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 October 29, 2009 at 9:00 am on the now defunct dirtygirldiaries.com
Lauri Shaw: You know, I always used to feel that there was this stereotype, that girls get into the business because we’re uneducated, or that we come from “the wrong side of the tracks.” That kind of thing.
Jodi Sh. Doff: I think that’s the general population’s consensus – that if you’re smart or educated you don’t need to work in the sex business. It’s only for girls with no other options.
LS: Ha! I certainly didn’t grow up in the ‘hood. I grew up in a wealthy, competitive town on Long Island. College was expected, and lots of my classmates were headed to Harvard. Of course, I dropped out early into my undergrad and started stripping almost immediately after that. Is college the norm these days?
Educated Tart: I was working on my masters when I started stripping, but most dancers I’ve worked with don’t have college degrees. They’re immigrants supporting families or girls who didn’t finish high school. There’s often a college girl or two in the mix and nobody is surprised by that. They’re usually either putting themselves through college or out of work/between jobs.
JShD: In the 70’s, women who went to graduate school were few and far between. I was in honors classes up until high school, those girls went to college and beyond. But most of the girls from my high school were happy to get married and start making babies right after graduation. My fancy pants community college degree made me the “smart” girl in the strip clubs.
LS: I mean, I knew some undergrads. Not many. And Tart, you’re a stripper with an MA? Are people surprised? Do they think you should have moved on by now?
ET: It’s usually the customers who try to make me feel like that. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
JShD: Paying the bills! That’s what we’re doing, paying the bills.
ET: Exactly!
JShD: Damn though if men don’t always seemed to be looking for girls they can feel superior to — I couldn’t play that game. I always felt that my formal education and rather large vocabulary were liabilities.
LS: This is really interesting to me, because like I said, I didn’t finish my formal education. Does having a degree put up any kind of social barrier between you and the girls at work who don’t have one?
ET: Not at all. Fellow dancers understand how convenient stripping can be compared to other jobs, even if you’ve got lots of education and options.
JShD: Agreed, the girls themselves never held it against me. Just the opposite, it was like they felt I had a way out if I wanted it, that they didn’t. Most of the girls I worked with came from homes where education was not only not a priority, it made you an “other”, an outsider. They were blue collar all the way. Their parents had jobs, not careers. No one was putting money away for school, there was no mention of school loans. And in ten years, I never saw a single book (not even a novel) in anyone’s dance bag or purse.
LS: I knew very few strippers who’d actually finished a degree.
ET: I think it’s easier to justify stripping while you’re working on your degree than years after you’ve finished one. Most of the college girls I’ve known have felt pressure to move on and get a “real” job after they graduated.
JShD: Hells, yeah. Why bother with grad school at all if you’re going to stay in the Naked for Money business? Grad school is hard work, its not like some Learning Annex Adult Ed course where you breeze through. I think I’d want to cash in, to justify my degree and all the hard work. I’m amazed at all these grad school girls today who are strippers, escorts and pro doms.
ET: When I started grad school I wasn’t planning on being a stripper for the next seven years. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Overseas grad school is a LOT cheaper than it is here, so it didn’t seem like such a huge deal. It was only once I started working on my art projects that I realized I wouldn’t be able to make it happen unless I kept stripping. I’m not some super-human who can work a 9-5 then come home and do something creative on the side — I need to sleep!
JshD: So for you, for most of the grad school girls, stripping is a means to an end – to support your art, put you through college, etc. In the 70s and 80s you didn’t see that. Well, you did, but the end was different. It wasn’t education — it was money and drugs.
ET: College girls tend to work in the upscale bars, and there’s definitely a class system — college girls who can present themselves as smart and sophisticated can make money by just talking to customers for hours without even letting them touch them, while immigrants who speak less English or girls who can’t present themselves as “classy” can’t pull that off so easily.
LS: That bit only works because customers seem to expect that none of the girls are smart or educated. When they find a girl who’s either, she’s like a trained seal, or a chimp that knows sign language.
Posted October 29, 2009 at 4:55 pm, filed under three naked ladies and tagged strippers.
2 comments
kelly 10.29.09
It is interesting to hear everyone’s different stories. I started stripping to pay for my MA, stripped part time while doing it, and for the year after graduation took stripping a lot more seriously and worked my butt off. It doesn’t really make sense 🙂
dirtygirl Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
@Kelly, Jeez, I was so blasted the years I worked I can’t even imagine. I vaguely remember taking a Real Estate Agents course. For all I know I could’ve passed and might be licensed. I mean I was that blasted that things happened and I promptly forgot them. I was there for the party. Looking back, I wish I’d had it more together to put money away, pay off instead of incur debt, buy property, something….
