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Thread: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

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    Default Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    So, I went in to a few auditions, got hired at one of the clubs. I haven't started yet, but from what I've seen I like the club. It seems clean (For LA) the girls seem friendly enough, and it was fairly busy the nights I was there.

    Now I have a problem. I feel like at some point I will need to tell someone, and so I felt out my best friend about the matter, jokingly saying that I was thinking of stripping to pay for my tuition. She immediately got hostile, saying that that was "lovely" and I could just go ahead and ruin my life. I was sorta stunned, because this girl has been my friend for SIX YEARS. We've been through high school, and two years of college and are still super close! She lives back east now, but we talk every day. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that.

    I then asked if she was joking, and said that I'd still be the same person if I were a dancer. She said that she'd never talk to me again if I did it.

    ...Wow.

    I don't know if anyone else has gone through having people you think would be supportive turning out to completely be against it, but I'm sure I'm not alone. I just want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. She's in Manhattan going to school there, and everything is paid for. Housing, food, tuition, transport. Via loans, financial aid, and her parents. She has no worries financially right now (when it comes time to pay back those loans, she might), and spends a lot of time out with friends, and partying. She considers working 15 hours and taking 12 units a rough week. Right now I'm working 50 hours a week taking 17 units, and struggling to make my rent and other bills, since my college doesn't have housing. I just feel like we're not on the same planet.

    Since she's back east, and not an LA native either, it's not likely we'll interact in person more than once or twice a year. Part of me wants to just pretend I'm not dancing, but part of me says that having a best friend who cares more about what I do for a living than who I am, is bad news. If anyone has any advice, or just wants to vent, feel free.

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    Member Jeli's Avatar
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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    Some people are just really conservative and close minded about certain things. It doesn't necessarily make her a bad friend.. just not the the right person to talk to about what you're doing. If you really want to confide in her I would take it slowly and kind of feel out what about stripping she feels so strongly about, it might just be that she has no idea what stripping is about.. When I told my brother he asked me if I had to have sex with people!? This is because he went to a seedy club that did live sex shows with a member of the audience (this is in Australia and the club had a brothel licence), they tried to choose him to go up and participate lol. So maybe eventually you could take her to a club, a clean, classy, topless one would be best. And if you want to tell her you're working in the industry perhaps you could say you're waitressing, or you're a 'hostess'.
    I've only told two friends, one who lives in the city I moved to and one who lives in France. I just tell strangers/shop assistants etc and that gets the desire to talk about work out of my system.

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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    has she had a bad experience with a stripper or something? some of my friends were like that..or ex friends i should say; if they can't understand or support u and look down their noses they aren't real friends in my book ..like jeli said i'd explain more? idk just my opinion

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    Banned Aniela's Avatar
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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    I have told select friends, ppl whom I'd known for a good long time before & already had them pretty well felt out as to how they'd react. The ones I've told are cool w/ it, we can joke abt it, a couple of them are understanding enough when I need to vent.

    I told one of my brothers & he agreed to keep it quiet from the family. Other than him I didn't tell any of my relatives myself. My dad found out from a former employer of mine in my field, who has all the emotional maturity of an eggplant & spilt the beans after I quit working for him. Now my parents & siblings all know, w/ reactions varying from 'STFU I don't wanna hear abt your pole dancing victories when you're taking off your damn clothes for $$' to 'Be careful, hope you make lots of $$ tonite'.

    That employer found out from a mouthy coworker who had been over to my place & seen my dance bag, which I was foolish enough to leave out in the open. Sounds like a no-brainer but I really didn't feel like I should have to hide in my own home, but you can bet I was kicking myself for it afterwards.

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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    I hid it from everyone just because I wanted dancing to be streamlined / no drama. I just wanted $, not hassle. Of course at times I felt incredibly guilty and I'd panic people would find out ect.

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    God/dess papillonluvr's Avatar
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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    My sis and and I started together. After some drama she quit, family found out, huge mess, got it cleaned up. Everyone thought I had quit. Buy NOPE I continued stripping. The only ones who knew were my husband and ex best friend and of course my stripper friends. Nobody else.

    I even have a separate stripper Facebook for my stripping related friends and such.

    I have told two people I WAS a stripper since moving to Japan though. No Problems yet.
    "You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories -Stainslaw J. Lec

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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    My siblings know and accept it, but it took them some time. I told all of my friends, and immediately lost most of my childhood friends. They were more conservative than I thought and started to distance themselves from me. I was heartbroken since we'd been friends for over 8 years, but it helped me realize that I didn't want anyone in my life who didn't respect what I liked doing, or at least cared enough about me to deal. I got tired of explaining it because it sounded like I was making excuses for something I enjoyed. Now if someone acts funny because I strip or cam I don't want to befriend them.

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    Veteran Member hollywood6's Avatar
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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    Any one who is going to judge you or "un-friend" you for what YOU are doing with YOUR life is not worth having as a friend. If they are a true friend, they will support you no matter what you do, as long as it isn't destructive to yourself or others.

    As far as telling people, I tell my close friends.

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    Featured Member Odette's Avatar
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    Default Re: Did you tell your friends, and/or family?

    Honestly, starting out, you'll probably only feel comfortable telling a few people, but the longer you dance, the more influence it will have on your lifestyle, values, and behaviours, no matter how well you handle it. You will also gradually become more comfortable with the part of your identity that is influenced by this job, and you may find it harder to keep that part of yourself hidden to your friends. Being a dancer changes a person, but gradually, in ways that may cause you to slowly grow apart from some people. The longer I've been dancing, the more friends I have made that, although not all dancer themselves, are either involved in a similar job ( I am friends now with quite a few burlesque dancers, djs, and other performers, for example), or are just really open minded people. These people have taken precedence over my more conservative friends over the years, that I now no longer really relate to. Don't worry too much about your friends, the ones you keep if you start stripping and they fiind out and shit goes down, are the ones you want to keep, the others would have shown their true colours eventually anyways.

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