Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
Lots of good things said here.
The only time dancing has really done me in was when I was stuck at a bad club. Otherwise it's been great but a huge time/energy drain. I now regret more the physical damage to my knees and back, than all the crazy tales and sad scenes.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
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Originally Posted by
NREXM
The only thing that gets to me is the inconsistencies in money. I absolutely hate not knowing whether going into work is going to be worth my while or not. I don't like making a thousand dollars one day and one hundred the next.
This is THE MOST stressful aspect of the job for me. I really enjoy dancing, the physical aspects, the customer interaction, and the ability to come and go as I please. What makes it suck is not being able to depend on the money, and like the first poster said, I often equate my worth with how much I earn.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
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Originally Posted by
GlamourRouge
Yeah its a hard balance deciding when to tell men you're in this industry. Should you wait awhile so they see your mind, but perhaps get angry or disgusted by what you do & dislike you after that? Should you be upfront and tell them right away knowing that many men will then see you as a slutty horny sex object? I've seen it go both ways, and everything in between. I am usually open with people right away if the subject comes up now. I don't care at this point, and I feel like those who want to be your friend will stay. I like what I do. Its not my fault they are uneducated, misinformed, or if they listen to negative media portrayal. That's THEIR issue, NOT mine!
As far a clubs go, I am SO HAPPY I danced. My body image grew in a positive direction. I realized that all women have flaws, and its smoke/mirrors/lights that create the goddess effect. I knew this, but I never realized to what extent. Body shapes & sizes too. It helped my body image for the better, working with several different girls with different body shapes. Not to mention I learned all the beauty tips & tricks, stage presence, social skills, business sense, time management, ways to think smarter & more creative, psychology, acting skills, all while meeting interesting people and learning random interesting things. All jobs have their perks, and dancing has many.
I must say though, I REALLY dislike upscale clubs because I feel like they promote unhealthy ways to achieving thinness. House moms & management would look the other way at when girls did hard drugs & drank heavily. They would *state* the rules as to not get in legal trouble, but they didn't care. And every upscale clubs around me ONLY seemed to care about how thin you were and how glamorous you could be. I didn't mind the glamorous part. Anyone can be glamorous, but NOT anyone can be thin. You CANNOT change your body type in any healthy way. I don't consider myself a big girl at all, but once you reached 120 lbs, those clubs seemed to have it out for you. As much as I loved those clubs, I just couldn't do it anymore. While I still travel dance, it is very seldom and not for long amounts of time.
It really was a hard thing telling guys because I never knew what they would think. The best guys didn't like it but understood why I did it. Unfortunately it did cost me several boyfriends. Maybe in hindsight they weren't good for me but I'll never know. However, I found out which guys thought of me easy right away so I didn't waste my time.
I generally avoided upscale clubs because of the expecting thinness. I'm no fattie, and certainly wasn't dancing, but with my body type I was lucky to get to a size 4 but was normally 6-8. By normal standards that's thing but by upscale it's often large. I have a large frame and pretty muscular and could never be a size 0. Manyclubs wanted that. One club used to have a "test" where if you could fit in this outfit they hired you and if not you were deemed too fat. It was so tiny and couldn't get into it at all. Because of this I tended to stay at the midlevel clubs and preferred these because I wasn't competiting as much with the thinner, blonder dancers.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pipermonroe
This is THE MOST stressful aspect of the job for me. I really enjoy dancing, the physical aspects, the customer interaction, and the ability to come and go as I please. What makes it suck is not being able to depend on the money, and like the first poster said, I often equate my worth with how much I earn.
This is why I left the clubs. When I would make $400 or so I was on top of the world and so confident. When I would leave with $20 or so I felt like a loser. Luckily I never ended up in debt to a club but once walked out with zero after house and I was bummed. What makes it worse is if others are making money but you aren't. I hated that, though to be fair in almost every case where I left with little so did everyone else so it felt better.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FeministStripper
By taking responsiblity for your own actions and placing the blame on the circumstances that caused you to bring undefined boundaries and an unclear sense of self to the job you do. It's not the industry that's hurting you; it's the way you're navigating it. Take responsibility for that and you'll regain your power. Drugs can't force you to do them; money can't force you to betray yourself; no one else's perception of you has anything to do with what you believe you deserve - and if you truly believe it isn't good for you, then you can save enough to leave the business comfortably in three month's time - so if you don't change things, it's because you believe that the things you're losing are worth what you're making. It's your life. Love yourself enough to live it the way you deserve.
Amen.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
Quote:
Originally Posted by
xxxtc
It is very interesting (and sad) for me to read your stories and thoughts. As an agent for private strippers I've seen too many girls come into this industry and leave with nothing. Always I stress to my girls, you must have a game plan. Use the industry, don't let it use you.
Better to be poor for a day with a clear conscience than rich for a week with no self-esteem.
XXXTC, have you ever danced? This forum is for dancers only, and this thread can do with less proselytizing and shaming of extras girls.
Anyway, to address the topic at hand: healing modalities related to the body, like yoga, acupuncture, massage and EFT, really helped me recoup from the verbal, emotional and sexual assault that went on in the clubs.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
I recently had my own moment of astonishment when I realized what I had been doing to myself, emotionally and physically. When I first started dancing, I made a promise to myself that I would do it sober or not at all. I was shocked by just how fucked up some of the other dancers got and never wanted to be like them. I was proud, confident and made great money. I wouldn't let anyone touch me, ever, and I enforced that very strictly.
Then one day, I sold a 2 for 1 to a crusty looking old man.
He asked me if he could buy me a drink, and I said yes. He spent the rest of the night there, spending a few hundred dollars on dances from me and treating me like a damn queen. When he left, I thought, "these are the guys who make my job worth while."
Soon, he had me under the spell of insane amounts of money and I would do almost anything to keep him happy. I pretended to be his girlfriend with no problem. I let his disgusting, wrinkled hands grab me by my hips and force me to grind in his lap. I let his foul smelling mouth kiss my neck. And before I even knew what was happening, I was one of those girls who drank until they could barely stand and let men touch them.
He made me feel like I wasn't pretty enough and no one would ever want me except for him. If a customer lingered by my stage for too long, I had to tell him to leave or the sick bastard might take my money away. In my mind, which had been warped and twisted, I was used up, unwanted, damaged goods. I became a piece of property that belonged to him. At one point, the feeling of violation was so intense, I screamed at my husband to take his hands off of me.
And one day, at no particularly significant moment, I woke up and realized I had to get away from him. I did,, and eventually he was banned from the club for hiding under a girl's car.
I STILL have trouble approaching customers with confidence. I have nightmares regularly, which are gruesome and terrifying. I know it may seem silly that one customer made such a heavy impact on me, but this man had a way of grabbing onto me and not letting me go that I can't really explain. Anyway, this has been my most psychologically damaging incident in the time I've been dancing and I'm still trying to recover from it.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
Maybe I am in the minority here, but I find that the dirt that guys tell me, the rejection from guys, and the way that men look at me as a piece of meat, does not bother me. I have a VERY high BS sensor, and will walk away from a guy mid-sentence if right then and there I sense any BS that will not lead to a sale. I also have comebacks, and if guys arent tipping I will dance in such a way that they cannot see my goodies...also, I am more or less asexual UNLESS I find a guy i connect with on a deep level...BUT I was also a webcam girl for a long time before i started dancing.
Re: Reversing the mental and emotional damage from the sex industry
I've noticed that the most viscious girls tend to be either 1)foreign and desperate, with a "fuck you americans, i'll never see you again after my contract is up! attitude" 2) come from broken households or 3)single mothers... Not to stereotype anybody, becuase I give people a chance unless they prove me wrong, but i have seen this pattern over and over... the worse girl is all three of these and she has singlehandedly chased over half a dozen girls out of our club over the past month alone! management thinks that all these foreign girls (that they sponser over) make the club look good and attract more guys, when in reality, the club makes the same amount of money, just not from american girls anymore! My friend was just saying, she finds it hard to feel sorry for poor girls that strip, from broken households, becuase more often than not they wind up being extremely viscious!