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Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
Would you be working as a stripper if you were part of a very rich family?
Lady Gaga was from a very rich family when she started started stripping. She said an an interview, “I was working in strip clubs when I was 18. Girls from my background weren’t meant to turn into someone like me. I come from a wealthy Italian family, went to a good [roman Catholic] school... I moved out of home, wouldn’t take any help from my parents and supported myself with waitressing jobs and stripping... I discovered a real personal freedom through it... I was drawing huge crowds, setting hairspray alight on stage and dancing madly."
I'm sure there are other dancers that strip because of the "personal freedom" and attention they get living the dancer lifestyle, but I'm wondering - What percentage of you would still be stripping if your parents were mega-rich and you could have anything you wanted by merely playing the role of "good rich girl" in front of your parents (and bad rich brat behind their backs)?
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
I'd be one of them. If it weren't for this damn hip injury, my ass would be dancing. I have a wonderful day-job and a man who's offered to support me. Doesn't matter - I'd still be dancing.
For some girls, it's just something we love doing. For me, it's literally a part of who I am.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
I guess this is because I grew up poor, but if my family were rich youd better BELIEVE id be milking that shit for all its worth! lol. And my parents are the kind of people who, even though they are poor, are still generous, giving, and loving with their children and would give us the world if they could. At the very least, would pay our ways through college to ensure we had every opportunity we could have.
It's funny isn't it, when upper middle class and rich people "slum it" for some perceived authenticity of the working-class/poor experience? Whether you're dependent on money coming from a job or coming from one's parents you're still dependent in some way. Then again, if you are economically privileged then you can still work a job and make it pleasurable enough for you to continue doing it without worrying about catering to anyone else's tastes. A dancer from a super rich family could work 4 hours a night, 2 nights a week, drinking at the bar and doing the occasional airdance because if things ever got REALLY bad she knows she can go running back to mom and dad (they won't let her starve on the street). I'm sure the decreased stress of having that economic safety net would make dancing that much more pleasurable as well.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
money and class are not perfectly correlated. one can have a lot of money and still be middle class or even working class in status (the child of a plumber is not from the same class as the child of a university professor, even if both plumber and professor make the same money).
so it's hard to know the class status of lady gaga's family based on that information, but it is probably high-earning middle class. and of course that assumes she is telling the truth which may or may not be the case. it would damn near be a career-making thesis to find and interview an upper class woman working as a stripper, ever. it just doesn't happen beyond the middle classes. (there is a lot of sociological research into whether upper class women ever do any type of sexwork, and the answer is 'apparently not that anyone can actually verify as coming from an upper class background'.)
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
I knew a girl who did it to hide a shopping addiction. Her parents started rationing her money to keep her from going overboard on shopping, so instead of being reasonable, she worked as a stripper. That lead to a plastic surgery addiction, which lead to becoming a call girl.
Her parents eventually cut her off from her trust fund. Now she is a craig's list hooker. She asked me how I could go from making all the money as a dancer to being a $30K a year employee. I told her that I saved my dancing money and paid off my debts so that I could quit comfortably.
She couldn't wrap her mind around not spending tons of cash on designer everything. Her response to me was "I just don't know how you can do it." Her implied meaning was that she can't see herself shopping at Walmart or buying things second hand. She would feel humiliated to have to wear discount clothing.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
Why would a trust fund baby want to be become a stripper? Because there are exceptions to every rule.
How many girls in the US have a substantial trust fund income? Must be many hundreds of thousands. If we assume that the same percentage of those girls become dancers as do the percentage of girls in the more general population, then statistically you are going to expect to find a few trust fund girls stripping.
But a stripping trust fund girl is far more newsworthy than a 'run of the mill' dancer, so she'll get all the headlines, while a 'run of the mill' dancer won't get a mention.
Take a big enough sample of the population, and you'll find a few oddities - like Paris's girl with the shopping addition.
Phil.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
miabella
so it's hard to know the class status of lady gaga's family based on that information, but it is probably high-earning middle class.
Her parents were early internet entrepreneurs. Her dad was also President and Chief Operating Officer of Infocrossing, Inc. She went to the same high school as Caroline Kennedy and the Hilton sisters.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
jack0177057
What percentage of you would still be stripping if your parents were mega-rich and you could have anything you wanted by merely playing the role of "good rich girl" in front of your parents (and bad rich brat behind their backs)?
That's a fairly unrealistic view of what the family dynamic is really like. Real life is not what you see when you watch Paris Hilton or the Kardashians cavorting on reality TV. Most parents, even rich ones, have expectations of their kids and most normal kids grow up and want to be independent. What you are suggesting is that it would should very easy to live a lie in order to live off of your parents for your entire life. Do you honestly believe that?
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
^^^ Half the guys in my college fraternity were spoiled rich kids. They were well-behaved in the company of "adults", but did all sorts of crazy shit when unsupervised in the frat house. "Independence" is achieved by going far away to college. (Their parents continue to generously support them, but without any parental supervision.) After college and/or grad school, they either have a trust fund, a big inheritance from grandma or grandpa, and/or a cozy job in the family business or through a family connection.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
Paris
She couldn't wrap her mind around not spending tons of cash on designer everything. Her response to me was "I just don't know how you can do it." Her implied meaning was that she can't see herself shopping at Walmart or buying things second hand. She would feel humiliated to have to wear discount clothing.
That's so screwed up, most people would be humiliated about being a craigslist hooker.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
If I came from an upper class family, I'd probably have a good network for career options so I doubt I would become a dancer/sex worker. However, if I felt like erotic entertainment was truly my 'calling', I'd feel secure enough with the 'safety net' of mom and dad to be more daring as a dancer.
It's likely that I'd be an even bigger traveling nomad than I try to be now and go all over the world to dance in as many countries and cities as possible. But, then I'd try and broadcast my adventures a la Wild On (I've always loved that show when Jules Asner was the hostess!)
I'm completely serious. During grad school and study abroad, a lot of my colleagues were trust fund babies. They took off to exotic locales all the darn time, on a whim, never worrying very much about their future career. I'm sure I'd be similar, but would get bored traveling and not making something productive happen along with it....so why not be naked for profit?
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
jack0177057
Her parents were early internet entrepreneurs. Her dad was also President and Chief Operating Officer of Infocrossing, Inc. She went to the same high school as Caroline Kennedy and the Hilton sisters.
the hilton sisters are poor relations at best. i read a couple years ago an article breaking down the specifics of their class status, but i have no idea where on the internets it disappeared to.
but upon further google-ing of ms. gaga, it is not clear that she did stripping beyond some burlesque sets and that any reference to stripping as SWers understand it might well be an exaggeration for effect, among all her other such exaggerations. it is pretty hard to know with her entire schtick as a performance artist &tc.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
Jack I think that like everything, you have a distorted view here.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
I have no input other than to say that it's really revealing when customers call it "slumming it" ("bad rich brat" behind their backs) or something no one would or should want to do if you had other options.
Just makes me think they don't have much respect for the women dancing for them or are happy that their finances leave them no choice so someone's doing it.
Just thinking out loud.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
jack0177057
^^^ Half the guys in my college fraternity were spoiled rich kids. They were well-behaved in the company of "adults", but did all sorts of crazy shit when unsupervised in the frat house. "Independence" is achieved by going far away to college. (Their parents continue to generously support them, but without any parental supervision.) After college and/or grad school, they either have a trust fund, a big inheritance from grandma or grandpa, and/or a cozy job in the family business or through a family connection.
I am not sure if lack of parental supervision qualifies as independence. A big part of being independent is being able to generate your own resources.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
JayATee
Jack I think that like everything, you have a distorted view here.
Lol... I'm glad you are here to correct me... Please explain...
I'm not asking the question in a judgmental way, it's judgment-neutral. In Lady Gaga's case it made total sense. She's was an attention-junkie with ambitions to become a mega-rock star. Strip tease shows were good practice for sexy dance routines on a bigger stage.
When about 10% of the dancers on SW seem to abhor stripping (and only do it out of dire necessity) and another 85% say over-and-over "its just a job" - they don't hate it, but they definitely don't love it -- I think its a fair question: Would you dance if your family was rich? I undestand the whole "independence" concept, but again, (1) rich kids are socially independent when they leave for college (economically, they continue to receive money from mom and dad - but I've never heard them complain about that), and (2) after college/grad school, there's plenty of job opportunities for them through family connections and they're definitely not at entry-level salaries.
If you could have the nice apartment, state-of-the-art appliances, rolex, BMW or Mercedes and weekly shopping at Nieman Marcus and Nordstroms, without taking your clothes off at the SC, would you still want to be a dancer? I'm guessing that only about 5% of the dancers on SW would answer 'yes' to this question.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
Athenathefabulous
I am not sure if lack of parental supervision qualifies as independence. A big part of being independent is being able to generate your own resources.
Yeah, but I've never heard of a trust fund baby that turned down trust money because she didn't earn the money herself or reject an inheritance because she didn't earn the money herself.
The problem with money from mom and dad is that they come with strings attached, i.e., following their moral code and living according to their expectations. In college, all this means is that you have to show up to a few classes a week, pay someone to write your college papers, and cram hard before exams. You have all the rest of your time, about 70 hours a week, to party, drink booze, do drugs and get laid. - It's not so bad.
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
jack0177057
Yeah, but I've never heard of a trust fund baby that turned down trust money because she didn't earn the money herself or reject an inheritance because she didn't earn the money herself.
Dude, you have it backwards. It's not a question of "turning down" the money. It's about not being willing to kiss-ass and tow the line to get it...
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
^^^ Okay, I'll buy into your "independence" v. "freedom" distinction.
A lot, if not most, upper-middle-class women are perfectly content to experience "freedom" in college, while continuing to rely on their parent's resources and even relying on some parental generosity after college.
But, you're saying that there are some young women with such a strong hunger for complete "independence", that they will walk away from a very affluent lifestyle and turn to dancing for self-support?
I'm not saying that either the first or the second choice are better than the other. I'm just curious - What percentage of dancers, if given this choice (i.e., multi-millionaire parents), would choose "independence"?
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
"Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?"
So that she can also have a Trust Fund Baby? :P
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
I have a friend. He was best man in my wedding and he and my husband have been the best of friends since they were kids.His dad was one of the people who INVENTED cable tv. His family has more money then God.
But they werent raised that way. His dad, until he got too old to do it..still climbed up poles to install cable. My friend and all his brothers and sisters had to work to make spending money..they werent handed anything. They lived in a VERY nice large house...but not a mega mansion by any means. Just a really nice house.
He is now 40, married and has a baby girl. He works his ass off as a graphic designer and his wife is a teacher. Anything they have, they worked for themselves.
He will come into an inheritance when his parents pass away. And if he was in a genuine jam, they'd for sure help him out and have.
But they also want their children to work and appreciate what they have and not be handed everything.
Just because someone's family is rich...doesnt mean they are having the world handed to them.
Not to mention that even if someone IS getting more money then they need from Mommy and Daddy...stripping is fun and rebellious for them. Or maybe they have a habit (drugs, shoppping addiction, whatever) that they dont want Mom and Dad seeing the bills for. There are a million reasons and they will change with each person as we are all individuals.
And I never knew Gaga was a stripper!
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Re: Why Would a Trust Fund Baby Become a Stripper?
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Originally Posted by
JayATee
Because she wants to.
...+1