Reminder: This is MY experience. Every dancer can work at the same club and work the same hour, but experience the shift a completely different way. Please use this as a guide and don’t expect your shift to go the exact same way if you’re an adult entertainer. This is a walk through of a typical shift for me at my home club, so let’s dive in.
House Fees
The house fees are between $20-$60 depending on the day and time you come into work. House fees are due once you arrive in the lobby and your shift begins. This means you start your shift in the negative.
Once my shift started, I walked right into the locker room, picked a spot on the benches by the mirror, and started getting ready.
Locker Room
We do our hair, makeup, try on a few outfits, bend over in the mirror to make sure our outfits cover all body parts, and some may pluck their eyebrows and bikini line if needed. We eat dinner, take pictures, ask the other dancers how the club is downstairs and if there are any customers. The answer to that question determines if we rush to get ready or take our time. The dancers also count and organize their money, complain about certain customers, talk to their significant others on the phone, or go live on Instagram.
The locker room is a secret little hideout space for dancers. The conversations are really random and weird, and it’s usually dirty with stuff everywhere. Once you’re ready to go out in the club, you put your stuff in your locker or find a corner to throw it in, grab your money bag, and go make your entrance in the club.
Regulars (we’ll dive more into these next week!)
Side note: first thing to do is to check in with the DJ so they know you’re ready and can be put on the rotation list for your stage set.
Now back to the typical shift… on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I already had a customer waiting for me. He was a sweet and short man who’s in an arranged marriage. I always made sure I didn’t wear any glitter those days so it wouldn’t get on him. He always told his wife that he was working late. He would buy me dinner both nights a week and would get an average of four dances each time. The club was slow those days, so it was nice because I was guaranteed $60-$80 and dinner at the beginning of my night. This took me out of the negative from the house fee and everything else I would make was profit. He never took me upstairs to VIP or spent any more than that, but he was consistent, so I never pushed for it.
Rando’s
If I didn’t have any regulars coming in after that, I would observe the entire club. I would see if there was a table that was spending money, getting dances, or heading up to the VIP rooms. If so, that’s where my attention was going. If not, I would start on the left side of the club and make my way around to the other side.
Table dances at this club are $20 (where you give a customer a lap dance at their table or the bar.) The dancers are topless during these dances, and they keep all the money they earn. Sometimes customers will try and get you to sit with them for an hour and not give you any money. Which leads to the next tip…..
Try to not waste your time! I sit with a customer for a maximum of two songs. I’ll ask them their name, where they’re from, and if they are celebrating anything that night; then, I ask if they want to have some fun and get some dances. This is my little script if I’m not trying to play around and waste my time. If I know that a table has money and they want to spend it on me, I’ll hangout, grab a drink (most of the time it’s a fake drink to help the waitresses out) and engage in their conversations.
Fake drink? … Yeah! Most clubs have fake drinks that you can order that have no alcohol in them. The customer will think you’re drinking alcohol, but you aren’t. If you order the drink at this certain club, they will pay the dancer three dollars each drink. On a night where I’m not making a decent amount of money, I’ll have the customer buy me these drinks all night long so I can make some extra income.
One on One’s
The best thing that could happen during your shift is to sell a skybox upstairs. This is what the nice VIP rooms are called at some clubs. Other names for them are the couch area or champagne rooms.
Where I worked, the skyboxes are between $75 and $300, and that goes straight to the club just for the room. If the customer wants a dancer with them, a separate payment of $300 for 30 minutes or $500 for an hour is owed directly to the dancer.
What actually happens in the VIP rooms? …… Every dancer will have a different answer to this question. This depends on the dancer, the club, the customer, and the vibe. I’ve had a wide variety of customers in my VIP rooms and have done and seen a lot of crazy things.
I got used to dancing for men by themselves. Some were nice, respectful and appreciative. Others tried to lick my nipples and put their clammy ass hands all over my back and my hair. Some customers had fetishes like putting their middle finger in my belly button the entire time I danced. One customer would pulse his finger in my belly button and other times keep it completely pressed in there. That was weird af, but the common foot fetish was the best. I would take my heels off and get paid $500 to let people massage my feet for an hour.
Fun fact – It’s all about the women. Saturday nights were couples night and I ended up learning how to dance for couples in the VIP room. That was probably the most fun I would have in the skyboxes. I LOVED dancing for couples. It even led me to find an amazing couple who are super close friends with me now, even outside the club. I know most dancers hate dancing for couples though, so it totally depends on their preference.
One crazy experience I had in the champagne room was when I was upstairs for a group party. It was five men, me, and another dancer. I happened to sit with this very kind, respectful customer and we talked about netflix movies and video games the entire time. The other dancer was a woman that was very high and drunk dancing for a wealthy man who wasn’t nice. Our sections of the room were blocked off from each other. I couldn’t see everything that was taking place on her side, so I went to check on her a few times. I saw the man move her underwear, bend her over, and pour cocaine in her butt… Yes in, not on. They also had sex in the room, but I only know this because her customer came over, showed my customer a video clip, then left.
I rushed over to find her and see if she was okay. Since she was under the influence, the customer’s actions were not consensual. She fell onto the floor from the couch and I helped her try to stand up. I also made sure to collect our money from the customers then continued to stay with her. I helped her into the locker room where the manager took over to make sure she got home safely and sobered up. Her customer only paid her $1,200 while the guy that just sat with me paid me well over that amount. That was the first time I saw what this industry could really do to you. I saw how this industry could break you down so bad where you never want to be sober anymore. The numbness takes over until you can’t feel a thing. I made it a rule to myself that I would not get drunk at work, which I didn’t do anyways. I wouldn’t care if I felt every little thing, I just knew I needed to always be in control of my situations. After that, I taught myself how to separate who I was outside the club from who I was inside. I found a way to make myself feel numb when bad things happened so I didn’t feel it as much. It worked.
Exit Safely
I worked at this particular club because of their safety rules at night. Once the club was closed, all the dancers entered the locker room while the managers and servers cleared out the club. Once all the customers left, we were able to leave the locker room with all of our belongings and wait until the parking lot was clear. Before leaving, we went to the cash cage and turned in our ones for higher bills and received any money we made while in the VIP rooms. There was also a mandatory meeting for the entire staff that stayed until close. We were updated on upcoming events, discussed any issues that took place during the night shift, and any other club promotions. During this time, we also would do our tip out to the house mom, DJ and any floor security. Once the parking lot was completely empty, the valet guys would pull all the dancers’ cars up to the front door one by one and turn the heaters on for us. They would let us know when it was our time to exit the club and we would all go home and knock tf out.
STRIPPED 