What will your boundaries be?

Just like applying to any job, you do research on the company and make sure it’s the right fit for you. You also have to make sure you’re the right fit for the company, and choosing the right strip club is a similar process. It’s extremely important that you find what club best suits your personality, goals, and dance style. This is the place where you’ll need to be vulnerable, feel safe, and make your money. There are a few steps you should take before choosing your home club. Here is what I tell my clients…

Go to the club as a customer first! Could you handle it?

Sit back, order a drink and enjoy the show. Pay attention to what the dancers are doing: what they do on stage and how they lap dance on the clients. Is that something you will be comfortable doing? Watch the customers and see if they are touching the dancers, if so, what part of their bodies are being touched? Be prepared for this to happen or know how to pull yourself out of the situation. Every dancer’s boundaries are different. What will your boundaries be? Think it through, then think about it again. Your boundaries will change a few times throughout your career or depending on the customer. Sometimes it will even depend on your mood for the day. If you aren’t sure what your boundaries are, I promise, you’ll figure it out very quickly with those first few customers.

What were my boundaries? They were all over the place. I started listening to the other girls when they would complain about customers touching them certain ways. I observed exactly what the customers hands were doing during lap dances and VIP dances. I pushed some boundaries with nicer customers to figure out what I didn’t mind and what I didn’t feel comfortable with. At first, I only let customers put their hands on my hips while dancing, other than that, they were on the arms of the chairs. Anything further eventually depended on my mood, the customer, and how much money I was making. For example, one Friday each month I would go at 12pm-2pm to meet with a customer in VIP. He would pay me $1,200 cash to dance and eat lunch with him. (That’s right, I was making rent money in two hours.) He was super nice and I was making good money, so if he gently touched my body sometimes, I didn’t mind it. If I was only doing a $20 dance for a customer and that was it, he would never be able to touch any part of me. Customers will push your limits. This is probably the most important step. Ask yourself, is this something you will be able to handle?

Does the club’s energy match yours? 

Think about what your style is and what type of clientele you want to dance for. The bigger clubs usually have set music they play depending on the clientele in the room. The smaller clubs are usually pretty open with what each dancer wants to dance to during their stage sets. I, personally, don’t care what music is playing while I’m dancing. I think it’s because the clubs I worked at didn’t have a huge stage presence. Not a lot of people would tip dancers on stage. It was more silent money upstairs rather than loud money on the stages. (Silent money is when you’re handed a few hundred dollars, secretly. Loud money is when clients are making it rain while you’re on stage or dancing.)

Also think about how many people you like around you. Some dancers like the smaller clubs because they are very discrete and don’t have a lot of people. Others, like me, like the big clubs with tons of people and more expensive VIP rooms. The bigger clubs tend to be a little more upscale as well. 

Check the VIP rooms! 

VIP rooms are a more intimate setting for you and your customers. Some clubs have champagne rooms with couches, tables and tv’s. Some clubs have tiny cubicles you go in with a ripped couch. Most VIP rooms have an open layout with cameras, and others have a door that closes behind you. What will you be comfortable with? I prefer an open floor plan so people can see me and the client to make sure I am safe and that I have multiple ways to exit if I need to get away.

Ask questions! 

How much are the house fees? House fees are the amount the dancers have to pay the club to work each night. Is there a house mom? A house mom is the woman in the locker room that supplies all the snacks, tampons, cigarettes, toiletries and clothes to the dancers if they need something. They don’t need to have one, but it’s super convenient. Who do you have to tip out at the end of the night? Usually it’s the DJ, house mom if they have one, valet parking if they have it, and any floor management that helps put you in a VIP room.

Contracts

Make sure that you will be an independent contractor with no schedule. If you are an independent contractor, then they cannot give you a set schedule of when you have to be at work. You can go in whenever you want within certain club hours, and stay for a set amount of hours. If they want you to be a full employee, then they can give you a set schedule to work throughout the week or give you a minimum amount of days you have to work. I prefer to be an independent contractor.

Watch the managers!

Are they professional? Try to look closely at their interactions with the customers and their communication with the dancers. The managers are usually the floor security guys as well. They are the ones that should keep you safe, protect you and assist you as needed. If anything goes wrong inside the club, you will need the managers to help you. They should easily be able to kick out anyone that is being disrespectful or harmful towards the dancers. If a customer is refusing to pay you after a dance, the managers should be able to step in and make sure you get paid. Having managers who are very alert and available throughout your shift is the ideal situation. This makes all the difference in how I choose a club to work at. Besides yourself, the managers (security) are the best possible chance you have to stay safe at work. If they are sleazy, single ready to mingle managers then maybe that’s not the best club to work at.

I chose to stay at my home club because the management kept me safe time and time again. I was lap dancing for a man who decided it was a good idea to pull down his pants while I was facing away from him. He grabbed my hips and pushed me down on his exposed lap with my bare skin. I screamed, got up immediately, grabbed all the money he had in his wallet and went straight to a manager that I trusted. He listened to me, went straight to the customer, picked him up so the guy was no longer touching the floor, and literally threw him across the section he was sitting in. The manager continued to push him until the customer was completely out of the club. Sometimes it is a big situation like that where you need someone on your side, but there are also simple things that you’ll need their help with. The same manager took me off the stage line up and made sure I took any breaks I needed throughout my shift when I had an injury that was unrelated to work. My suggestion is to ask the dancers that work there how much they like their management team or if the managers are professional. But remember, in this industry, you can’t trust anyone, so make sure you are aware of your surroundings at all times.