View Full Version : Cosmo article
Bridgette
11-25-2004, 01:05 PM
Yes, I think that that study was done with a limited number of participants.
No doubt they hand-picked their participants to have a majority who were abused.
Funny there's several threads coming up lately that I never saw before...
Anyway, yes I was abused, physically by my stepmother and sexually by the stepmom's nephew and a stepdad (how stereotypical huh?). However I acted out the vast majority of my hostility, anger, etc about that BEFORE I started dancing. I left home at 16, and from 16-21 I was a mess, surviving, but trying almost everything to 'figure it all out'. But then, how many teenagers and young adults have it all together? I never knew any. Anyway, straightened myself up at 22, THEN started dancing after a fluke visit to a SC with friends where I saw my first stripper and she truly looked like she was having alot of fun, and I saw all the m-o-n-e-y floating around. It simply looked like fun, much more than my crappy waitressing and bookkeeping jobs I had at the time, and WAY more profitable.
I don't see how my crappy childhood relates to my dancing, except possibly that my childhood experiences probably made me more willing to take a risk to get something better. However I honestly believe that if I had had a model childhood I would have still wanted to dance after seeing that first stripper on stage and all that $$$. Dancing has definitely been the best thing I've done - gave me all kinds of freedom (the $, job security and TIME to do what I want), enabled me to go to college (and a nice one, complete with overseas study abroad and time to study), and it is just plain more FUN than any other job I might do.
VADEN
11-25-2004, 06:04 PM
I was never abused in any form or fashion....
I did witness abuse and violence though......:'(
And agreeing with Ami, I have always been sexual.....:P
TigersMilk
11-25-2004, 11:20 PM
I was abused by my moms boyfriend when I was 9. He just touched me in explicit places. It didnt feel wrong untill I told my best friend...then I began to think how all the time I felt unconfortable. My mom was pissed after I told her at him of course. She almost killed him! But, nothing severly mentally damaging. I went to counseling afterwards for 5 years though. All of which he payed for!
I dont think I am damaged by it today. I'm ok with it and have moved on but I dont go telling people like it was yesterdays news. They dont really need to know.
It sucks to be part of "that stereotype" I wish it werent that way. Just because something like that happened years ago puts me in that light.
Pamela
11-27-2004, 09:53 AM
I know what this thread is about. But look, how many females in ANY position have been sexually abused? Look at female Lawyers, i hear they want "power" back after a child hood that was so abusive. Sure some dancers have, and do drugs, so do doctors, and Clinton smoked pot! People need to expand their minds, and gays have been sexually abused...so they are gay! It's all a bunch of crap to always ask strippers this queation. How about it sucks trying to be another Christie Brinkley, SO we get attention and money the easier way.....Dancing.
I like that way of thinking better! :)
Pamela
Gerina
12-08-2004, 04:51 PM
Also for the record, I am not taking drugs, I do not drown my sorrows in alchohol, and I do not under any circumstances tolerate a man that hits me.
Ditto for me. I am also educated and morally balanced; and these stereotypes against strippers annoys me. Just becuase the profession is outside of societal acceptance does not mean that most of the women pursuing it have horrible issues. IMHO, the number women with abusive history are same as any other profession.
I talked a bit about this in the other, similar thread...but I'll repeat it anyway...
I was severely sexually abused for almost my entire childhood (from as young as I can remember, until I was about 12), and then raped by another man when I was 16.
I've been through alot of intense therapy, on and off meds, talked about it alot, had amazing support from most of my family, and studied Women's Studies and Abuse Counselling in college.
I believe that my abuse is linked to my decision to dance. I also believe that all choices, actions, and experiences in life are interconnected. When I disclosed the abuse (after the rape) and started the healing process, it became incredibly important to me to take control of my sexuality (no, not to have control over men, but to feel empowered.) I studied anything and everything to do with human sexuality, abuse, feminism, gender studies. I wanted to completely heal my sexual self. Happily, I am well on my way to this goal. I am no longer in the least bit ashamed of my experiences or uncomfortable talking about them. And through my learning and work with myself and my sexuality I have gained an great deal of confidence in myself and my body, and it is because of this confidence, and an ever present curiosty and fascination with sex, that I became a stripper.
I love my job, and am proud of it, I consider it a politically subversive choice, and find it to be fun, empowering and very interesting.
So, sure, my choice to become a dancer had everything to do with my abuse...but it had as much to do with my love of dance and self-expression, the exhibitionist in my, my admiration for early burlesque and a million other things.
People are far too complex to be pigeon-holed so quickly. No one will ever truly understand how the brain works, or all the myriad of ways that abuse can affect someone. But I know that my experiences have made me strong, and that right now I feel happy, empowered and sexy.
Oh and, by the way, I do not hate men. I hate a society that allows abuse to happen, and the perpetrators to get away with it. I hate a society that has given men so much power that most of them will deny they have it, and yet still use it against others. I hate a society in which sexism is so deeply ingrained that women contribute to it without even realising it, and in which abuse, harrasment, rape, and assault are the norm, not the exception.
If anyone has any questions about my experiences...if you want to know the how's and why's, I'll do my best to answer!
p.s. I didn't read the cosmo article, but I'm sure it would have offended me. Such things usually do.
devilkitty
01-23-2005, 10:56 PM
I really dont think that being abused has anything to do with being a stripper. I am obviously no expert. A very high number of girls, something like one in four are sexually abused. I really dont think that the ratio is higher in the stripper population, but i dont know i am just guessing.
LilRogueVixen
01-24-2005, 01:00 PM
The stories I have heard of women who were sexually/physically abused seem to end with a hatred or fear of men and sexuallity. If this is the case I don't understand why someone who was subjected to that would go into a profession where you have to be sexual object to men.
It's the difference between voluntarily taking your clothes off for compensation and having your clothes ripped off against your will for nothing.
Other reasons:
1. It's a safer setting than the outside world because of pimps, bouncers, security, etc.
2. They feel dirty and wanted to surround themselves with other "wayward" people to escape social judgement.
3. They KNOW exactly what guys go into strip clubs to see, so they won't allow themselves to get attached or trusting of these men as they would men on the outside.
tootsie
02-11-2005, 05:29 PM
no, i had a great childhood
Miss Courtney
02-12-2005, 03:59 AM
I was sexually abused when I was 8, and again when I was 10 and 13 and 14. I find dancing makes me feel empowered, like the man doesn't have the power, I do, and thats what I love about it. All those times I felt powerless and helpless, now when I dance I don't feel like that, its the opposite. Anyone know what I mean?