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Thread: For those who no longer dance ...

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    Featured Member krys's Avatar
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    Default For those who no longer dance ...

    I did a wee search ... found general stuff on 'retiring' but I have a specific question if you have the time to share your thoughts :-)

    Was just wondering if when you stopped, you just got so fed up you just stopped or if you worked your way towards a planned retirement. I am trying to go for the latter but wonder if that point of 'I'm ready now' will ever come!?

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    Featured Member short skirts's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    One day I just decided that I was fresh out- done, couldn't handle it any longer. I always wanted to retire with a bundle saved up but I decided to take my sanity instead.

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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    I planned my retirement. I decided about a year ago that this was the last year for me, The industry is not at all what it was like when I started in 97, girls are doing way more for less money, the economy was going downhill, I was working twice as hard for twice as less, I could go on.

    I got my resume together, put it on Monster.com applied for jobs, it was bleak. i stuck to my retirement date (labor day weekend) and quit. I ended up waitressing and hostessing at the club, making shit money but hell I had a job.

    In October my husband was hit by a car while on his Harley, broken foot, out of work for almost four months (He's doing great and back at work now). I had to go back to dancing and I hated it. I did end up getting an office job during this time, which I love, doing admin work. i had to keep dancing for about three months in order to keep the bills paid. I stopped for good in the end of January. This time I just didn't come back. I had come to hate the business, the lack of customers and the increase in the number of girls, the customers, expecting way too much.

    There is a part of me that will always love this business, it has been very good to me but my time is done.

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    Featured Member Jezzebelle's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Quote Originally Posted by short skirts View Post
    One day I just decided that I was fresh out- done, couldn't handle it any longer. I always wanted to retire with a bundle saved up but I decided to take my sanity instead.
    Yep, pretty much the same with me.

    Well, I clung on a bit longer than I should have I reckon. Then my last nite I spent the last hour on the balconey watching the club, watching the dancers sitting on laps, going round the room 4 times or more for nothing and decided there was no way I could come back to this.

    I always wanted to be a career stripper tho and probably would have quite happily if I didnt meet Mr Wrong who killed my confidence,which was reason number 2 as to why I stopped.
    A civilian spends money to look good
    A stripper looks good to make money
    A civilian may be after your wage
    A stripper laughs at your wage

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    Featured Member CherryBomb954's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Susan-Va View Post
    I decided about a year ago that this was the last year for me........ girls are doing way more for less money, the economy was going downhill, I was working twice as hard for twice as less, I could go on.

    In October my husband was hit by a car while on his Harley, broken foot, out of work for almost four months (He's doing great and back at work now). I had to go back to dancing and I hated it. I did end up getting an office job during this time, which I love, doing admin work. i had to keep dancing for about three months in order to keep the bills paid. I stopped for good in the end of January. This time I just didn't come back. I had come to hate the business, the lack of customers and the increase in the number of girls, the customers, expecting way too much.

    There is a part of me that will always love this business, it has been very good to me but my time is done.
    ^^^kinda similar to what I have been through in the last 6 months or so. I "quit for good" back in May of last year to find a "real job"...plus we had temporarily moved away and were too far from any of the clubs. Not to mention being fed up with extras, etc. I couldn't find anything to save my life, got a job at a clothing store and that lasted for about a month, come October and still no job for me. We couldn't survive on my husbands pay alone (they were cutting his hours) so I went back in October, and "quit for good" again in December, cause his work was starting to pick back up, and we moved downtown.

    Fast forward to about a month ago.....hubby got laid off. He's getting fucked on his severance package, and we are down to our last red cent, don't know how were gonna make rent....
    SO, looks like I am headed back to the club, again, this week. Not only to make rent on the 1st but because we need $$ in general. I'll probably end up staying for at least another few months. I am OVER the job hunt and the fruitless results of endless application filing out/interviewing/etc all for nothing. I am not expecting to bank when I go back...... just being able to put food on the table and pay the utilities will be enough for me.

    I keep trying to quit but something just keeps pulling me back. I have come to realize that this is all I have right now, so I am just gonna suck it up and try to make the best of it. Ignoring and competing against the extras in this town is the hardest part......

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    Senior Member Tonya's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    I was getting ready for work one day and decided I couldn't do it anymore. I never went in and that was it. I always worked for a temp agency while I was dancing, so I'd have something on my resume. I had no problem getting an admin job. I haven't danced in about 4yrs and am back on this site contemplating going back. I've been out of work for months and we've been juggling getting by on hubbys salary. I started in the good old days of the late 90s. I figure the money isn't what it use to be, but it beats nothing.

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    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Neither planned nor flamed out. I just kept taking longer and longer breaks between schedules and eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn't planning on returning again.

    I did one last bachelor party, but it had literally been months since my last shift. I only did the party because it was a regular customer that did parties 2-3 times a year, anyway, and I had agreed to do the show well in advance. If I was offered the party that week I would have likely said no.


    Promote yourself and earn more money! This is a business that is owned by strippers for strippers. Let's make that money!


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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Quote Originally Posted by short skirts View Post
    One day I just decided that I was fresh out- done, couldn't handle it any longer. I always wanted to retire with a bundle saved up but I decided to take my sanity instead.
    Same here. I had been getting burnt at the time of clubs in general, but the last club really did it. I had danced several nights and made $10-$20. That's what I made my first night dancing years earlier when I didn't know how to hustle. This club was never a big money maker but I kept hoping it would change. At previous clubs I made at least $200 a night. These clubs were mostly bikini or topless. Most of the time it was even more money. This particular club was topless so it felt demeaning.

    I got yelled at by the manager because I started to refuse to take off my top during a show. Not just me but other dancers. The manager said I had to take off my top because the guys were there to see dancers. Didn't matter that these guys weren't spending. They wouldn't even tip on stage. Wasn't me, other dancers were complaining about walking out with $10 or even owing house. Then on Saturday nights they'd raffle off stage dances (like bachelor party dances). They required all the dancers to get on stage topless during the set and do things like draw on the guy, take off his shirt, etc (the same thing you saw if you did a special dance on stage). That felt demeaning. The customers were mostly low class.

    Then they started creating these stupid rules. I can't remember what the rules were, but if you violated them you got fined something like $100. One girl got fined for eating in the dressing room and walked out. They started fining for not taking top off (even if no one was there), even "wrong" music. Needless to say many of these girls quit and extras girls came in. Many of us knew these other girls were hookers because we'd often see them in cars with guys after work. The final straw was when the manager yelled at me because I had told him someone stole a cd of mine. I was called a bitch. I went in the dressing room, got dressed, packed my bag and left.

    It wasn't even this club, I was just burnt. The industry wasn't the same as it was when I first started in 1993. I started when air dances were the norm and touching was never allowed. A few years after this incident I walked into another club to audition and was stunned by what I saw. Pure disgust. Men sucking breasts, dancers grabbing the guys, and so much more. I walked out.

    I didn't have money saved, but I had other jobs at the same time like modeling and radio jobs. I was also doing bachelor parties on weekends and making more doing that than the club. I was lucky because I had college. I was able to quit.

    I loved the art of striptease. I loved doing a private dance, loved chatting with great customers, putting on a great stage show, but I was not interested in prostitution.
    Last edited by Kellydancer; 02-21-2009 at 06:21 PM.

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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    I consider my "career" job to be nursing, and danced a few days a month on the side. I enjoyed dancing, and obviously, the money.

    I'd still be dancing if it weren't for the dramatic changes in a relatively short amount of time. In a period of a few years, everything changed. It's disgusting and demeaning now.

    I noticed dancers starting to be okay with meeting customers OTC, and then doing extras in the club, and it became the norm. Dancers did it, not the customers. Customers only follow what we allow. We've lost it as an industry. Too many girls think that a $300 blow job or meeting OTC is not only okay, but actually seem to think that's good.

    Even if I wanted to dance, I don't even consider that dancing jobs are out there to have anymore. It's more like prostitution now. That's all that's out there in strip clubs in the clubs around me. Even a year ago, I'd go in at least to see regulars. Now, strip clubs are boring to them, and they don't even like them anymore. There's no fantasy, no fun. It makes me mad. Dancers used to be smart. Though sounds old-fashioned, it really is a fact that guys love the chase. Give it away, and they aren't so inclined to pay for the play of the chase. It's our own fault as an industry, and so I don't feel sorry for the dancers who ruined the industry making no money now. I do feel sorry for the dancers who are true dancers, that small group.

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    Featured Member krys's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Thanks for taking the time to share stories so far girls ... always a help and great reflection as always *hugs* I can relate in some way shape or form to all of the above.

    I know its coming to an end for me ... in my head I am saying the end of this year. I am a yoga teacher and do thai massage and can also teach pole so I have a few things up my sleeve. Its just finding the courage to get those things off the ground, stick to a regular routine, and being ok with making money 'enjoying' what I do.

    I am trying to get smarter with my money and am weaning myself off the other aspects of the job (freedom of hours, making as much as I need, coming and going as I please, no schedule etc). For me that feels 'safer' than just going cold and risk freaking out and heading back to it several months later feeling defeated. I think it is going to come with a combo of planning and just stopping ... if there is such a thing.

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    Veteran Member peachplumpear's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Mine was planned and unplanned. The first 2 years I danced, I paid off my debt and the third, I saved 10K so that I could go to school full time. I planned on saving that much each year for a few more years but then my club burnt down and I couldn't make money at a new club. I was super depressed and tried to hidethru my shift but i keptgetting more into my stage performance. The club would have one lonely asian guy and id be in costume with special music giving the show of my life. So I changed career gears and took out 20K in lloans for cosmetology school. My dad gave me the 10k hedbeen saying he'd give me when I graduated. He never helpedme at all till now, he wouldjust donate everything to Pakistan developments. Anyway, even though I'm going 40 hours a week, I still sort of planned on dancing again when they rebuild my club. However, dear boyfriend said he couldn't handle that. I was a drug user and alcoholic, lying and commuting minor infidelities while we weretogether and I was a dancer. Come April, I would like to cocktail at the newly remodeledclub. I still dont know how jealous I'll be of the dancers. They're building VIP rooms. We never had those before, just an open come and go policy ( so the hookers kept it outside the club) I love my boyfriend but I'd like to make up my own mind on this ( which I did, before I changed it) I guess I just want to have a bunch of money again so I forget how sad it made me to lie about my feelings and let my body get used all night

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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    ^will it still be same management and stuff?

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    Senior Member JPremium's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Like Paris, I just kept taking longer and longer breaks, and working fewer shifts after a break. This past January a fellow dancer slapped me at the bar for teasing her (no, really. I was just trying to make the b*tch laugh and she apparently didn't appreciate my humor) and the management said they would "talk to her" after accusing me of hitting her first. Like, Why would I come to you and tell you this if I had hit her first?! Not to mention the management at this particular club was completely convinced, and told us in great detail, that if we just dressed more glamorously and were more charming, we could make the money. It's just awful hard to justify spending all that money on make-up, nails, hair, etc., when you're walking with $50 a night. And it's even more hard to be charming to tight-ass, crude, so-called "gentlemen".

    I make more as a waitress now, honestly, and I don't feel bad about myself as a human being at the end of the night. I wanted to save up money to retire, but what money was there to save? I started in 2005. The heyday was over by then, and by the time I made it to a big-time club in '06, sure I raked in some cash for a few years, and my husband and I are better off for it, but that ship has sailed and doesn't look like it's coming back any time soon.

    Luckily we can survive if not get ahead on my husband's income. And I'm getting ready to go back to school, which I abandoned in the excitement of making several hundred dollars a night. What's the point of a psych degree when you can make the same amount of money in half the time? Haha, if only I had known.

    /lifestory

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    Veteran Member peachplumpear's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    yes mngmt at the body shop will be the same "collective" of 8 or so hands-off owners.

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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    Neither.. I got hurt and had to miss a couple months and when i went back was told I'd gained a few and had to tone back up before scheduling again. then in different doctor visits to try and fix my shoulder (which is still kinda screwey, over a year later...) i was basically yelled at for even wearing heels in the first place cuz of having hypermobile joints and low back problems. and now that ive had a vertebral dissection (the arteries in mt neck were messed up real bad)and have metal tubes in my neck, I couldnt go back to even if i really wanted to, too much risk of serious injury

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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    I just decided it was time to exit stage left. No more games and no more waiting for it to get better. I felt that my health was more important than my complete financial freedom. I can deal with a pay check every week or two. It is important to be able to eat properly and sleep well and not get sick constantly. I haven't been sick in a year and dancing was only one of the few factors that caused it. I feel better now ^_^.





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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    My 'retirement' was a gradual migration I guess. Part of it was motivated by an ever increasing 'sleaze factor' in the industry ... i.e. more and more incidents with grabby guys / whipped out dicks / expectations of sex on the customer side, plus more and more incidents of being financially 'screwed' by clubowners, magazines etc. Another part of it (fortunately for me) was that some of the investments I had made in the late 90's and early 00's had 'paid off' handsomely, which basically eliminated the need for additional income from continued dancing / featuring. However, from the beginning, I had made it a point to save / invest my dancing earnings with the goal of being financially independent within 10 years.

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    Featured Member krys's Avatar
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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    ^^ I wish I had that motivation and maturity when I started, I keep saying to myself this year, this year I will make the most of it, get on top of it, then quit ... but if I haven't done it so far I am kidding myself to think I will/can now.

    The health thing is a big un for me now, it mentally takes me 2 days to get over working 1 night, my body aches like never before and I feel so depressed after my shifts these days. A lot to do with what a lot of you have mentioned above ... the sleaze factor etc. A guy grabbed my breasts during a dance the other night (I work in a non touching club) it hasn't happened to me in the 2 years I have been there. I was upset but I couldn't bring myself to yell at him or even get him kicked out (he left on his own accord after apologising profusely) ... I mean there are girls that would just charge extra and say its ok. And then the guy offering me $1000 to go back to his hotel ... I mean that behaviour is bad but there are girls who encourage it and do it ... so who am I spose to be angry/upset at/with? In the end I decided myself as I am the one choosing to still go back in there despite all I know and feel.

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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    I am really trying to retire this year. i semi-retired a few years back when i landed a job managing an online pharmacy. while working for the pharmacy i also went to school for real estate and began networking to get a good business sense of what goes on in the investment/financial world. This was just before the bubble burst, so to speak. Around the same time the pharmacy i was working for closed (supposedly corporate strong-arming). I am currently still working on getting decent real estate deals (this business is even more stressful than dancing if you dont make a good sale) and hope to put something decent together soon. Unfortunately the way things are with the economy doesnt really help this business. At best i am just glad that I have some knowledge of how these things work enough how to deal with my own money in the future, so as not to be screwed.

    Currently i am very focused on how to make the most of dancing. Working in other jobs that were just as rocky and undependable (at the end of the day) as this one taught me that this job is a blessing in a lot of ways- as long as you stay strong and remember that. Thing have changed a lot and i too am bored with the environment but i find ways around it and do the best i can to make do. I see girls doing very well despite the economic situation, but it has everything to do with attitude and nothing to do with over analyzing (meaning dont think about it too much lest it brings you down)..............

    My biggest problem right now is trying to find what will make me happy if i do decide to go back to school and retire from dancing. I suspect that it may be a blessing in disguise that i never got too much into the financial world as i am more of an artist. I am considering going to cosmetology school so i can apply some of the skills i already have (years of doing my own hair and makeup) and also learn how to stay beautiful as i get older. Natural Health is a great interest to me as well as art so i hope that i can put these two interests together in my next career move.

    Good luck to all you girls no matter what you do!!! Keep your head up and be strong. =)

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    Default Re: For those who no longer dance ...

    After one year of dancing, I quit college. I realized that you have to grab stripping money when you can. I drew up a game plan, what I wanted to have after retiring -- tuition paid plus 5 years of living expenses. A lofty goal, but I knew with enough hustling and hoarding, I could reach it.

    Years later, there it was: my pile of loot. I like to think of it as booty because, well, you know. It was time to quit. But I didn't want to quit! I was making so much money. I could not give that up.

    I continued to dance until the job wore on me. I began to hate it. I hated the customers who felt entitled to grab me. I hated the dancer bullshit drama. I hated the management for being assholes. I hated the bouncers who never had my back, ever in my career. I hated the club for mandatory 20% tipouts, fucking $100+ house fees, 15-25% funny money trade-ins. I hated that I'd make a "sale" (room + champagne + me) of, like, $10,000 and see only $700 of it. I hated that full contact dances were becoming the norm. And I got sick of seeing dancers dry hump customers who are "good church-going Christians." Why was I putting up with this shit when I had all that money in the bank? Why was I crying when I got home after my shift?

    One day, I plain old didn't go in. I haven't looked back. I don't miss it. Okay, I do miss being told how beautiful I am one hundred times a night. And I miss the attention. Other than that, fuck it. My Stripper Chapter had ended. In my new chapter, I see sunlight. God, how I've missed it. I get up at 6:30 am. I go to bed by 11 pm. I feel as if I have time during my day. I have brunches. I don't feel tired. I feel refreshed. My skin looks better, healthier. My sex life is better. I don't need to take Ativan anymore.

    I lurk on SW for both nostalgia and a reminder of why I left. Don't get me wrong. I loved being a dancer. It taught me well. I have no regrets. If I had to do it over again, I'd still choose to be a stripper.

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