Most people are more likely to see striptease dancers on a computer screen – in movies, series, or music clips – than in reality. Unless you regularly visit strip clubs, of course. Pop culture often likes to use different elements and stereotypes from the sex industry, but I’ll tell you what it’s really like to be working in a strip club.
The most common scenes on the screens are high-heeled shoes, sexy lingerie, money, seductive movements and naive Lolita’s eyes. On the contrary, between the shots of the film and the lines of books, these questions are quietly asked – “How did you get here?” “At what point in your life were you so unlucky, that now, instead of sleeping peacefully at night, you are undressing in front of strangers?” As if there were no middle ground, a gray area with both a little glow and a little sadness. Like everywhere!
Working in a strip club
I have no tragic life stories or unresolved childhood traumas. The longer it has been, the more I remember this decision as a foggy – a strange coincidence and a series of living conditions. Looking back now, I can come up with a number of serious reasons, but I have the impression that none of them are entirely correct. I could basically reduce everything to curiosity.
The same curiosity caused by something unknown and unprecedented – a fun excitement and a silent pride to do something that is forbidden to “ordinary” people. Something others would not dare to do. (Let me remind you that this is morally forbidden, not by law.) However, these unacceptable things have become an extremely important lesson, for which I will be grateful for my curiosity, perhaps for a long time to come.
Sexuality and human body seemed silly to me
Contrary to what you may have imagined, I was neither very brave nor aware of my sexuality before I started working in a strip club. To make it easier for you to understand, sometimes I couldn’t say the word “sex” without giggling, as if it was so funny. Anything that involved human sexuality and body seemed silly to me. Working at a strip club “broke something” in me.
Day by day I saw that even grown men were afraid to talk about intimacy and sometimes a little ashamed that they went to a strip club. Some trembled at the sight of our naked bodies. I also saw other employees – their naked bodies, which are slowly swirling around the pole, pressing at customers, whispering something in their ears. I saw the same bodies even after a full night of work or when there were no people – tired and wrapped in robes, soft slippers instead of the impressive high-heeled shoes.
Every night in the mirror I also saw my body – lost pounds, then gained, then a bit of belly again, sexy body and one I don’t want to look at at all, smoothly shaved legs and regrown hair. The constant, inevitable seeing of mine and other bodies in all their forms has made sexuality something self-evident.
Time for the money
Working in a strip club also allowed me to learn about physical touch and boundaries. Many people think that working in a strip club is definitely a priori traumatic and psychologically depressing just because we have to show affection to strangers by flirting with them and selling them fantasies about how wonderful communication and time they can get with us. Of course, I could tell a few dozen stories that could really be described as sexual harassment, I could tell about customers who suddenly start behaving as if they had paid for all the dancers after paying just the entrance fee…
It is more important for me to realize that there is basically nothing wrong and dangerous about two adults giving each other company and attention in exchange for money. (Of course, if personal boundaries are respected.) And in fact, one of the most memorable work nights at the club has been those where I talk to men who just simply respect me, ask what my boundaries are, and never cross them. In the dynamics of such short-term encounters, I get something that I could call the meaning of this work, no matter how strange it may sound – to dedicate my time and energy to someone who can’t get something like that on a daily basis.
Celebrate the birth of a daughter in a strip club
After all, the most interesting thing is the variety of customers and their stories. When I started working there, I jokingly told my friends that I could start writing an anthropological study from all my meetings with people. Just as one should not be guided by stereotypes about what kind of girls work there, it would also be difficult to paint a picture of a typical client. From people coming in suits to low-income citizens. From a guy celebrating his eighteenth birthday to an Estonian businessman who offers to meet him at a restaurant the next day.
If I could not see for myself, I would not believe that the birth of a daughter could be celebrated in a strip club – I once danced for such a man. When I asked him how his day went, he gladly said that he had a daughter today. I immediately wanted to leave, but I understand that this is not my business. In particular, I remember one customer whose only request was to keep his hand. He said he lacks intimacy and his wife can’t even look at him when they’re in love.
There have been people who want to party but have no company (in fact, this is a rarity here, Latvians are usually dissatisfied with the fact that everything is so expensive). Once in the middle of the night, such a group of friends had arrived by taxi from the other side of Latvia, because they simply wanted company. I learned about the value of listening to a person during a private dance when a talk of the weather led to stories about the experience of the war in Afghanistan. After a few minutes, the man began to cry.
It may still seem to many that this job is somehow “dirty” that we are deceiving ourselves by looking for easy money here without wanting to see reality. And indeed, there have been many nights when I am sitting next to strangers, staring blankly in the distance, automatically mumbling “mhm” and actually thinking that there is no amount of money for which I would be willing to go home with him. But there are also conversations that allow me to meet interesting people that I will probably never meet again, I can have a good time and accept my sexuality without shame. Working in a strip club is, in my opinion, as satisfying and disliking as any other job.