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 November 11, 2009 at 9:00 am on the now defunct dirtygirldiaries.com
ANTONIA CRANE’s memoir, SPENT, explores the sex industry and her mother’s cancer. Adjunct professor, columnist for The Rumpus, contributing editor for The Weeklings, and senior editor and founder of The Citron Review, Antonia talks with us about being a sexual being involved in the business of sex.
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This week, Antonia Crane rants along with the Naked Ladies….
Jodi Sh. Doff: I’ve been on the phone with a friend I used to dance with. She never could make the transition to the straight world. Eventually we all get too old or too fed up to do the work, then what? She’s struggling with possible eviction.
Lauri Shaw:I was terrified that would happen to me. I tried to quit stripping dozens of times, kept running out of money and going back.
Antonia Crane: After throwing money around for over ten years, I managed to pay the tuition I owed Mills College and finish my BA. I needed $7,800. With determination and the strong will that only another stripper can understand, that year, I saved 10k. A girlfriend had a fledgling accounting business. She took at least $300/week and invested it for me.
JshD: I was $8000 in debt when I got out. I hadn’t been anyplace. I had no jewelry, no investments, no real estate and no more education than when I’d started ten years earlier.
LS: The money got spent so fast! And the amount I “needed” to retire kept growing.
AC: I traveled to India and took a trip to Prague, so I certainly didn’t stop spending. I’ve quit dancing a hundred times, had many careers, but I still have no clue how to live paycheck to paycheck.
JShD: I would’ve stayed till the bitter end, but I fell in love. With a hustler. Neither one of us wanted the other to work anymore, but I’d been there ten years. How the fuck was I going to get a straight job?
LS: I wasn’t qualified to do ANYTHING. That’s why I’d started stripping in the first place.
AC: I was qualified to do lots of things, but where can you make as much as anaverage CA attorney — untaxed cash — plus make your own schedule and perform?
LS: I’d leave for a month, try to find another gig. I took the proofreading course advertised in the back of the Village Voice.
JshD: I concocted a make-believe company called MG Entertainment where I claimed I’d worked for the last ten years. I applied for a receptionist’s job at High Times Magazine and said I could type 35 wpm — I couldn’t type at all. I’m hesitant to even call that my first straight job, it was nothing but drug related content. But it was the perfect stepping stone.
LS: I tried selling coupons on the street. “Excuse me! Question about your hair!” I lasted four hours. I’d told the hiring manager the truth about my work history. So when I went to quit, he asked, “Don’t you think you can make money with your clothes on?” He was being nasty. I just shrugged. “No.”
JshD: A few months into the job, the girl who’d hired me said she knew I lied about all those office skills, but she liked me, so she didn’t care. I don’t think I could’ve gotten away with that anyplace else but High Times.
LS: I used a fake company name too — a boyfriend pretended I worked for him. It still pops up on credit checks.
JshD: I was lucky. Once I got High Times under my belt, no one looked any further back. Times were different — no background investigation, credit checks, personal references. I kept MG Entertainment on my resume for a few years until I had enough distance to let it drop off naturally.
LS: A regular customer of mine got me a job bartending. The drunks were as difficult as any strip club customers, for a fraction of the kill. I didn’t see the point. I quit and went on the road, stripping in any state that would hire me.
AC: I also became a bartender. I made good money, but I wasn’t as young or fast as the other girls in L.A.: out-of-work models and actresses who had an “in” for the good bartending gigs.
LS: By 1999, it was nearly impossible to make money in NYC if you weren’t a top-shelf girl. Quality-of-life laws closed clubs, scared off customers. I drove across state lines regularly. New Jersey, Connecticut. Competition was stiffer than I’d ever seen it. My earnings dwindled.
I didn’t have money for college, but I had enough for audio school. I took time off from dancing, expecting I’d go back part-time after I finished the course. I never did.
AC: Dancing supports my writing. I have a memoir and a novel, a screenplay. But I don’t want to be one of those 45-year old strippers with a screenplay, so I’m hustling.
LS: I lived off savings…
JshD: No savings. Not a dime when I left. Nothing but debt…
LS: … took unpaid internships. Eventually I landed a job managing a recording studio, but it took two years. By then I was broke.
AC: I’ve started doing “massage.” This is the most efficient use of my time. The clubs are too lame in L.A. The economy too anemic, the regulars too much work. I don’t do GFE — I guess I’m old school.
LS: I hate to say this, but I’ve never made decent money at any “straight job.” After I danced, I was almost as shit-poor as before I started. Music journalism was as lean a career as studio management. If I didn’t have a husband, I’d have gone back a long time ago. I think about it all the time.
AC: I now have an MFA and dance in New Orleans to pay my rent. I still have “massage” clients. I don’t spend money like I used to. It’s about survival now.
I knew women who managed to ensnare moneyed men, and not only quit dancing or escort, but never have to get a job. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but it’s not my style — I’m not interested in a “sugar daddy.” I’m struggling the only way I know how, doing what I’m great at. I guess I’m stubborn. I’d LOVE to quit with money in the bank — that’s why I’m flying back and forth from L.A. to New Orleans. Wish me luck.
