Strippr

I’m not happy. And it’s about damn time I did something about it. There are so many things that I want to do. If stripping is affording me the privilege of making good money and working less, I think that now is a perfect-beyond-perfect time to just start making my life what I want it to be.

I’ve been spending my life using excuses so often I’m not sure I know how to function without them. I’m tired all of the time, or completely manic out of my gourd. I don’t spend the kind of time on things that I love doing that I want to. I instead spend time doing things to fill up the time, make the boredom go away, be less lonely, and just get through the day. But I don’t want to “get through the day”. I want to live through my days. And I’m fucking sick of the way that I’m living.

Here’s my list to get my life to be closer to how I envision it and less of happenstance:

• Go vegan. I’ve wanted to do this for years. Dabbled in it, thought about it, talked to others about it, and defended the idea from the likes of meat-chomping friends and acquaintances. I keep saying I’ll do it when I learn to cook, or when I quit stripping (I burn a LOT of calories stripping), or when xyz. Fuck it. It’s about damn time.
• Submit my poetry to poetry contests. PW.org lists a bazillion contests, and I keep saying I want to finish this poetry collection (“Ecdysiast”) and submit it somewhere. I’ve got like eight poems, and I’d like to have about forty more before I do something with it. I’ve been “working” on it for a month. I wonder what would happen if I took it seriously, and actually wrote on a daily basis?
• Get back into school. I have ten credits to finish my Associate’s degree. Seriously, I’m so close I should have just finished it last summer. The classes are relatively cheap, and there’s a good chance I could just pay for them on a payment plan.
• Get my financial life on track. I need a savings account for miscellanous emergencies and financial goals that I have. I need a checking account to be able to write checks instead of trying to live my life in money orders (which often causes me to pay bills late). I’d like to save money towards paying my taxes next year, so that I’m not going insane trying to figure out how in the hell to pay for it.
• Stop drinking so much soda. I drink about 2-3 two-liter bottles of Diet Mountain Dew every day. It’s ridiculous, and there’s no good reason I can’t drink something else. Also, I’d wind up saving about $170/month.
• Drink less beer. I drink 5-6 days/week (remember that drinking is encouraged at my job). That’s dumb. And I don’t need to; I don’t even FEEL like I need to.
• Learn to do the splits.
• Once and for all, potty train my dog so reliably that I don’t have to worry about it for the most part.
• Garden more. It’s something that I enjoy, as I just learned, and I have the ability to grow more things if I rent space at the stables to do that (I want to plant carrots there!).
• Work more often. I skip work often because I’m doing okay money-wise. But I bet if I worked an extra day every week, I’d have more disposable cash to put into that savings account and achieve some of these goals. Plus, it keeps me fit, and I like it.
• Work really hard at pole dancing. I love the new classes and studio that I’m in, and I’ve been going twice a week instead of once a week. I also want to save up enough money to put a pole of my own in my apartment. It’ll give me something to do besides go to the bar.
• Ditch the gym membership and find a work-out plan that I can really work with. I want to spend more time stretching, and I want to feel fit and look good. There are lots of places on my body that could really use toning and to be more flexible, and that would help me achieve more goals.
• Mental health. I see a therapist once a week. I wonder what would happen if I worked on these goals more often and did a little extra “homework” between sessions? I need my medication adjusted again, I think, too.
• My biggest passion is riding horses. I have a horse, and I love him. I desperately want to ride more, and work towards some competitions this year. I’d love to take extra lessons and work at a stable that’s about 30 minutes north of my town. I also want to fit in more lessons with the trainer that I have. Now that it’s nice out, I have no excuse.

Whew. That’s the list. I feel better just writing it.

A couple of weeks ago, the club that I work for was victim to a washed-out road from flooding. The club was closed for a week and a half and has only been reopened for about three days now.

I hadn’t had time to post! Whoops!

A co-worker of mine and I decided that something needed to happen in order for us to be able to work, and that our best option was to leave town and to travel and work in another club. We were unsure of when the club would reopen…flooding is very unpredictable and the club sits on the river.

So, we went. It was a learning experience, to say the least.

The first club, Ossy’s Show Palace, is essentially a bar and grill with some women in the background. It is a nice place, yes, but the dancers were definitely not the main entertainment. It’s a topless bar, and we are used to fully nude. They didn’t have room for us that night, so we didn’t stay long.

The second was a place called Book ‘Em Dano’s. It’s in a basement. The pole appears to be attached by a piece of scrap wood (?). Half of the dancers look tired, jaded, and drugged beyond knowing what’s going on. Their music came off of a jukebox, and there were no bouncers. The private dance room was made of cheap gardening supplies. We were honestly scared just being there as customers. We left without asking about how to dance there. It was also a topless bar.

The third was a place that my co-worker looked at before we had left…Lipstix. She didn’t have a whole lot to say about it, except that the stage was awesome (a jungle gym of poles!). The girls had told her that they made pretty much stage cash and were lucky to get private dances. We skipped it, because the income potential didn’t seem to be there. Also a topless bar.

The fourth was a place called The Viper Room. We liked it…neat decoration, an okay stage, a bar, no house fees or tip out, and the girls seemed nice. We interviewed and agreed to come back the next day. Topless bar with pasties and a no-touch law.

The fifth was a place called Shakers. It was a pretty decent club, as far as that area goes. It was busy, there were bouncers, a DJ, good-looking dancers that performed well, and it was a juice bar (no alcohol). No pasties, and it was full-nude, but they could not touch. (It seemed as though the law in that club was a grey area.) They told us we’d have to audition three days later, on their audition night, and we decided to work at The Viper Room instead.

We rented a crappy, crappy hotel room (you don’t even want to know!), and went back the next night.

It was Sunday night. There were four dancers, including us. We apparently had to be our own DJ/Bouncer/Door girl and still dance. The dancers there believe that $120+ is a good night. We had to wear pasties, which were just fabric paint. The distance between the ceiling and the floor on the stage isn’t much (7’6” maybe?), and made for some tacky, awkward dancing out of us. We’re used to 12’0” poles and thinking that those are small.

The club had perhaps 15 customers all night, which was unfortunate. The club has a lot of potential, as far as the area laws will let it.

Still, my co-worker pulled about $200 out of there, and I made about $60—between the two of us, it was kind of a miracle we made that! We’re used to much, much, much higher earnings on a consistent basis. The girls there thought that we were goddesses.

The no-touch law proved to challenge our stage and private dance abilities to the max. It was difficult to learn to be more creative with fewer possible options of what to do! We are used to being able to touch (and be touched), having time to take more clothes off, and being very physical in our private dances. I learned that touch is a major marketing tool for me, and just how important it has been in my ability to communicate with my customers.

I learned about spinning poles! I had never been on one before, and was ecstatic to get to try it. I think I like sticking with my static poles, but it was a fun experience. I also learned about wearing pasties over my nipples…OUCH! Does it really matter if anyone can see my nipple? I’m already showing the rest of my boobs, and everyone (men included) has nipples…

I learned how much I rely on showing my pussy in order to take up stage time, market, and in order to fill in time during private dances. Without that, I was slightly lost.

Overall, what I learned is that I am grateful for the club that I work for, and that I am quite privileged to work in such a nice place.

With two stages and a catwalk, 12’0” poles, a jungle gym of poles, good bouncers, a good DJ, a door girl/house mom, and a boss that lays down the law (mostly)…it is completely different. We literally hugged our manager when we got back to our home club on Monday.

Or, if you’re looking for a good list to fuck to, read below.

Different genres and sounds on the list, yes. I play different music depending on the crowd: soft and sensual for the businessmen and gentlemen, and upbeat and faster-tempo for the young crowd on Sunday nights (when I bother working them anymore) or late at night.

Note that although I pick my music for a computerized list (and then the DJ picks from that list for our stage sets, that way we don’t have to run back and forth to the DJ booth), some of this music isn’t necessarily the stuff I like listening to…

Here goes nothing. In no particular order or catagorical form:

• #1 Crush - Garbage
• Days Go By - Dirty Vegas
• My Immortal - Evanescence
• Bring Me to Life - Evanescence
• Trip Like I Do - Crystal MethOD
• Satisfaction - Benny Benassi
• Criminal - Fiona Apple
• Zombie - The Cranberries
• I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me) - Marilyn Manson
• Dopeshow - Marilyn Manson
• Poker Face - Lady Gaga
• Just Dance - Lady Gaga
• Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
• Toxic - Britney Spears
• Butterfly - Crazy Town
• Careless Whisper - Seether (cover)
• Tainted Love - Marilyn Manson (cover)
• Glycerine - Bush
• Mouth - Bush
• P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing) - Michael Jackson
• Fuck on Cocaine - DJ Caffeine
• Lit Up - Buckcherry
• Get Stoned - Hinder
• Crazy Bitch - Buckcherry
• Closer - Nine Inch Nails
• Fuck You Like an Animal - Nine Inch Nails
• The Hand That Feeds - Nine Inch Nails
• Animals - Nickelback
• Figured You Out - Nickelback
• Something in Your Mouth - Nickelback
• Shakin’ Hands - Nickelback
• S.E.X. - Nickelback
• Ass - 3MP
• Rough Sex - Lords of Acid

Ack. More as I think of them, I’m sure.

If you’ve got any suggestions, feel free to leave Disqus comments.

edited March 12 @ 8:15am to add to list.

Today was…filled with “learning opportunities” (that’s what my shrink used to call it when I fucked up something royally). I thought I’d share my new-found wisdom.

• When burned from having spent too long in the tanning bed, do not shave pubic hair. This is extremely painful.
• Do not go longer in the tanning bed than you know you should.
• Pole burn and sunburn together feel like razor burn. And it stings when you put alcohol-based body spray on this combination.
• Do not lick dry lips profusely or unknowingly pick at acne while talking to a customer.
• When someone asks you to “show them your kidneys,” ask what they mean, rather than turning around and pointing to your lower back. This is apparently some kind of reference that I am unaware of.
• Status is dependent on perception, not fact. I am still a nerd, but when I walk on stage, people think I’m the hot chick that is unattainable (and this feels weird to me).
• The old adage is true: you have to spend money to make money.
• If you don’t eat all night, and then you go all out at the twenty-four hour diner, it makes you feel pretty sick. My guts hurt right now…

(Random philosophy tidbit: A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that cannot be separated from, or obtained without, experience.)

I think I often forget that I am permitted some luxuries because of my income (and therefore, because I dance). I forget sometimes just how fortunate I am to make the money that I do; it’s quite easy to forget that just because I don’t buy a lot of materialistic “stuff”, I am permitted the luxury of doing a lot of things.

I’ve acquired a lot of hobbies and non-tangible things since I’ve been dancing. Today I was reminded of just how much priviledge I’ve acquired, and I felt quite blessed and fortunate. I saw a homeless person today, and I suddenly remembered: I used to be homeless.

And now, I:

-Have a horse at a boarding stable. He is well-fed and exercised. I pay someone to clean his stall, buy and replenish the bedding, turn him out, and feed him. He sees the farrier, vet, and chiropractor regularly, and has his twice-yearly shots. I take riding lessons and participate in shows. I buy miscellaneous tack as needed (bridles, bits, etc). In the summer months, I spend upwards of $750/month; in the winter, my bill usually totals about $500. I recently suggested going to more expensive, higher-rated horse shows, which would put my show-season months’ bills at about $1000+.

-Will take pole dancing classes at about $180/month, purely for my own pleasure.

-Live near downtown in my city, and drive an okay car. I always have gas and food for the most part, and the bills are paid.

-Can afford things like a tanning package, a gym membership, movie rental membership, therapy, and internet. All of those things were strictly out of my budget for nearly six years, and all of the sudden and all at once, I have them.

-I can now afford DOCTORS and basic medical expenses and prescriptions! I recently added health insurance to my car/life/renter’s insurance plan. It’s a crappy health insurance plan, but it’s more than I’ve had in years (and I’m very excited about it)!

-I paid off my car. That, in itself, is an achievement.

-I am able to afford to work on my student loans (at about $300-350/month), which I was sure I’d default on before I started dancing.

And the biggest luxury of all? I can afford to take time off and to work less. I spend more time with my family and my friends. I spend a lot of time with my horse and my dog. I spend time reading, watching things, and learning. I spend a lot of time on my hobbies: writing, metal sculpture, riding horses, and playing in the sunshine.

I think I’m afforded the most luxurious thing of all: the ability to enjoy my life, and enough time to feel that I’m adequately doing so.

I feel very lucky today.

Where should I start donating a little of my spending money?

I like Heifer International, the IaDCTA (Iowa Dressage and Combined Training Association), Iowa Homeless Youth Centers, and scholarship foundations for impoverished youth who excel in academia. Suggestions?

I’ve been really excited about taking pole classes lately, and I’ve finally saved enough to get the first lessons.

I see stripping and pole dancing as somewhat separate entities (see post about this here), but the fact remains that I use some basic stunts from the sport and art of pole dancing to get the job done on stage. I don’t claim that what I do on stage is pole dancing (it’s stripper dancing, plain and simple), but stripping led me to be interested in pole dancing.

The studio is a reputable one, and the studio itself is really nice.

I’m hoping that I learn things the correct way. Because of the way that I learned pole tricks (from a lefty), I do my pole tricks “backwards” (though you can’t necessarily tell on stage). I’ve become quite dependent on poor form and technique, with lots of practice rarely supervised by other strippers (not pole dance instructors).

I learned everything I know about the poles from the other strippers. And they, in turn, had learned it from strippers before them. Rarely do any of these strippers have any experience outside of the strip clubs and personal poles in their homes (and, lately, YouTube videos). So it will be a really GOOD change for me to learn from a qualified professional (about pole dancing, the sport, not stripping).

I’ll have to let you know how it goes!

I had another “Best Night Ever” tonight! Those are the nights when I’ve made more money in that night than I’ve ever made in one night before. It was also my “Best Week Ever” this week.

I think I’m one of the rare people on the planet that actually enjoys mathematics. Most people hate on math, but it can be quite useful, especially in my situation.

I write down a lot of things about my earnings as soon as I walk in the door from work, and my notebook has the following contents about them:

• Date and day of the week: Like, “03/04 Thu”
• Gross income: The amount I made all night, not accounting for paying the DJ, Bouncers, House Fees, Fines, and Dance Fees.
• Expenses: The amount I spent on the DJ, Bouncers, House Fees, Fines, and Dance Fees.
• Net income: = Gross income minus expenses.
• Weekly income: Net income for all of the days worked in the week. I consider the “week” to start on Friday and end on Thursday, for bookkeeping’s sake.
• Monthly income: Net income for all of the days worked in the calendar month (the 1st-28th/29th/30th/31st).
• Year-to-date (YTD) income: All of the net income I’ve made for the year up to that point.
• Notes: If something peculiar happened, or for some reason I didn’t work for several days, I write down why that affected my income. My notes include things like being sick, holidays, events in town, snow storms and extreme weather, vacations, and having gone to a concert instead of working. I note whether or not I am menstruating (which affects my income; see other posts on this). It might surprise you that I also write down when the new and full moons are (this seems to cause weird and less predictable behavior in customers)!

If that isn’t bad enough…I keep three other lists. Two of them are:

• Day of the month: It’s a page numbered 1-31, and the numbers corrospond to the date. When I get home, I not only write my income on the first sheet (the above description, in the last section), but I write it on the “day of the month” that it occurred. I keep this all year long, so that I can compare the dates.
• Day of the week: It’s a page with the days, Sunday through Saturday, written on it. I write my income on that sheet as well, and compare it to the other days of the weeks that I’ve worked.

If that isn’t bad enough to make your math brain hurt, I also keep very, very, very basic statistics on my earnings and calculate my gross tax due (*See bottom of post for note on this.)

• (month) “x bar”: The statistical mean of a sample. In layman’s terms, it’s the average of my income for the month. I add up all of the “net income” numbers and divide by the number of days that I worked during that month. I compare this number to the numbers I got for the other months to see whether I have been earning, on average, less/more/about the same on a regular basis. (For you stats nerds: yes, I include the outliers.)
• (week# of the month) “x bar”: The statisical mean of a sample (again). It’s the average for each week of my income. I add the net income for the days of the week and divide by the number of days I worked during the week. I compare this number to the other weeks in the month. I also compare this to the same week number of other months (say, the first week in March compared to the first weeks in January and February) to find out what the trends are like from week to week and month to month.
• I abbreviate using “n” occasionally: The number of days in the sample. So, for a month, it might be 14. For a week, it might be 3.
• I also use “summa” occasionally: It means “the sum of”…basically the same thing as “equals”.
• The standard tax rate for someone making less than $70,000 or something a year is 15.3%. Each month, I take my gross income and multiply it by .153. This tells me what I basically owe in taxes, and I let the tax man figure the rest out based on expenses and items purchased as supplies. Let’s just say that working as a stripper isn’t cheap, and I have to start the planning for payment of my taxes at the beginning of the year.

And if that doesn’t seem silly enough, I actually use the data.

• At the beginning of the month, I look up which days of the week and days of the month were the most profitable. So, say Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were the most profitable. And say the 4th, 9th, 20th, 21st, and 28th were the most profitable. I see whether any of those intersect on the calendar. I write those down, and I am almost always sure to work those particular days.
• If I see a trend that the 9th has been profitable for several months in a row, I am sure to work it.
• If I see a trend that Thursdays have been profitable for several weeks/months in a row, I am sure to work them.
• If I see a trend that the first week of the month sucks, but that the second week of the month is very profitable, I make sure to save my energy during the first week and work more during the second week.

I’m not crazy, really. I like math, yes. And actually, contrary to what your peers have always told you, it IS useful sometimes. I can’t work every single day. In order to maximize my income with minimal effort, a bit of math helps. It’s not difficult math, and it takes me very little time (maybe about two to five minutes each time I work).

Does it work? Well, hell. I’d like to believe so! I continually see a rise in my income, but I am unsure of whether that is due to the z factor, which is experience, or whether that is due to careful planning, or whether it’s simply dumb luck.

The more and more data I collect, the more accurate I seem to be in choosing the days that are likely to be most profitable to me.

Also, I read my horoscope for each day of the upcoming week (via a day-by-day calendar next to my toilet). Hehe.

*Tumblr is apparently opposed to statistics symbols, and for this, I’ll have to call them by their names…my apologies.

The news was posted about on Facebook…and led me to a Google search, during which I found this descriptive article: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/03/03/international-sex-workers-rights-day/

I am not a prostitute. I do not wish to be a prostitute, or to be assumed as one because I dance.

HOWEVER:

Prostitution is a somewhat common practice outside of being a dancer, and I know quite a few sex workers. And several of those women are my friends.

They have my heart today, as I know what a difficult job it is and I know how difficult dealing with the excess problems can be.

My comments to follow bartstation’s post. See below.

bartstation:

Finding out a girl you knew in middle school, does porn.
Or a girl you knew in high school is a local stripper.

The worst thing is that your friends want to watch it just to see them. HA.

Leave the ladies alone.

My comments:

1. We all have jobs. Mine happens to be a little more exciting than, say, the previous one I had in finance.

2. Strippers are: somebody’s daughter, sister, neice, aunt, granddaughter, girlfriend, wife, best friend, neighbor, mother, student (or former sudent), and on and on. So is the doctor that gave you that prostate test, ey?

3. My friends know what I do, as does my family. My high school classmates either know, or will know soon enough (I live in a city of about a half million, where gossip travels quickly). And the high school classmates that know? It was because they stumbled upon that discovery because they came into the club—to see strippers—in the first place. I actually acquired a few regular customers out of it.

4. Your buddies might not be as resistent as you think to being persuaded to spend hundreds of dollars on that nerdy girl they knew from high school.

5. No, please, DON’T leave me alone while I’m dancing—actually, I’d be more than happy to see former classmates at the club. Money is money, and whether my rent is paid by a kid I went to high school with or a forty-something guy I just met, matters not to me. I kind of prefer reminiscing, as it is.

What constitutes a shitty night at the strip club, in a stripper’s world? $31.

It was a stupidly slow night. There were twelve of us, and five paid (yes, we must pay $50-$100 to leave early) to leave before midnight even struck. Throughout the night, we had 16 customers. Alas, there was simply not much to be made. I’m actually shocked I even made $31.

It happens. And on nights like these, I think about getting a square job in a real office, again. Or hurrying up and finishing my degree. Or switching to a busier club in town (one that I wouldn’t enjoy working for, but not too many people enjoy their jobs as is).

But ultimately, I stay. I stay because these are the infrequent kind of nights. I stay because I’ve quadrupled my income after detoxing from a job in finance. I stay because I like what I do. I stay because it makes me feel good, as a person. I stay because I like the hours, the flexibility, the atmosphere, the people, my co-workers, the policies, and the management.

But there’s no describing how much it sucks to realize that I made the equivalent of $3.44/hour today—and I still haven’t finished paying rent.

It’s risky, this being-and-independent-contractor business. This self-employed circus. Argh. Frustration is abundant among the dancers tonight!

Oooh! Here’s the good stuff: fetishists.

Personally, I love fetishists. It’s something wildly different for my personal experience log. My view on experiences—of all kinds—is that I want (I need) to have them all. I’ll try almost anything at least once, so long as I don’t feel harmed or threatened by it.

Fetishists usually pay very generously for someone to indulge them, and dancers often charge a pretty penny for the more uncommon fetishes. (It’s economics: the supply of people willing to do these things is scarce, which drives the price ceiling higher and higher.)

Fetishes and fetishists seen around the club:

“The Bone Guy” - a man in his fifties, a professor, who chooses only very, very underweight girls to do private dances with. He very literally just wants to touch and feel bones. He loves running his hand up and down the spine, grabbing hipbones, kneecaps, and collarbones; his favorite is asking the girl to suck in her stomach, so that he can try to feel her spine from the front of her body. He also likes to reach underneath the girl’s ribcage and feel the inside of her ribs.

Masochists - very, very, very, very common. Most of the girls in my club run into at least one per night. Actually, masochists make up about 75% of my regular clientele, and I very much enjoy playing the role of a sadist (in my professional life, not my personal life). Masochists like intentional pain of some sort. Most enjoy it when I smack them around, bite them, scratch them, kick them, hit or punch them (some), or use a whip/belt on them. Some masochists enjoy verbal humiliation as well; I tell these men that they are “pussies,” that “[he] should run to his mommy,” that “[he’d] better beg/whimper/plead or else,” and demand them to “jump” (the appropriate response is, “How high, miss?” to avoid “punishment”).

Sadists - somewhat common. Most girls run into them regularly; most girls refuse to indulge this fantasy. I think most girls refuse because of a personal history of sexual assault/abuse or a fear of actually getting hurt (we often don’t know exactly what kind of guy we’re dealing with right away!). I personally refuse these fetishists. They like to inflict pain and/or verbal humiliation (the opposite of a masochist).

Foot fetishists - I have one regular that is a foot fetishist, and it’s not terribly uncommon. The degree to which some people enjoy it definitely varies, as with all fetishes. My foot fetishist is a CFO of a mid-sized corporation, a proud father and husband, and (I think..?) coaches a child’s team of some sort. He likes to smell my feet while they’re sweaty and my dirty shoes. He enjoys licking my feet and sucking on my toes, especially if they’re dirty or sweaty. He likes when I rub my feet in his crotch, and likes it when I step on him. He honestly “gets off” on this. These guys will sometimes pay top-dollar for used, worn-out, dirty stripper shoes. (Secretly, one of my favorite things, that can sometimes bring me to orgasm, is having my toes sucked on!)

Anal fetish - The club has a regular customer that enjoys looking at the girls assholes. That’s all. Not touching (which is forbidden by the club/law), just looking and staring for a song length or two.

Insertion - We occasionally get requests to insert things into men’s anuses. The most common requests are our fingers (forbidden) or a strap-on dildo (permitted to some extent).

Roleplaying - Acting out different roles. Sometimes these include mother/son, teacher/student, doctor/patient, businessman/secretary, father/daughter…I can think of a hundred, probably. Usually, the men bear no semblance to the role they want to play, and sometimes they do choose to be in the submissive role. Ultimately, it is power play. It often involves the submissive party “misbehaving” and therefore being “punished” (a form of masochism/sadism sometimes).

Bodily fluids - Usually urine (urophilia, I think it’s called). These men enjoy either being peed on (most common) or peeing on (least common) someone. The places on bodies which they prefer vary widely. Some prefer we pee in their mouths, on their chests, on their crotch, or just on their face “somewhere”. It’s been heard that occasionally excrement (poop) fetishists come in, but it’s very rare in my club. I have also heard of blood fetishists (tasting, usually).

Oh dear. It’s late (about 5:00am). I ought to get to bed. More fetishes when I think of them.