My Music and Attitude at Work

I had a really good shift at work the other night. It's funny, because I'd had a migraine the night before and was pretty tired when I got there. I wasn't expecting to do well at all; stripping is very much a job where you get out of it what you put in. If I'm tired, my profits are tired.

On Friday and Saturday nights we always go onstage with a partner, and the woman I was paired with this week likes to dance to heavy metal. In the past, I've been able to dance to the hardcore stuff but not that well. I did better with slow, sensual songs. It was easier for me to get people to stage by seducing them gently than by having a lot of energy and and getting their attention whether they wanted to give it or not. The latter is what the more successful dancers do.

Well, I've realized that now I have a lot more fun when I dance to hardcore music. It's really high energy and last night I felt like I could just go up to the tippers and be ridiculous.

I'm usually a little too reserved, a little too nice, but last night I felt perfectly comfortable being insolent and grabbing their heads or licking their beer bottles (which got a really fun reaction). And I could do all of this without feeling like I was being serious, being actually sexual or bitchy. It felt like I was being ridiculous and it felt like I was having and making fun.

I wonder what this says about my attitude towards stripping. Like I said, the more veteran dancers tend to do better to higher energy, more aggressive music. They're more aggressive with the customers. I just experienced that for the first time. I suppose I'm getting better at the job (I did better monetarily than I have in a while) but also that I've got more of a "stripper," or performative, mentality.

I've thought a lot about this in the last week, and I'll write more on it soon. I think it's time for a reevaluation of how I feel about my work and why I'm doing it. Time to just check in with myself and see how I'm doing.