I Wanna Do Porn

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Quitting (Longish post)

Well, I quit sex work.

It's a little more complicated than that. I took myself off the schedule at the dungeon a few weeks ago. As an (apparently very) submissive woman I was having trouble effectively meeting the needs of my clients, and I didn't like the work that much. It was a fun learning experience and it gave me a lot of time and some experiences through which to mull over BDSM and my feelings towards it, but I was done with it.

My intention was to go back to stripping, and I found a small-ish club in Queens where I felt reasonably comfortable and the house fees weren't too high. I even auditioned there and worked for a night. (They have 8-hour shifts, 8pm-4am. Ouch!) I bought a gown to fit the dress code there, and packed all my g-strings into my rolling stripper bag.

But when I went in for my second shift, I just didn't want to do it anymore. I knew what I had to be doing to make money. I needed to go around the room and find the men who glanced at my ass, look deeply into their eyes, flirt mercilessly, all the usual. I needed to play the game. And I just had no interest in it.

I normally have an overabundance of sexual energy. I think about sex all the time and talk about it and have it and I've got this great store of positive juice in my batteries when it comes to physical love. As a stripper, I was able to use and play with that energy to keep things interesting and engage with men and even have fun.

These days, I'm a little low on that energy. I think a big part of that is having a full time canvassing job that's not in line with what I want to be doing. We're not even canvassing for Planned Parenthood anymore; now I spend all day having conversations with people who don't give a shit about human rights but will cry and throw thousands of dollars at "homeless" (ie feral ie wild) household animals. It's draining, on a soul level.

I also think I've probably learned everything I'm going to learn from stripping. I understand the dynamics of it and I have a feel for the industry. Sure, I could always learn to be a better stripper, but that's not really who I want to be. I was never a lifer.

Most importantly, though, I always promised myself that the second I really didn't want to be a sex worker anymore, the second it started to hurt me, I would stop. I've seen the consequences of staying in it past that point, and they're not pretty. I don't want to damage myself that way. I want to have more respect for myself and my feelings than that. I'm lucky enough to have a day job so I can, kind of, afford to leave.

Things are admittedly going to be financially difficult for me for a while until I figure out what to do instead. I'm going to try to go back to babysitting. Instead of another physically and emotionally draining job on top of my first one, I'll get to be around kids. That's like a battery charger; I love them.

I'm also looking for a different full time job. I came here meaning to canvass for only a little while as I looked for something else, but I was overwhelmed with moving and being on my own so I didn't have the extra initiative that took. Now I'm settled, and I'm going to dedicate myself to that for real.

I'm not really sure where I'll end up with all of this or how it'll go, but I've got some money saved and I've got a new determination to find work that's fulfilling, at least on a basic level. Wish me luck everyone, and I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Sex Worker Personae - A Submissive Mistress?

I've spent a few shifts now at the dungeon, and helped in a few sessions. I'm not yet sure how I feel about the whole business, but I do know what a few of my challenges will be.

The most difficult thing for me, particularly in sessions with other mistresses, is to stay out of sub space. The whole setting of the place is meant to send a submissive person into a state of mind that's aroused and obedient. I'm surrounded by "instruments of punishment" and women in skimpy fetish clothing. When I go into a session to train, I'm standing next to a woman in a dominant role, one who calls herself mistress and who has control over at least one other person in the room.

My first instinct, of course, is to be full of "Yes, Mistress" and attempts to please. Trying to work as a professional dominant has made it only more clear to me how much of a little sub I am. It comes so naturally to me, the obedience and reveling in the sensations, whereas I definitely feel awkward trying to dominate or humiliate the clients.

I understand now why people have sex work personae. As a stripper, I never really needed to be anybody but myself. I'm already all these things that men want in a dancer: extremely sexual but reserved with it, bisexual, available, articulate, eager to please. Genteel but dirty. It bugs me a little that these character traits that I happen to have are also the ones that men fetishize, but there you have it.

As a domme, though, I know I'm going to need to find/build a persona for myself. I'll need to find a way to act that's comfortable, but different from the way I usually am. I know there are people who do that for stripping, who act out a role when they hustle and lap dance, and now I'll get to experience that in a different industry. It should be interesting to see how it turns out, what roles I end up playing. I'll certainly fill you in as I find them.

Something New

I mentioned earlier that I was going in for an interview at a dungeon. That was, of course, a teasing hint since I haven't blogged about it since.

Well, I went in for my interview just over a week ago. I sat in a little room with simple but decadent furniture for about two hours waiting for the owner to see me. I ended up choosing a different, better dungeon, but the time before that first interview stands out in my memory.

I wish I could capture the feeling of walking up to a strange building, ringing a buzzer, and being let into a new work space for the first time. The dark rooms and BDSM instruments and even the smell of the place affected me like a client: intriguing, arousing. I was wide-eyed, taking it in. I want to put that feeling into a bottle and save it for later. There's nothing quite like the sense of total newness, of having no real idea of what I'm getting myself into.

It's the same feeling I had when I went for my audition at the strip club. It's a feeling of nervousness, yes, but mostly actual excitement over the mystery of it all. I think wanting to feel that is what drives me a lot of the time. It's a unique and pleasant kind of agitation. I like to be stimulated; I get bored with the everyday. I can only have that special sensation from truly novel, vaguely dangerous situations.

It feels really good to be back to that freshness. I know that being a domme will eventually become just a job. I'll learn from it and acclimate to it and it will change me, just as stripping has. I won't be able to imagine anymore what it was like to be me before I started.

That, though, is why I write. If nowhere else, I can find that feeling again on this page, on the internet for everyone to see. That's a pretty cool thing.

Being a Grown Up

Well, I've now signed my first lease.

My mother used to always say that you're not a real adult until you have to pay your own bills. After a couple of weeks of sitting on the phone with the cable, gas, and electric companies, setting up appointments and equipment for same, tracking down and paying for furniture, and unpacking boxes, I think I can now officially say I am an adult.

I've been getting up every morning at 9am and trucking on the subway into work. I'm still canvassing here in New York City, which I definitely don't want to do for much longer. It is, however, a job with income. This is currently important.

I don't believe I've mentioned this here before, but one of my friends is a professional dominatrix (or pro-domme). I'm planning to go in with her to the dungeon where she works and have an interview with the boss this Tuesday. If you read here at all regularly, you know that I definitely have a submissive bent, so this venture should be pretty interesting.

I have no idea whether I will like dominating men for money, but it's another one of those things that I figure I might as well try and see how I feel about it. I'll certainly be writing about that, and much more about my adventures in this biggest U.S. city, now that I'm finally a bit settled. I'm such a nester; it makes me much happier to have a home to go back to that's all set up and pretty and comfortable. This is the first one I've gotten to build myself.

P.S. See, Myca, I blogged!

Canvassing vs. Stripping Part 2: Objectification

I wrote not long ago that stripping and canvassing are very similar. I stand by this; it's mostly the same skill set and similar interactions. I've been surprised to find, though, that there's one major difference. I actually feel a lot more objectified when I'm canvassing than I ever did when I was stripping.

There's the general problem, in canvassing, of standing on a city street for five and a half hours a day. This makes the street harassment I mentioned in my last post a constant issue and very much a part of the job. It's a sort of montage in the background of my daily life. You know, various cut scenes of "Hey baby, what's your name?" and "Aren't you pretty?" and "You got a boyfriend?" and "I'd put that on my tongue."

It also happens with the people I canvass, though. See, I'm ostensibly standing out there for a cause that has nothing to do with my looks or my body. It's gay marriage, it's about equal rights, it's a political thing. I'm being friendly and outgoing but not sexual. The size of my boobs and the color of my eyes have nothing to do with it.

And yet I get the once-over from customers on the street as much as I did when I was stripping. They come on to me just as often. The difference is that in a strip club that's part of the expected interaction. By being there in a thong, I've given the customers permission to oggle and be lewd at me, assuming they pay appropriately.

One of the things I always liked about stripping is that it took objectification, which happens every day no matter what I do, and put it in a place where it was controlled. It gave me the option to consent to it. It gave me bouncers to make it stop if anyone did it in a way I didn't like. When I was stripping, I had the option of saying "No" to someone's objectifying behavior and having it mean something. Yes, we needed the bouncers to enforce that, but we had them. It was enforced.

On the street, I can't say no. I do sometimes, but it's often ignored. I feel like I have no control over the way people treat me, and it's often with minimal respect. I feel uncomfortable a lot of the time. I feel placed into a box labeled "fuckable woman" and imposed upon. I feel objectified. Way, way more than I ever did when I had chosen to be naked on a stage.

Stripping and "Hating" and Dating Men

When I first started stripping, I heard from lots of my coworkers and a few of my friends in the industry that the job would make me hate men. They said that when you do sex work, you see the worst in men and so it is inevitable that you start to dislike them at least a little. I didn't write this off entirely, as of course they had experience at that point and I didn't, but I hoped that it would be different for me.

I was, I rationalized, doing sex work for different reasons than most of them. I didn't need the money, I just kind of wanted to see what it was like to dance naked and get paid for it. I figured this privilege would protect me from making some of the compromises they might have had to, would protect me from a changing opinion of men. I knew the industry would definitely alter me, as everything in life does, but I figured my compassion could hold up to it in that regard.

Well, my compassion is certainly still there. I feel sorry for men much more than I hate them. But things have definitely changed in my feelings towards them.

I've been thinking about my recent heterosexual trend, wondering why my attention has been so much more on men than on women. It hasn't been for lack of physical attraction to women; it's just that when I meet a nicer (and attractive) man, my focus zooms in on him immediately. He stands out to me. This hasn't been happening much with women.

It occurred to me that I've got a little reaction formation going on when it comes to men. (Wikipedia: In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defensive process in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.) In this case, I'm very uncomfortable with and somewhat dislike men, so I've been dating them.

So I certainly don't hate men, but I do hate a lot of the things a lot of them do. I don't much like being objectified without my permission. (Accepting money for it is giving permission.) I don't like it when they assume I'm sexually available or feelingless based on my orientation or relationship style or job. I feel almost paranoid about being imposed upon by them, pushed into ways of being or thinking of myself that I don't like, and it affects me from day to day.

So I'm very defended against them. In order to protect myself, I have to be paying attention to the men around me at all times. I'm expending an enormous amount of energy and attention on making sure I don't interact with men in ways that will hurt me. I'm super up front about my job, orientation, and relationship style so that I can immediately avoid the men who objectify them. Putting up barriers like that takes a good amount of effort and so I'm always very aware of men.

What this means is that when I do find a guy who's nice to me, who doesn't do those things I hate, I've already been paying oodles of attention to him in order to find that out. It seems notable, remarkable, that he's not going to be sexist towards me. I appreciate him a lot. I date him, if he's available. There you go. I'm not as afraid of women, and so this happens less often.

(As a side note: I don't claim this is a rational reaction to anything. These are feelings and my attempt to understand them.)

Now, back to stripping. Stripping didn't force me somehow to have these feelings towards men. It's not even that men act much differently at a strip club than they do in general. In fact it's just the opposite, and that's the problem. Stripping commodifies the sexist interactions that exist every day, everywhere. It puts a monetary value on them and so it makes them very, very obvious.

As a stripper, I have to trade somewhat in misogyny, to play off it and manipulate it so that I can get lap dances and tips and avoid groping and slurs. It's something I simultaneously like and hate about the job. I've learned oodles about gender roles, particularly about what's dysfunctional in masculinity. I like learning. However, this knowledge makes it hard to move comfortably in a world that's so full of sexism. I'm just so aware all the time. I can't really sit back and accept it, learn to ignore it, bite the harness and move on like women have been doing for centuries. I'm psychologically fighting it out most of the time.

I'd like to try to shift my focus a little. It's probably unnecessary and certainly draining to be so defended all the time. I'd like to learn, in my day to day activities if not my scholarship and activism, to brush off sexist men. I don't want to let them inside my head, let them affect me, which is something I do have control over even when I can't change their behavior. It'd be nice, even, to spend more time with women and live more in a sisterhood community where I can feel safe. Focus on safety, on whom I am comfortable with rather than on whom I'm not.

I suppose it's a lesson for me as an activist. I want to keep working to change the things in the world that strike me as unfair and wrong, the things that make me angry and hurt me. I need also, though, to focus on healing from that anger and hurt. It's just as important.

Canvassing vs. Stripping

To those of you who also work in the sex industry (and some savvy folks who don't), it may not come as a surprise that working as a canvasser is similar in many ways to working as a stripper. That might sound like a stretch, but aside from having to wear a slightly different uniform, a lot of the things I'm doing in my new job as a canvasser to overturn Prop 8 are similar to what I did as a stripper.

I spend all day being cheerful, nice, and attempting to get people to give me money. I have to walk up to strangers, charm them, and get them to like me. I need to be completely comfortable with rejection because more people will walk by me on the street or refuse to open their screen doors than will donate $70 a month. I need to convince people to part with their money in ways they weren't expecting.

One of my immediate supervisors (not the hiring boss) just remarked to me that she's noticed our company doesn't hire unattractive people. The office is pretty diverse in terms of race and sexuality, but nearly everyone is aged 18-27 and is at the very least pretty or cute. This is partly because of who they hire and partly because you have to make a certain amount to stay on staff. Prettier people make more money.

That prettiness principle demonstrates the job's similarity to stripping. It's slightly exploitative, it commodifies people's looks, and it lends itself to a particular staff demographic.

My point here is that stripping is a lot like any other service or public relations job. Yes, it commodifies and sometimes exploits people, but so does canvassing or waiting tables or selling just about anything. It's all labor, stripping just involves less clothing.

That is all.

Future Work

I wrote not long ago about living at a crossroads right now. Well, one of the major lanes of that road is work: what I'll be doing, where I'll be doing it, and how long I'll be doing it for.

I've been working as a stripper for going on two years now. I've had a lot of time to experience and think about that kind of sex work. I wrote at the very beginning of this blog about the reasons I decided to start stripping. The most lasting motivation has been the one that pushed me to understand the industry, the customers, the workers, and what it all says about gender and life. I think it's all incredibly fascinating.

Of course, stripping is hard work. I've tried never to make bones about that. It takes a lot of energy to dance but mostly to hustle, to be very nice, to be sexually available but not, to be charming and beautiful night after night.

When I would work at the club near my college, I'd be too tired to talk much after a shift. It would be like my voice was all used up. I'd be too keyed up to sleep, but too tired to speak. It was great to live in a laid back house of people where I could just sit in a room with others and watch them play video games. They gave me a comforting, calming presence without asking for anything from me in return.

Well, that kind of work isn't really something I can sustain on my own. I really need the supportive relationships, the people around me, in order to keep my energy up. I do like stripping. I like the attention and harnessing the raw sexuality and dancing and talking to people. At the peep show, I get paid to masturbate, which is basically awesome. However, I'm looking for something else now to fill my days, with maybe the occasional lucrative naked night thrown in for good measure and fun.

So I'm sending out résumés looking for work in New York City. I'm moving there at the end of August and I want a full time youth and/or LGBT or women's rights related job. I'm kind of excited at the prospect of work I could like and not have to take home for me. Something that would stimulate me intellectually and hopefully exercise my compassion without making me too much a part of any sexist institutions. You know, a "real" job. It should be fun.

Good Lap Dances

I love it when I can get really into lap dances. It's so much fun when the conditions are just right and I can get turned on by what I'm doing. It doesn't happen all that often, but it's not that rare either. I'm a big tease and love touch just in general. It's a given that the act of giving the lap dance would be sexy to me sometimes.

The hottest thing for me in a lap dance is a respectful and responsive customer. If they're busy trying to grab my ass or grind their dicks against me, pushing and pulling me this way and that, then I'm busy trying to fend them off and can't really have fun. Even if they're pushing the boundaries just a little, it means I have to be on alert and can't relax into the experience and have fun.

Then, as long as they're keeping their hands to themselves, I love feeling, hearing, and seeing a man or woman respond to what I'm doing. I like to hear that their breath is coming more quickly. I like to feel the erection. I like the look that people get on their faces and the wistful comments they make about how much they'd love to actually be able to fuck me. (Again, so long as it's not in a pushing, pressuring kind of way.)

That actually turns me on. I'll get wet. It becomes a better lap dance, I get more into it, and the sexy looks I'm giving them are genuine. Those kinds of lap dances are so much fun.

I had one of them tonight, with a guy who was attractive as a bonus. While yes, I do get turned on in dances fairly frequently, it's almost never with a young, pretty guy. It was lovely, and now I'm in a good mood and all energized. Too bad it's the middle of the night and there's nobody around to play with.

Road Trip

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When I was at home in San Francisco over winter break, I got together with a guy I'd been talking with online for some time. I met him once over the summer, but we'd gotten to know each other over the internet and have a lot in common. He'd been really sweet to me when I had a (serious, depressing) issue with a friend in the middle of the night and had no one else to talk to.

He's straight, but also works as a stripper at a gay male club in San Francisco. He almost never wears shirts, likes women's underwear, and is totally adorable. I like him quite a bit; he's such a delightfully queer straight man!

Anyway, we were just talking about great it would be to go on a road trip across the country, stripping our way from San Francisco to New York. We've got friends to stay with along the way and a great way to both fund and fuel the trip. I have no idea whether it'll actually happen, but I'd love for it to. Doesn't it look like fun?

Tired

Renegade Evolution wrote a post about how tired she is of the feminist sex wars and all their resulting baggage. It's a long post and she goes into a lot more depth about how this affects her personally, but I share the overall sentiment.

I read a lot of blogs and I see so much hostility that seems so unnecessary. We all ultimately want the same sex equality and sexual health. Why should we be so vicious in arguing over our tactics for making it happen?

I think a lot of it is based on the anonymity of the internet. It's easy to keep a closed mind and direct anger and shame at people you disagree with when your name and face aren't behind your words. It's too easy to dehumanize the other side when all you see of them is the written word and sometimes a picture. Not like when a person is standing there in front of your face, breathing and emoting.

I think the personal anger on each side is in fact justified because everyone has been personally attacked. That's not fair, it hurts, and in turn it angers. But of course then the cycle starts all over again.

I think Jane at good girls don't put it best in her very excellent post on Operation Cross Country and sex work.

I don’t think sex work is a “free” choice, nor do I think it’s a reconstitution of the patriarchy. I think it’s something in between.

I recommend reading the whole post, as she eloquently covers a lot of the nuances missing in this discussion. There's so much grey area here and when we get caught up in these black and white verbal fist fights we miss all of it. I hope that we can find a better way of discussing this that involves a lot more mutual respect.

Feminism vs. Real Life

Courtney at Feministing wrote about the ways her feminist ideals differ from her actual life, and invited others to do the same. I think this is a really good exercise in self-awareness, so I'm going to try to answer her.

1. I'm incredibly self conscious about how I dress and what I look like at all times. I know that there's no need for me to always be sexy or attractive, but I can't help the running commentary in my head that compares my own appearance to other women's in a very competitive, distinctly un-feminist way. I try, but it sneaks in. (I do dress however the hell I want, but I'm very aware of when I look different from how I'm "supposed to.")

2. I have and often give into the urge to take care of people much more than I let them do so for me.

3. I make all kinds of assumptions about people based on their gender (and race and apparent sexuality) which may have nothing to do with reality. Things like men are going to be less progressive or women will be more sexually shy or black people won't want anything to do with me because I'm white or queer people won't be misogynistic. I try to be aware that I'm doing this and at least not act on my assumptions, but I know I have them.

4. I enjoy blatantly misogynistic pop culture: movies, tv shows, music, etc. Sometimes it's as a cultural critic and sometimes it's just because it's got a catchy beat or a satisfying good vs. evil plot line. I like James Bond.

5. I buy lots of products whose production I know nothing about, including beauty products, clothing, and random toys. I do try to be conscientious most of the time, but other times I just go with convenience. I'm more of a thoughtless consumer than I feel I should be.

6. On a very basic level, I take advantage of gender roles by getting guys to pay to see me naked. Most of them wouldn't do it (or at least wouldn't spend as much as they do) if the male sexual role didn't prevent them from having intimacy outside sexual situations or from finding real sexual satisfaction in their unpaid interactions. (This is a complicated issue which I'd like to talk about more in depth but haven't gathered together the time and thoughts yet.)

Links Because I Read Too Many Blogs not to Share

I've been keeping up with my feed reader, so I've found some very interesting posts I'd like to share with you. I know I haven't been good about blogging this week. Too much school and an on the fly trip to NYC will do that to a person.

My Sexual Manifesto
Essin' Em shares her sex commandments, all of which I agree with heartily. I, too, have noticed that almost all the sex I've been having has been good. It's a wonderful change and without a doubt due to my better ability to communicate about what I want and ask how to please my partner, even after a brief acquaintance.

What Women Want and the Myth of the Psychic Lesbians
Greta Christina writes a spot-on post about how lesbians don't actually automatically know how to please every other woman because they've got the same kind of genitals. We're all different!

Is Sex Work Queer?
Jane at good girls don't asks if sex work is queer and grapples quite well, I think, with the question. I think that sex work CAN be queer, and that it's most exciting when it is.

I Need Another Word for Vagina
Found this via synthetic pubes. The title seems fairly self-explanatory.

Six Ways to be an Ally
Great post by Silvia on how to be an ally to women of color if you aren't one. I struggle a lot with how to deal with my own privilege, and I think this is a good, thought-provoking post on doing just that. Fires me up even more to do what I can to dismantle privilege in general.

Working on Valentine's Day

I went to work last night at the club, not sure at all what to expect. It was either going to be tons of lonely guys (and lots of lap dances) or a bunch of couples doing something "exciting" for Valentine's day instead of the usual candy hearts and hallmark special dinners.

It turned out to be a combination of both, of course, which made for a really strange night.

I'd say that most of the customers there last night were not people who regularly frequent strip joints. Probably around half of them had never been to a strip club before. Instead of lining up at the tip rails as usual, staying with a stack of ones for a few songs, people would walk up, give a dollar, and then go back to their tables.

There is nothing more awkward, or that I hate more, than dancing for a room chock full of aptly watching customers who don't come up and tip. Generally when I'm dancing, I do so to get a reaction: the reaction of giving me money.

Sure, there's some satisfaction in getting people to smile or having their attention, but in the club the way to show appreciation is through money. It's one dollar increments. It's not a whole lot to ask for or give, but what it really signifies is enjoyment, applause.

If no one's tipping, it feels like you're doing something wrong. When there's no customer sitting close by waiting for attention, you're just standing there on a large empty stage. There's no real interaction to use as a show, to get people's attention. You can't speak or sing a song. It's just the movement, just the dance, just your body.

I'm never more aware of my lonely self, exposed on that stage, than when fifty people are watching and not a one comes up to show me I'm doing a good job. A tip is such a small thing, but it does mean a lot when you're under that spotlight.

Last night, I did a good job of keeping my energy up and continuing to work despite the discouragement. By the end of the night, I even got people to come to the stage during my sets. It took a lot out of me, though, because I was working twice as hard for less than half the money. I don't think I'll be working a Valentine's Day again.

Stripper A Victim of Vicious Burning Attack

Via Feministe:

Shortly after 1:30 a.m., 22-year-old Nathaniel Petrillo and 27-year-old Rianne Therialut-Odom allegedly called an unidentified dancer outside the Babes and Beer nightclub in Tarzana to meet with them. For unknown reasons, they poured a combustible liquid on her and set her ablaze. She then ran back inside the bar where people came to her aid.

The dancer is now listed in grave condition with severe burns over 60 percent of her body. The suspects took off in a metallic gold in color newer model four door sedan, police said.

And an update:

The woman’s name has been released as Roberta Busby. As of yesterday, she was reported to be in critical but stable condition. This is a relief and excellent news. Her attackers, however, still have not been found and arrested. You can view images of the suspects here. If you know anything, please immediately call the LAPD at 213-485-2531 (or 877-LAPD-24-7 for after-hours and weekend calls).

If you would like to help the children of dancer Roberta Busby, who was recently set on fire outside the club where she works, bring a check in to any Washington Mutual branch, made out to “Rodrigo Busby For The Benefit Of The Children Of Roberta Busby” or send a check to

3835 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., #256
Westlake Village, CA 91362

It's just so shocking and awful that this happened. Like so many of the other bloggers who have helped bring attention to this, I don't know what to say. Please donate if you can, or at least spread the word so she can get the support she needs. It's incredible and terrifying that someone can face this kind of violence. I think it's definitely influenced by the fact of her work, whether she knew the perpetrators or not. This can't pass in silence.

Sex Work and Privilege

There have been a couple of interesting and definitely provocative posts on sex work in the blogosphere in the last week. What else is new, right? This time, though, I'm joining the discussion.

Renegade Evolution does a good job of answering some of buggle's assertions about "special" sex workers, but she leaves out what I think is the most important point.

What we need here is a discussion of privilege.

Those who enter into any industry with lots of privilege are going to be safer, healthier, and less likely to take risks that lead them to brutal experiences. (By privilege, I mean having a penis, white skin, no disabilities, heterosexuality, good health, a supportive family, good education, and/or an already-healthy pocketbook, to name a few.)

If people with the above privileges do experience brutality, they're also more likely to be able to access support systems to help them escape it and recover from it.

People with less privilege have fewer options for making and keeping money. In general, our system puts these people at a disadvantage, systematically and through no fault of their own. If someone desperately needs money, they'll do desperate things to get it. In any line of work, underprivileged folks are more likely to be taken advantage of and harmed.

This definitely applies to sex work, probably even more than many other industries because of the stigma surrounding it.

I would never, ever want to ignore the speech of people who've been brutalized at the hands of prostitution. They need everyone's help and compassion. I also don't want to discredit the people who do have a choice in what they do with their bodies and their decisions to take money for sex.

We absolutely need to talk about the systems of privilege and hardship that cause women (and men, let's not forget they do sex work too) to unwillingly enter an industry where they're raped and abused. The fact that privilege protects people from all kinds of pain (in all aspects of life) and yet leaves others to be trampled is deeply fucked up.

I think, however, that this is a larger issue of helping under-privileged people and not simply getting rid of sex work. Prostituted women and men are just one group of under-privileged people who need help and need a voice.

Female Customers

I love it when women come into the strip club and even more when they visit the peep show. Especially when they are clearly into other women, actually watching what I'm doing. Women are a tiny minority of our customer base, and it warms the cockles of my heart (and sometimes other parts) when women show up and ask for a lap dance. Even the shy straight women are fun to interact with, especially if I can get them to be friendly in return.

Many strippers don't seem to feel this way. Granted, there are plenty of women who come in unwillingly with their men, or who come in only to trash the dancers for a self esteem boost. I know lots of dancers who say they've been snubbed by women in couples because of jealousy or awkwardness. "Are you trying to steal my man?" kind of stuff. (To avoid this, I try to pay the most attention to the female member of a hetero couple. That way, he's still getting a show, but she's not feeling too threatened.)

Now, the other dancers are right. Some female customers can be obnoxious. However, I'd say it's in about the same proportion that male customers are obnoxious. We're just more used to the groping attempts and the veiled contempt from men than the girly snubs and the critical looks from women.

All that said, I found a good etiquette guide for female customers on Tales From the Pole that I thought I'd reproduce here. Some of these obviously only apply to straight women, but some things (like no touching) go for queer women, too.

• If it's your boyfriend's idea to go to the club and you really don't want to, please don't go; we all know the night will end in a fight.
  
• Try not to dress too skanky, you're not competing with the strippers. (Note: I don't mind this, although I do hate it when customers oggle non-dancer women who they're not paying for the privilege.)
  
• Being female does not grant you free entry or discounted dances and you are still expected to tip.
  
• Neither does it give you permission to touch the strippers; if male customers cannot touch, neither can you.
  
• Don't sit at the stage and bitch about a stripper's cellulite; she can hear you, and you know you have it too.
  
• Don't complain loudly that the stripper on stage has "no tits" "no ass" or "isn't even using the pole."
  
• Don't ever try to get on stage.
  
• Don't ever take your clothes off. Ever.
  
• Don't give your man a lap dance at the bar.
  
• Don't do any form of dancing at all.
  
• Don't hit on the customers.
  
• Don't cockblock our customers because you are "hotter than the bitches working here."
  
• Try to understand that the strippers are not hitting on your man, they are merely trying to get money out of him because, you know, its work.
  
• And please, if you and your man are trawling for the third member of your fantasy threesome, stay out of the stripclub. Please.

I, like Sakura, have either seen or at least heard about all of these things happening in the club. Three cheers to her for making an etiquette list.

Public Identity: To Come Out or Not?

I'm at a big crossroads right now.

Given how much I've been talking about it, you probably know that I'm writing an honors thesis on porn for my Women's Studies bachelor degree. It's going to be fifty pages and the culmination of a year's worth of research, as well as many years of thinking about sex, porn, and feminism.

There are so many ideas floating around out there about porn and so much conflict, especially within feminism, over what kinds of visual or cultural representations of sex are okay. I'm making a real effort to absorb and integrate all this information and if I can do it right, I'm hoping my paper will present a moderated view of all the venom on the issue. I really want to make a contribution to this debate.

I face a very serious dilemma, though. I don't think it would be ethical of me not to include the fact that I'm a sex worker, specifically a stripper, in my paper. It colors my opinions on the whole topic and gives the reader some (however inaccurate) idea of where I'm coming from. I don't believe in objectivity or removing oneself from one's academic work. There is always bias and I think the only way to counter it is to admit it and try to be as transparent about it as possible.

However, if I admit to the academic community at large that I'm a stripper, I face the very serious probability of stigma and rejection. Although attitudes towards sex workers are better than they used to be, I know that I'll face some discrimination because of my work. If I try to get a job outside the realm of sexuality and it's public knowledge that I've been a sex worker, it could severely hurt my chances. It also makes it less likely that my academic work will be taken seriously.

There is the possibility that I could use a pseudonym, at least for now. I'm getting to a point where I need a public persona (beyond a blog name of papercutsandplastic) to do my work. I could make up a name, protect my given name for a while in case I change my mind about what I want to do and who I want to know about it.

The good thing about being in the closet is that I can come out at any time. I can always change my mind. I don't have that option if I out myself now.

On the other hand, it really is me doing this writing and doing this work. I don't want to encourage the idea that it's a fake person or an assumed personality. Whatever name I use, it's backed up by a real person. I have a history, I've had education, I have feelings.

I think one huge drawback of the common porn and sex work practice of using pseudonyms is that it makes it easier to pretend or assume that we're not real people. It's making our objectification that much simpler. Nena Cherry (one real and stereotypical porn name) is obviously not a real name, so she's obviously not a real person. It's bullshit, but I think the attitude is there in porn consumers.

I could really use some advice about this, actually, from someone who's had to make the decision her/himself. I don't think people who haven't experienced the Pink Ghetto of sex-related work are equipped to help me decide. It's a special kind of stigma, and one that I could use support to navigate.

*Edit* I just looked and realized this was my 100th post. Woo! I don't think that means anything, but it makes me feel accomplished. :-D

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.