalized on our shows more. I can't even say when that happened. Or maybe I never noticed until it got real hard to find work at a small club. I was over the "vegas" style clubs in Chicago and tried a DejaVu in Indiana. We used new names....

Recently a club owner in MA was accused of multiple violations, but those are only the pretty bows on an unwanted package. The real story came from a brave black woman {name omitted for now}, well call her "C", and she belongs to the most marginalized of even LGBTQ sex workers. The man in question is Nick and I've been granted permission by the necessary parties involved. Let's begin.  "He lured us in by kinda advertising his club as an LGBTQ friendly place. But then he also made a point to include that "women of color" [sic] had a safe space." - C Me: "So he lured you in by promising that he'd provide a safe haven for LGBTQ strippers, women of color especially?" C: "Yeah and his ex said he did this before with her heritage in particular." Me: "So we've established his pattern of behavior & "M.O" for targeting women he feels nobody will care for or even listen to, correct?" C: "Exac...

 * The sex industry is notoriously riddled with covert racism & it's time to bring to light a very ugly side of the industry that's largely left unseen or isn't taken seriously. All of us have been told that we have to "just deal" with men assaulting us or maybe it's not the right career for us. It's just part of the job. We have to "understand" men can't control themselves.. We know these facts already, for the most part. Assault inside clubs is seen to be as perfunctory as a phone call is to someone's assistant. But it's NOT normal and it's also really fucked up that this notion exists in nearly every club. The problem nobody wanted to talk about until now, but in hushed voices and only with some.  * Black sex workers and those within the LGBTQ community, which crossover, are statistically higher targets and 40% of black and multiracial transgender sex workers are a target of violence, assault or arrest. The stigma should...

 * "What are your plans for retirement? This career has an expiration date that's different for everyone. What if something happens and you can never dance again?"  * I've been asking this question for over fifteen years now and I always get the most perfunctory and redundant answers; misguided is an understatement.  *1) "That's still so far off, I'm not too worried about that now."  *2) "I'm in nursing school."  *3) "I'll have money saved by the time that happens."  * NONE OF THE ABOVE STATEMENTS ANSWER THE QUESTION!  * I asked,  WHAT IF YOUR CAREER COMES TO A SCREECHING HALT?   * I can answer the question for at least 50% of strippers right now. They're completely lost! Dancers in WA state told me, on the phone, they never want to reclassify as employees, but that they are and always will be contractors. Legally most of them are not independent contractors, they're mislabeled employees. Since two stri...

 *I remember ten years ago we still enthusiastically changed our outfits, had fun on stage and today's baby strippers have jaded and apathetic strippers as mentors or guides; which dancers in my generation hate to do. The ones I trained made more because I have always stuck by the etiquette I was taught and combined all of it makes men remember why they used to enjoy watching enthusiastic dancers perform with some passion and sensuality mixed in. Whenever it's safe to reopen clubs again, just try "old bitch" stripper etiquette for one month. Then compare your income from that month to previous months. I chose July 16th to Aug 16th for 6 girls to test. 2 used my MO & style, 2 did all the run of the mill moves we all use that guys have commented on; almost always it was "why does everybody dance the same?". The other 2 were asked not to tell me what they chose and had the third option of doing their own thing but not to keep it basic.  *I made $7,859 fro...

 *It's been nearly two years since I quit dancing and I realized I can't be happy until I leave the industry on my own terms. I left my old job because I had a stalker and he threatened to kidnap my son; it's a long story but on my last day, upon walking in, I had zero intention of quitting. I had asked an ex-coworker to let me know if he contacts her. I moved to IA from Chicago in 2011 and started at my club three days later. I met my friend and stalker shortly thereafter. She hated him. In 2018, neither of them worked with me any longer and they didn't talk.  *On my last day I had finally gotten used to being away from my son and could't wait to be there because I was FINALLY  happy; making steady money and doing better than ever. Five hours in I checked my messages, and there it was; the words I'd dreaded and knew were coming, but part of me had hoped I was wrong. "Hey sweets, I don;t wanna freak you out but he messaged me out of nowhere, asking me wha...

 *All over social media strippers are understandably losing their minds due to their inability to keep up with bills as they relied solely on cash and, until now, didn't have much luck with unemployment; many did have positive results filing their taxes for 2019. There's no guaranteed return if the IRS doesn't have 2018 returns to go on if this year's forms are behind. That doesn't mean people shouldn't try. Turbo Tax has an app and it takes you through every step of IRS form 1099misc and W2. Most of the time it goes through. With the 1099misc you may have to print and mail the form to a specific address, found on the top right side of the form and on the second page. This is only because they may need more information if you didn't file for 2018; none of this means there won't be a return with a stimulus added. There is indeed a financial reprieve for adult entertainers now.  *SBA has been updated to include self-employed adult entertainers in need of...

*There's a lot going on in the adult industry and it's frustrating to watch! My JOB is to stay on top of social media and industry news. Lawmakers, strippers and especially clubs are over suing.. For most it just ends in a settlement and nobody ever knows it happened. DejaVu was sued and that obviously made news, but there was confusion in the dance industry.. *Dancers were under the impression that California laws were all about them when Dynamex was everywhere. Somehow blind to the fact that THEIR attorney had sued Starbucks, Amazon now Lyft and Uber. The news is chock full of news about "gig workers".. It took a very long time to break through to CA dancers. They all thought DejaVu forced the other clubs to reclassify dancers as employees.. *For TWO WHOLE YEARS I've been saying all of this.. And a very influential dancer group that turned their nose up at the dancer union have taken everything they were told and YELLED AT ME FOR, and plastered it on their w...

  https://www.britannica.com/science/Stockholm-syndrome "The survival instinct is at the heart of the Stockholm syndrome. Victims live in enforced dependence and interpret rare or small acts of kindness in the midst of horrible conditions as good treatment."  *Straight from the mouths of those with PhDs in Psychology and psychiatrists won't and don't disagree that Stockholm explains why we KNOWINGLY  allow our bosses to use us to break laws, and treat us like expendable trash. To him you're like the gum that lost its flavor, spit out and replaced with a new piece of gum; doomed to lose its flavor and spit out. He might let you slide because of an illness, extreme family emergencies but the reality is, you're just as worthless to him as someone he hired and fired a week later without explanation; whose name is already forgotten before she's even gone.   *Their powers of manipulation know no bounds. They'll let it slide that you're late once if ...