There used to be a website called "dreamsalon.com: a stripper speaks". It seemed to stop getting updated for a while and then one day it just disappeared. I liked the site and the dancer who put it up seemed really interesting. Does anyone know what ever happened to her? This was one of the articles that she wrote. Sorry for any typos.
My Stripper Manifesto
Basically, I view my work as a dancer as a form of service: men come in to a club because they want an attractive woman to be nice to them and pay attention to them, and because they want some female companionship and sexual energy. I don't mind providing that; I have sexual energy to spare, and it doesn't hurt me to be nice to people. It makes me feel good to know that I'm cheering up someone who's had a hard day, or who is feeling lonley. As a stripper, I've met many nice and cool people, customers as well as other dancers, and I've genuinely enjoyed my job. My favorite customers are those who appreciate me for what I have to offer that's unique (intelligence, for one thing, and forthrightness), who are intelligent and interesting to talk to, and who show their appreciation by tipping me.
In return for my energy, I expect to receive MONEY. Not because I'm trading sex for money, not because I'm there just for the money, but because for a stripper, MONEY = SUCCESS. As in other areas of life, if you're good at what you do, you get paid. Maybe that sounds cheesy and phony: strippers are commonly thought of as bad women who are out to exploit men. I'm not out to exploit anyone. At the same time, I'm not out to be exploited either, and if there's anything dancing has given me it's a lesson in dealing with people! Not everyone has money all the time, and I understand that. But, I've come to be rather resentful of men who want my time but rarely or never tip me. The bottom line is, a man who wants my time but doesn't tip me is taking advantage of me: he doesn't respect me or my job.
Women who really enjoy stripping do so for complex reasons - that's part of what this web site is about - but when a dancer is at work, all those reasons boil down to the goal of making money. A stripper, every stripper, judges herself and her job by how much money she's making. If a dancer isn't making money on a shift, she assumes that the club is bad (the men there have no money) or she's working a bad shift (nobody with money is coming into the club) or that SHE is unattractive, overweight, aging, depressed, unable to muster the mental energy to cope with her job, or otherwise not good at what she does. This pressure to succeed, which is a result of on-the-job pride and not just sheer greed, drives girls to want to make money - because no girl likes to feel that she's making less money than everyone else on a shift! (Which is something that happens to nearly every dancer at least once in awhile.)
Any customer who visits a nude or topless club and thinks the girls aren't there first and foremost to make money is fooling himself. But as obvious as the money thing sounds, over the years I've seen a fair number of men who want to believe that they are somehow different: they are the one person I should just be glad to see and spend time with. Or maybe they would like to date me and feel that money would sully our relationship - although as far as I'm concerned, if we're not sleeping together, we're not dating!
A few men have insinuated to me that any man who tips in a strip club is a fool - of course, men like this are always happy to watch the girls on stage, and suck up as much of my time (without tipping or getting a dance of course) as I'll allow, and usually try to get me to go out on a date with them too. My response is always, "so, do you hang out where you work of free?" I'll add that such men will often give a fair amount of money to girls who bullshit them into thinking they'll have some kind of a relationshp outside of the club, which I'm not willing to do... chalk that up to a lesson in human vanity, and of the strength of some people's need to be told what they want to hear!
Does my attitude sound somewhat mercenary? Rather like capitalism itself, I think... unfortunately, so-called free enterprise permeates every area of our lives, even those we consider the most personal or sacred. At least in a strip club, the trade-off in personal relationships is out in the open.
Acutally, i think of what I do when I'm dancing in another way: men who tip me are expressing appreciation for their interaction with female sexual energy in general, and with my personal energy in particular. I don't mean to sound too New Age-y, and I'm not a big proponent of goddess worship, but a man who tips the dancers in a strip club could be seen to be making an offering to the sexual and feminine aspect of the divine. My general impression of people is that they are starved for connection with each other. When I hang out with a customer under conditions of mutual respect, I facilitate his sense of connection. Anyone who thinks they don't need some positive sexual energy in their lives is fooling themselves, and providing that is my job.
All that said, there are a few other things that are important to me. When I started, I promised myself that if I ever came to hate the job - because it's got to be the worst job in the world if you don't enjoy it! - or if I started to hate men or otherwise became embittered, I would stop immediately. That hasn't happened, although I have realized it's time to move on careerwise. While I know that someday my stripping career with come to an end, I still derive satisfaction from it. Stripping has taught me a lot about myself and about people (men and woman both). In addition to that, it's been fun. Being on stage is fun, and interacting with customers can be fun. Stripping has provided me with a form of sexual self-expression and release; it's made me more comfortable with and in my body, and it's been a source of pleasure as well as a test of character. I have no regrets.



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