Interview: My Friend, who Works as a Stripper

A pal of mine from Europe (whose details will remain anonymous) works as a stripper, and loves it & rocks it! Read on for tips on how to be successful in this industry, a discussion on the societal stigma around sex work, and insight into how stripping can often be a very fulfilling, empowering, and unique line of work.

Erica: Soooo what you do for work?

Anonymous: I am a stripper! I dance at a well known nightclub 4 nights per week from 6:00 pm - 3:00 or 4:00 am. 

E: What motivated you to work in this field?

A: I love to dance, I love my body, I love to chat, I love attention, and I’ve always felt I have a lot of sexual energy. I may have an exhibitionist streak in me! All of those things are the background for why I was drawn to this line of work. The idea that I could use some of my best skills, dancing and creating connections, to make money really thrilled me and also made a lot of sense. I have been dreaming of it (really, I used to listen to club beats on my earphones and daydream of being on stage!) and wanting to do it for years now, but I was held back by the stigma of it, as well as some perceptions of the industry I didn’t quite understand. In the end, I did not want to miss out on an opportunity to live a dream of mine, and to do a job I could be really great at, just because society may not agree with its value or might judge me.  I am also a total night person, so I thrived in the late night schedules that other people sometimes dislike! 

E: What are some of your favourite parts of what you do?

A: Hands down being on stage! I love love love being in the spotlight, connecting and flirting with an audience trained wholly on me, and delighting in watching me. I savour so much having a space where I am not only free, but encouraged, to dance as sensually as I want, dress as provocatively as I want. Exploring that side of myself and my dance style, and then having a place where it is showcased and rewarded is rare. I feed off the energy that this dynamic builds - audience and stage.

Physically, I can look almost vulnerable - naked, or in nothing but my underwear, gyrating on a pedestal, lit up for all to see. But then they’re there to watch me, to PAY me. And I command the stage, and control who gets more of my attention once I leave it. And that is such a powerful feeling. In a similar vein, some of my favourite moments at work are when I am giving private dances - me grooving, while a customer sits there and watches. And for two minutes, every time I glance down and meet their eyes, it’s just a look of pure desire. Depending on the dance, sometimes they can’t even touch me, and at the end, I walk away with their money. Best rush ever.

The majority of my customers are men with cash to spend via industries that are not necessarily enacting a lot of social good in our communities. So I also like to think of myself as an agent of economic redistribution on behalf of the patriarchy :)

E: What, if any, are the downsides?

A: I can only speak to the experience at my particular club, as I’ve only worked in one and they can differ wildly depending on the niche they’re trying to fill, like businessmen, tourists, partygoers etc, to the country or city where they’re located. While I genuinely love the job, it is not always glamorous.

My club tends to cater to an upper class clientele, and often the vibe was enticing a few of them to spend a portion of the evening with you. It was much less a young party spot where you’re pumping out $20 dances from different customers all night. Also, the industry is not as lively as it used to be. These factors can lead to a few downsides, in that it’s not always busy enough to make the money you want every night, and the job ends up being a lot more waiting around than actual interaction with customers. That’s furthered by the fact that we have to pay house fees and tip out on all our dances to the club, so if you’re not making enough to cover those expenses, you could walk out at the end of your shift losing money. Obviously you can also walk out making a huge gain for the night, so it is a high risk, high reward job, which may not be accessible for all (potential) dancers.

Our club’s fees work on a time slot basis - the earlier you show up for your shift, the cheaper your house fee is. So I would often arrive at the cheapest option, before 6pm, but then end up waiting hours before I got customers, because not many come to strip clubs until later hours. Some nights I would work long shifts with only a few customers in a portion of that time period. I would be super happy working the long hours if I knew I was making money, so this is something that I think the industry and club owners need to contend with: how can we get more customers in the door, so that the dancers aren’t wasting their time?  

There are also not a lot of labor protections or supports in the industry, most of the pay is under the table and many dancers are working outside of the formal economy. So for example, if you were fired you wouldn’t have many paths for recourse, there are no unions, no career training programs, you don’t get benefits -  all the things that can come with traditional forms of employment are lost.So on the one side, you often have the opportunity to make a lot of untaxed money, but on the other side, you have to accept the downsides that arise from the lack of government recognition.

Dancers in vulnerable positions may find necessities like healthcare, retirement funds, or unemployment insurance inaccessible.  During the pandemic, a lot of dancers lost their jobs and have very few income alternatives, because many can’t access government funds and there is very little support being  given to the sex work industry as a whole. I fear many of those dancers turned to other opportunities they would not otherwise consider to try and make ends meet, some which put them in potentially dangerous or uncomfortable positions. I, myself, started an OnlyFans account, but I quickly ended it because I was too worried about being publicly connected to the industry and what that would do to my reputation with friends and family and in the future. That’s my final downside: the societal stigma attached to sex work and its repercussions for my future. 

I love what I do, I chose it, I have fun with it, and I am good at it. I believe it teaches me valuable life experiences and work skills. But that doesn’t seem to matter when society has already decided it isn’t useful, respectable or valid. Because of this I have had to formulate massive lies for some of the people closest to me in life, I have had to alter the city I live in just to work the job discreetly, and I have a big missing gap on my resume, which I’ll have to explain away somehow when I reenter the formal workforce. I’m sure this is a barrier for many people who would like to enter sex work or who already have and now have to navigate that reality with the rest of their life.

E: What do you think are common misconceptions people have about sex work/sex workers?

A: I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that sex workers are there as a last resort, or that they have been coerced into the job. Media has depicted strippers as trashy, impoverished, sad, forgotten women. Often they are assumed to have abusive pasts and substance abuse problems. Sex work is seen as unclean, unsafe and unnecessary. Of course there are elements of these assumptions that can be true, but it is unfair to label the industry in this way as a whole, because people in so many other jobs could be facing similar issues.

The women I worked with were so diverse! Some were full-time parents and some had other full-time jobs. Many of them chose the job because of its benefits and their talents. And let’s not forget that the times these tropes become true are not because sex work or workers inherently carry these qualities, but instead because the environment in which this work is carried out has been so narrowed or unvalued that it forces the work to exist under these qualities. There are many examples of safe, clean, happy empowered sex work businesses and workers. Society does not allow these as the dominant image because then it would have to recognize that sex work is a valid part of society and support it as such.  

E: Do you have a favourite story that you would like to share?


A: What to choose! One of the nights I took home my biggest cash prize was from a couple. Usually couples aren’t very popular, they can be a bit of work trying to chat them up and often are looking for only a dance or two to “spice things up” so dancers aren’t too excited about them as customers. This couple was sitting off in a corner of the club, but they were my customers so I decided to give it a shot. They ended up being so much fun!! I am fairly sure she was an ex-stripper herself and they decided to get a VIP room. They chose the most expensive room for a couple hours and got ten dancers! He easily spent over ten grand on all of us that night. She was Romanian and a lot of the women I work with, and almost all of them in the room that night, were Romanian, so I think she was having an absolute blast. And when you’re in a room with that many other girls it’s not very hard work, so some of the most but also easiest money I made in a night!

But the best part is, they loved me the most! They kept paying attention to me more than any of the other dancers and kept asking me to “keep the party going with them” after the club closed. I never ended up doing that but I felt so flattered, that out of all the other dancers that she had much more in common with than me, they loved me the most. So there are definitely times when I walk away feeling excited or flattered from a customer interaction, just as the customer walks away feeling excited and flattered by me. This particular occasion came with an excellent pay check and was such a crazy, funny VIP night, so that’s why it’s one of my favourites!

E: Do you have any advice for people looking to get into this line of work in any capacity?

A: My biggest tip would be to do your best to reach out to people already in the industry. There is not always a lot of information, and especially reliable, up to date, factual information, online, so talking to people that can give in depth accounts of the industry is invaluable.There are a ton of prominent sex workers running social media accounts, putting out podcasts and books. Hearing their first hand accounts was so useful  when I was trying to decide if stripping was right for me, and many of them still inspire me to keep learning more now. Although it’s a bit less reliable, I would also research the clubs in your location, read reviews, check out their websites and social media - I spent many hours on reddit reading comments about the stripping industry and specific clubs I was interested in. If you can, I would also suggest checking the clubs  out as a patron to see how the customers and dancers are treated, if you enjoy their setup, other staff, and general vibe. . 

If you’re worried about the dancing portion, take some classes if that’s available to you. Even basic technique can go far to giving you finesse on stage. If you can’t take a class, practice dancing for yourself in front of a mirror. Get comfortable being sexy in your own skin. My auditions were never more than a minute or two on stage, and I’ve seen a wide range of dance styles get hired. A lot of the actual job is about conversation and confidence. It costs no money to practice those things! Anyone who wants to enter the industry, I would say don’t let other peoples’ opinions define your choices too much - if you want to try it, just go for it! You can always move on if you decide it’s not for you. And there are so many different types of sex work, with accompanying differences in anonymity, dance/conversation skill, sexual acts, physical interaction etc. I love how broad sex work is, with a different niche to cater to everyone!  

E: What are some of the rules at your club?


A: There are a bunch of small rules - no phones on the floor, you get fined if you miss your stage show, no approaching customers until they have a drink, always order a drink if a customer offers (we have a trick for doing so without alcohol if desired), must be in full makeup/outfit when on the floor, must wear proper stripping heels that are at least 6 inches - different ones that dictate minor details of your night.

More structural rules include our tip out, the queuing system and private dances. For every dance and VIP you do, you must tip out a certain portion to the club. When you include the house fee, as mentioned before, this can culminate in a fair amount by the end of your night. This is because we are technically independent contractors for the club, not direct employees, so we make no hourly wage or salary. We are contracted to use the club’s space to do our work, so they expect a percentage of what we make in exchange for that. For example, we tipped out $4 for every $20 dance we did, meaning we actually walked away with $16.

To make customer acquisition more fair between the girls, we have a queuing system. Essentially, which section of the club you sit in and at what time dictates who you are allowed to initially approach when a customer enters the club. Once a customer has been spoken to by this initial dancer, they become “free game” for the rest of the club. Then it doesn’t matter where you are in the queue, you are allowed to approach. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s meant to give the dancers a more even chance of speaking to a customer so that everyone gets a fair turn at initial approaches. It’s also meant to give a better customer experience, so they aren’t trying to deal with five dancers approaching and vying for them at once.

The private dances have a number of rules attached to them. We must have one foot touching the ground at all times, so for example if we are straddling a customer’s lap, we are not allowed to pick both feet up off the floor. There is no floor work allowed. If we are doing the dance with one or multiple other dancers, we are not allowed to touch them too provocatively.

There is only one area in the club where we are allowed to have physical contact with the customers, and this is actually not legal in our club, so often we would have police checks and the area would be off-limit for the evening lest we got caught and fined. The rest of the private/VIP dances are non-contact. If we are in the non-contact area, we can get fully nude, but we aren’t allowed to spread our legs too obscenely. If we are in the touching area, we are not allowed to show our nipples, so we can either leave our bras on or wear nipple coverings, and we are required to wear our bottoms at all times, so no full nudity. These rules were decided not by the club but by city legislation, in order to protect dancer safety. While I appreciate and can understand the desire to keep dancers safe, I find a number of these rules to be problematic and ineffective in increasing my safety. Dancers make more money for contact dances, which makes them more popular. Because these dances are not technically allowed, the area in which we can do them is very small and not as comfortable as our other dance booths.

On busy nights there is a lineup, which means you’re losing money and time in which a customer could be buying more dances from you, and having to wait in line for your dance is not a great customer experience. And the nights where we expected a police check in the club, we couldn’t use these areas at all, meaning I could only sell the cheaper non-contact dances and would walk away from a shift earning much less than I could have. I agree with and understand the ban on full nudity when touching (but potentially other dancers would have liked the autonomy to choose that as well). Keeping my bottoms on is a joint deterrent to my verbal reprimands of customers whose hands wander. But it seems completely unnecessary to cover my nipples and I absolutely do not feel any higher amount of safety from a piece of tape. In what strip club can you not show your boobs!?

On a personal note, I often like the touching dances better as well. Not every customer prefers a contact dance, and there are definitely dances I also prefer to be non-contact. In those scenarios, non-contact dances are always an option, and it is always at the dancer’s discretion whether we dance for a customer at all. But for the customers I connect with, I enjoy the closeness and intimacy in the touching dances, and I usually have more fun and feel I do a better job when I can more fully interact with customers. Judging by the popularity of this small touching area, I believe that many of the other dancers at my club share these opinions. In all dances, whether contact or not, we are closely watched on camera and by in-person security personnel. If we ever make a misstep (ex. forget a nipple covering or lift both feet off the ground), a security guard is on us within 30 seconds. I feel extremely secure in this environment. They are always on the dancers’ side and I am confident they would protect me in a confrontation with a customer.

All of these examples are to say that I feel many of these regulations designed for dancer safety end up being a hindrance to our income and job satisfaction in practice. For that reason, I always advocate for the input of sex workers in the crafting or reform of all sex work rules and legislation.

E: What does a typical night look like?

A: My typical night starts at 6pm, when I arrive at the club. I head to the dressing room to get ready - makeup, hair, outfit, accessories, heels, and sometimes I eat dinner. I try to get out on the floor as soon as possible to get a good position in the queue, to be ready for early club customers. Once I get a customer, I am ready to WORK, to FLIRT, to make them fall in LOVE. Getting the first shot at talking to a customer is a bonus, because you have the best chance to make a good impression and score their dances for the night.

The first 15 minutes of chatting to a customer are most crucial - I’m trying to start a conversation, get them to open up and build a repertoire, determine if I am or could become their fantasy for the evening, and then convince them to buy dances. If I have a good connection with them I will stay for as long as it’s lucrative, and then move on to the next customer, circulating the club like this for the rest of the night. Every dancer is called to do a stage show about 2-3 times a night as well, and they are continuous so there is always someone on stage. They are three dances long and this is the opportunity to advertise yourself to the club, showing off your style, character, body and pole tricks to win you dances when you get back onto the floor. 

E: What’s your favourite song to strip to?

A: Ride - Ciara, Malamente - Rosalia, Fucked My Way Up To The Top - Lana Del Rey. My style is along the lines of innocent, cute, bubbly, babygirl, so my favourites to dance to are 2000s pop hits. My house daddy affectionately calls me Christina Aguilera because I can absolutely work it to Genie in a Bottle. 

E: Fave move? 

A: I love breaking out the full splits to the floor near the end of my final song - the crowd loves that one too. . I also love a sultry backbend from my knees.

E: Could you share some tricks of the trade?

A: Yes! A small compilation of what I’ve learned...

Intuition - Getting a read on what a customer is looking for that night is necessary so I know when to move on if I’m not making a connection with them. There is a fine line between keeping up conversation (because often the longer you chat to a customer, the more obligated they feel to get a dance with you) and knowing when to move on because you don’t have a good connection with that person (because then you are freeing up that customer for another dancer who could have the potential to make money with them). This is an important stripping skill: knowing when to leave a customer, so as not to waste your own or other dancers’ time. 

Dance - Striptease for yourself as often as you can. Lock yourself in your room, turn on your fav jam and strip it off for the mirror baby. Turn yourself on! Spend time naked doing other things too, taking a bath, sleeping, doing exercise, looking at yourself in the mirror, gardening. Doesn’t matter what it is. Get to know your body and become comfortable with it. If you don’t feel confident yet, work that up by committing to practicing in front of the mirror until you feel a level of comfort to take those shapes to the stage. When you feel sexy in your own body, that confidence will show up in your performances, regardless of your technique or move repertoire. If you’re having fun, they’re probably having fun. 

Conversation 1 - Eye contact and smile!! I know that doesn’t sound like a real tip but I swear this is one of my best tricks. There are sooo many times I didn’t know what to say next, so I just looked the customer straight in their eyes and smiled my best smile. Men love a smiling woman, it works every time! Throw in a giggle and you’re gold. Don’t look away until they do, just hold their gaze - not aggressively, but playfully - keep smiling and watch them crumble before you into a flattered, mumbling heap of money :) *works well when you’re trying to get a customer to notice you while on stage as well - “wow she’s having fun up there?! And she’s looking at me?!!?”

Conversation 2 - Don’t be afraid to be interesting. In the club I talked about things that I am passionate or curious about. Sometimes I sensed customers expected me to be one dimensional - pretty and a good dancer, with nothing more on my mind than the makeup on my face. But I’m positive I won the majority of my customers over with my ability to hold up a good conversation while in lingerie. Often people’s fantasies are not one dimensional, they want a dancer that jests with them about the political climate and thennnnnn takes her top off. 

E: What do you want people to know about sex work?

A: It’s fun and it’s empowering. It’s not lost on me that those favourite moments I mentioned earlier cannot be found in any other job. Those moments bring me happiness, thrills and confidence. It’s rewarded me with a pathway to financial independence and a flexible lifestyle. It’s a fabulous way for me to turn my sexuality and creativity into profit. 

My story is not the story of every sex worker of course. There are certainly problems within the sex work industry - not everyone is safe, not everyone is there in total freedom, and not everyone is practicing sex work in clean and content environments.

The industry can promote exploitation. What frustrates me is that we are rarely having conversations about these problems in other industries. What about the woman who was sexually harassed in her housekeeping role at the motel? What about the woman who had no other job option than supporting her family on exploitative wages as an entry level store clerk? What about the woman that cannot find support for her substance abuse problems because she works as a bartender? So often society justifies ignoring comparable problems across multiple industries because of the moral arguments tied up in sex work. I want to end this representation as the sole narrative. There are a lot of really dynamic, diverse, intelligent, happy and empowered people performing in these careers. There is, and for all of history has been, a demand for these jobs. They are not going away.

Think of how many people you know that have engaged with sex work - how many of them have watched porn or gone to the strippers for a bachelor party? That’s sex work. And the sooner we can remove the unnecessary emotional and moral barriers harming sex work, the sooner we can make it a cleaner, safer, more supportive industry for all those involved. ONCE MORE: sex work is not inherent in these problems. The problematic elements are born from the stigmas and combative policies that society has continually nurtured despite proven research and sex worker accounts. Support sex workers! 

*would love for everyone reading this to take a moment to reflect on the ways in which they have fed into or upheld these negative representations of sex work. Can you truly call yourself a feminist if you don’t support the agency of female sex workers? Are you alienating or harming people in your life that may have or want to turn to sex work but do not feel comfortable telling you? Will you continue benefiting from and engaging with sex work without listening to its workers? Let’s give this a think next time we log onto PornHub! 

E: What are your thoughts on current laws on sex work?

A: To be honest, I am not sure I have enough information on current laws to confidently answer that. This is something I am trying to learn a lot more about now that I am part of the industry. I also think the laws surrounding prostitution or brothels are very different and often more controversial than those surrounding strip clubs and dancers, so I’m hesitant to comment on them as one category. However, I do believe a lot of sex work laws are still heavily influenced by moral decisions rather than ones informed by fact or the sex work community, as well as conflation with other forms of exploitation such as sex trafficking, so addressing those problems could lead to much safer and happier outcomes for both workers and customers.

Strip clubs are fully legal in my country, but there are a number of particular regulations that I’d advocate for reform, such as the rules surrounding touching as mentioned in the earlier question. Prominent sex workers I engage with via social media are calling for the decriminalization of sex work for the types or places in which it is illegal, so I think that option should be taken seriously by lawmakers. I’m not comfortable giving more detail than that because I don’t feel well versed enough in the topic. 

I would like to see strippers with more formal work protections. Stripping was a full time career for many of the women in my club - there needs to be more worker protection, proper contracts, benefits, and access to unemployment. This could take away pre existing benefits that tend to draw people to this career, such as the fact that it is under the table. It is a complex issue that I don’t have all the answers to, but in my opinion the support would be helpful, and more rights could bring more formal, societal recognition that could help end the stigma against sex work and sex workers.  

E: In what ways are racial disparities present in this line of work? How do you think they can be addressed?

A: I am white, so I have not been or felt discriminated against. Conventional standards of beauty usually uphold images of thin, white women, and many clubs hire along those lines. They need to hire more diverse applicants. Caging ourselves into this standardized type of beauty isn’t beneficial, we could be catering to so many more customers and a wider range of people could be successful dancers. There is someone out there for everyone and we should be showcasing the amazing talents that are in groups other than thin, white dancers. Upper management in my club is also exclusively white men. Hiring a diverse workforce in management positions, and creating internal supports to move those people up in the company, should also be prioritized. 

I have done no formal research on this, but I would imagine in places where people of color form the groups more often in lower socioeconomic standards, they may have a harder time breaking into the industry, or popular clubs, as well. What’s great about stripping and other forms of sex work is that it has long been a profession where you don’t need a resume, references, or proven skills to apply and get the job. It welcomes people from all socioeconomic and academic/career backgrounds to apply. However, I would think that a higher socioeconomic status would absolutely give you a better chance of being hired, because financial barriers might prevent an applicant from accessing dance training, transportation to certain clubs, or the makeup, shoes, costumes and outfits that could help them compete with other applicants.

There are amazing community organizations offering resources to people of colour who are involved or want to be involved in the industry. Supporting those groups or their formation, listening to what changes their representatives are asking for, and funding them, could be a great first step in fixing racial disparities in the industry. 

E: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: One of the best externalities from stripping is its shattering of beauty perceptions. Although I would say that almost all of the dancers fell somewhat, someway into the definition of standardized beauty, there were so many different body shapes represented on our club’s stage! Fake boobs, small boobs, skinny, curvy, long legs, short with a big booty, flowing hair, pixie cuts, all shades of skin etc. Seeing all those different body types performing on stage so confidently, so open, is an unparalleled experience of empowerment.

Rarely in normal life are we exposed to that diversity so bluntly, over and over, night after night. It really made me reexamine my own beauty standards as well as my perception of my own body. If the dancer on stage has the same flaw I see in myself, yet confidently rocks it up there and comes down to the floor only to get dances with five different people, that is an intense experience of affirmation. You are constantly getting validation, and as shallow as that validation may be, for people to watch you at your most naked and then get paid for it is a very special form of empowerment. I think it would be so incredible if they blew that out even further and really hired an even more diverse cast of dancers throughout the industry. Would love if that stage could represent what we see daily in society, and vice versa. Strippers for body empowerment! x