Originally Posted by
black_widow
I definately think working in a strip club scars you, in one way or another. It's one of those things where if you partake in it, if you go down that road, you will never be the same.
I would equate a touching club, esp a heavy touching club, to mild sexual assault on a daily basis FOR SURE, no questions asked. Just because we consent to it because of club rules, doesn't mean we are totally ok with it, and I think in the bottoms of our pysches, we are aware of the fact that this smelly old dude touching our tits is really NOT OK.
I think our bodies and minds respond to such things, and we either learn coping mechanisms that work or we suffer symptoms of PTSD.
Most people who have mutliple traumatic events in their lives learn the tool of dissassociation--where your mind disengages from the present and you sorta daydream your way away from the situation that is bothering you at hand. At low levels, this would be like day dreaming in a boring college course. At higher levels, it's more like having amnesia about a rape, due to the fact that your mind involuntarily disassociated due to stress and trauma. I think what dancers experience is somewhere in the middle--we don't have full amnesia, but we aren't just daydreaming away from the shitty situation either. I find that I DO sometimes have problems remember things about my night at work, and I am always aware of thinking about other things in attempts to unfocus on horrible lapdances where I am NOT ok with what is going on (but I can't speak up because it's just the house rules). I believe I suffer from partial disassociative symptoms, which would include the forgetfullness, haziness, withdrawal, that you mentioned in the original post.
I've read many studies about women who work in the sex industry and the levels of disassociation in this industry are sky high. If disassociation is experienced at high levels for a long enough time, it can morph into other dysfunctions, namely schizophrenia (although this is rare). there is also a disassociative personality disorder that i believe we all develop if we stay in this industry long enough---and if we don't develop it, we most certainly find other ways of dealing with the trauma.
I do think, too, that some women are more suited to this than others--i.e. it doesn't bother some women nearly as much as others, and some women are infinately better at handling stress over long terms than others, and some just are better equipped, coping wise, to deal with the job trauma.
Overall--it sucks BALLS we are stuck in the environments we are in, working in situations that cause mental unhealth, working for people who refuse to cover us in their health/dental insurance plans. We are working for a job that is causing us to get sick, for bosses that don't care that we get sick, and that don't help us pay for and seek treatment.