Okay, deep breath. Here goes.
This is my first time doing "ethnography," and it's crazy how vulnerable I feel. I'm so anxious about some nebulous thing I could do to "mess it all up" and that I somehow won't be able to "get it done." And I know the worst thing I could do is procrastinate out of nebulous fears and not spend any time here. That would be the very best way to totally fuck up an ethnography-- not spend any time in the place you're supposed write about. So here I am. Deep breath. Here goes.
I hate to admit it, but my lack of confidence around getting shit done, and done correctly and thoroughly, might have been exacerbated by, if not originated in, my spending my first 10 independent adult years stripping. I hate to admit it because stripping is already so highly stigmatized that I'm always in the position of defending it, to balance other's negative prejudices with positive counterexamples, playing 'sex-worker spokesperson' and highlighting all its rosiest hues--the camaraderie, the freedom from financial worry, the set of interpersonal skills, sexual and non-sexual, that you can only develop, it seems, in that peculiarly high-stakes and gendered social environment. I tell of how some of the regulars are just lonely, sweet guys who just want a smile or a hug from a pretty girl, or about the rush of dancing on stage, how much creativity and energy goes into it. All of this is true, but of course it's not the whole picture.
But this is StripperWeb, where I don't need to balance others' stigma with my own compensatory cheeriness. So let's be real. For me (although certainly not for everyone), my having had large amounts of disposable income from the time I turned 18 stunted my ability to be disciplined in the getting-shit-done-on-time-and-done-well arena.
Stripping allowed me to be flakey as hell. I could be hours late for shifts, or call in sick whenever i wanted to and never get fired. Whenever I created a problem for myself out of carelessness, I could just throw money at it. I paid so many taxes on my own laziness-- late fees and parking tickets, cab fare, house-cleaning services, wash'n'fold, eating out every single meal, etc etc. If I had not had that money to waste, I would've had to develop a much better sense of deadlines, limits, daily structure. Not that I didn't also have wonderful experiences-- I travelled the world, I really got to know myself, I read hundreds of books, went on yoga retreats and hiking expeditions, and I made three life-long best friends. And I did save up enough money to pay for school for a year. But what gave me so much in the mind-opening experiences department cost me something in the life-skills department, or at least in the confidence in my life skills department.
So now here I am, working on an academic project that i take very seriously, feeling a lack of confidence that I trace to the very thing I am now studying: stripping. And at every step of the way I've been feeling anxious, like something huge is at stake. I guess I still need to prove something to myself--that I'm more than just attractive, and graceful, and skillful at flirting, and I'm more than just smart, too. I already know I'm smart.
I need to know that I'm capable. That I can set a goal and follow through and complete what I set out to do, even if it's really hard and frustrating, without giving up, because throwing money won't help this time and besides, I don't have money anymore (I work cam-sites part-time now, and I'm barely scraping by).
I guess what I'm saying is, what I'm doing here means more to me than writing a 50-100-page paper about StripperWeb, to be buried in an obscure Undergraduate Anthropology zine and totally academically ignored but which will look good on my CV for grad school.
I'm here to integrate myself.
I am both a stripper and an academic. I don't need to choose one self over another-- responsible or free spirited, creative or disciplined, beautiful or smart. I'm ready to be both. And writing about StripperWeb is part of that process for me.
And I'm happy to be here.



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