3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today.
For as a long as there’s been music, women have danced for the entertainment and titillation of men. Scheherazade. Minsky’s Burlesque. Cage dancing go-go girls in the psychedelic 60′s. Times Square strippers, pole dancers and lap dancers. Women dance….Men watch.
This entry was originally written and posted on September 23, 2009 at 9:00 am on the now defunct dirtygirldiaries.com
Jodi Sh. Doff: I was always either in the clubs or after hours. I never met regular people, I was always fishing in polluted waters. Everyone in my life was shady. My guys were loan-sharks, bookies, bikers, gangsters. Anyone I slept with for free was my “boyfriend.” But truthfully, I slept with a lot of men who didn’t think twice about me.
Lauri Shaw: I had a DJ thing for a while. They didn’t even need to be all that attractive, just charismatic. Bouncers were standoffish (and usually too burly. At the time, I liked my guys corpse-thin). The managers and owners treated us like property. If I was going to screw around with anyone in the business, a DJ seemed like the best choice.
Rachel Aimee: I’ve never dated customers or anyone in the business, not on any kind of principle but because I act like a different person at work and couldn’t imagine how I would relate to someone I met at work if I saw them outside the club. Also, I found that the only customers I liked enough to consider dating were too cool to think a stripper would want to date them so they never asked!
JshD: Occasionally, for someone special, my heart opened along with my legs. There were two guys who weren’t in the business. Gabe was a comic book artist, slightly shady, insane and kinky in ways I liked. Hank was a handsome troubled drunk—him I wanted to save. I was crazy about them both. I couldn’t imagine dating a real civilian. Civilians made assumptions about who I was that weren’t necessarily wrong, but I hated the presumption and condescension. That slick act just made me want to rip you off.
LS: I didn’t go near the slick guys unless I was working, but that’s not to say my head was screwed on straight. I had horrendous taste in men. Dancing did not help. I picked some phenomenal creeps and losers on my own time, simply because they didn’t behave like the average customer. It probably goes without saying that my self-esteem left a lot to be desired.
RA: So many strippers have problems dating because most people—not just men—who date strippers either want them to quit the business…
JshD: Oh God, save us from the Captain Save-A-Hos of the world!
RA: …or want to take their money, or both. I know it’s a stereotype but I’ve seen it again and again in the relationships of women I’ve worked with. Dancers hustle all night then go home to a guy or girl who makes them feel guilty about how they’re paying the bills but doesn’t have a problem with spending their money.
JshD: That was my husband! Abusive, even violent at times, over the work. But he didn’t get a job so I could stop and had no problem with me paying the bills. Obviously, that was a very short marriage. When I fell in love, L.U.V., it was a hustler named Bear who worked at O’Neals, a gay bar in Times Square. We thought we were Bonnie & Clyde, but we more Sid & Nancy. We were so in love, neither one wanted the other to work anymore. He’s what finally got me out of the business.
RA: I’ve seen lots of dancers quit the business for partners but, they usually come back when the relationship goes bad.
LS: I knew this girl who had a deal with her hubby and never went near those back rooms. She was the hardest working stripper I’ve ever seen—she did 25 lap dances a night while everyone else was taking their shoes off in the VIP. On any given night, two thirds of the girls were making twice as much as she did. Yet, she had a great attitude. She must have been married to an awesome guy.
JshD: I’m amazed when I hear about married dancers. You have to have your guard up when you’re working or they’ll eat you alive. How do you open your heart in your life and close it in the clubs? I can’t turn it on and off like a light switch.
RA: I know plenty of women who have been married for 10 or 20 years and dancing that whole time. It’s just how they support their families. I don’t know if hearts have much to do with it after a while.
JshD: 30 years later I still struggle with keeping an open heart.
LS: I felt that way too. I solved it by deciding intimacy was to be avoided at all costs. It took me ages to unwind from that mindset. And my libido was the first casualty. I was barely out of my teens, my hormones were climbing the walls 24-7. Stripping solved that problem. Within a year of becoming a stripper, my sex drive was in a coma.
JshD: Oh, I rarely had sex for pleasure. Except for those three guys, it was mostly a currency, a power struggle or a way to kill time.
RA: I’ve always put up really strict boundaries between work and “real life,” mostly for the sake of my sanity. I don’t even take customers’ numbers to ask them to come and see me at work because I can’t handle the emotional labor it takes to keep the hustle up outside of work. It’s a trade off though: the girls who really make money are the ones who throw themselves into the hustle.
This entry was written by dirtygirl, posted on September 23, 2009 at 9:00 am, filed under three naked ladies and tagged dirty boys, strippers, Times Square.
