The Casual Saturday Night

Your Saturday night shift — 

Welcome to your Saturday shift, where your heels hurt your feet, your knees are bruised up from the stage floor, and you’re in the locker room peeing in a not so clean stall with no door. You are tipsy and sitting on the toilet trying to find a roll of toilet paper on the floor that you can use. Dancers are screaming at each other, because someone stole the other one’s customer. The manager keeps yelling in the locker room, “I NEED GIRLS ON THE FLOOR NOW,” because we are all hiding and exhausted. You are now digging for that damn tampon with no string, so you can put in a new one. Take your time though, you still have to go back to that nasty VIP customer who keeps whispering weird shit in your ear. He’s also asking for you to go to the sketchy hotel across the street with him.

It’s 3:30am with only 30 minutes to go. Your ears are ringing from the loud music, you’ve been seeing disco lights for six hours, and you’ve changed your outfit twice because you’re so sweaty from dancing non stop. The club is filled with the same customers that have been there since the doors opened and a few new ones that showed up for the all you can eat breakfast buffet.

A dancer is getting kicked out for being too drunk, the house mom is doing yoga, and the DJ is running around trying to find the dancer that didn’t show up for her stage set. You have a guy passed out in the back, a few dancers sleeping on the bench in the locker room, and the random drunk female customer taking her top off and crawling onto the stage trying to live out her fantasy of being a stripper. The manager won’t let you leave because it’s too close to the end of the night, and you need to stay for that god awful staff meeting after the club closes. 

Welcome to stripping. This is your life now.

Your phone break in the locker room —

Look down at your phone and see what text messages you have. 

There’s a dancer asking if the club was good tonight and if their regular showed up without them. They are suffering through FOMO which means “fear of missing out.” Strip club money is addicting. It can get to a point where you constantly want to be at the club in case there’s a lot of money being spent. Dancers will text each other all the time asking how the club is and if they missed out on money opportunities. 

In another message, your best friends are talking about some drama in the group chat and want to know if you’re safe. Send a check in text so they know you’re safe and not in a ditch somewhere, but don’t engage in the drama. You are at work and you don’t want to be distracted or waste time.

There is a customer that you met tonight texting you trying to hire you for sex for only $200. This sometimes happens on crazy nights. You get too caught up in making money and adding new clients to your list, that your standards for regulars get a little too low. Quickly block this guy and delete the texts. He’s cheap and doesn’t understand boundaries. You are not a person to him, you’re an object.

Then, your significant other sent twelve texts and you see you have two missed calls. They’re upset that you haven’t come home yet and are complaining about you being a stripper. They suddenly changed their mind and want you to quit stripping although they aren’t paying any of your bills. As if you haven’t defended your career choice to your significant other six thousand times before, do it one more time… But not until the morning. Go ahead and ignore that text for now. They are in their feelings, so have the conversation in the morning.

Back to work —

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of your shift. It’s 4:00am and you’re sitting in the locker room with the rest of the dancers. You’re still topless, because you don’t know where your outfit went, you took off your shoes, and started to count your money. Pull all the random strands of hair out of your stack of dollars and unwrap the balls of money people decided to throw at you. You made $700 cash after tip out and put it all back into your money bag. Now, put on those baggy sweats, a shirt with no bra and throw your hair up in a bun. Don’t forget, you can’t leave until every girl is dressed, packed up and finished organizing their money. Might as well sit down and take a nap. It’ll be another thirty minutes to an hour. 

The longest night ever — 

It’s funny, you probably thought you were going to shower and go right to sleep. Your body feels like it got hit by a train, a headache is definitely on its way and your significant other is awake ready to have a wonderful yelling match about you stripping. Perfect timing.

If you’re a stripper and have an amazing relationship with the love of your life, great communication and it’s full of passion… I applaud you. You are winning and we are all inspired.

For the rest of us… Here’s my experience with dating and I hope it helps.

I dated a woman who was a coworker of mine at a different job. She knew I worked in the clubs, and I even had my awesome regulars come into that job as well to see me. It was well known what I did, who I was, and what club I worked at. We started dating and she would go through my phone while I was sleeping to see what I was texting my customers; and, who else I was texting. She eventually told me to block every regular on my phone and didn’t take the time to understand the hustle or learn about the industry. That should have been the first red flag but I was blind.

If the person you like doesn’t show any interest in learning about this part of you…LEAVE!

She didn’t want me stripping anymore, so I picked up more hours at my other job where she worked and I stopped dancing. I was trying to commit to the relationship and respect her wishes.

It’s okay to give it a try. I think I was just excited to have someone around that I did whatever I could to make the relationship work.

After that, I was NOT allowed to talk with her about stripping, strip clubs, or sex work. She was very out spoken about her being anti sex worker and anti stripper. She never wanted to hear anything from my past relating to the topic. She turned out to be a very close minded, judgmental person. I finally had enough with hearing how much she loved me without even knowing or understanding half of who I was. She loved the person I was in front of her, not who I was with my friends or in the clubs. 

I’ve said this before.. Stripping is not just a job that you can quit and leave. It’s usually a lifestyle and will always be a part of who you are.

You shouldn’t have to hide half of who you are to make the other person feel better. Try not to change yourself or feel ashamed of what you do. If someone is making you feel like that, then that’s not the right person for you.

RED Flags —

“I’ve dated a stripper before. I know how it is.” — Ditch them! Once someone says this to you, run away. They have a very close minded opinion about dating strippers and you’ll never be able to open them up. Strippers can’t ever be categorized together. We are all different, obviously.

“I’ve been to a strip club before, I know what the dancers do. You aren’t gonna date me and do that.” — Ughhh so annoying. This does not mean that every single dancer does whatever this person thinks they saw. Clubs have different rules, states have different laws they need to follow, and every dancer has different boundaries. This is a very ignorant statement and it might take some time to educate this person.

The #1 Rule — 

My advice — don’t take your partner to the club with you if they are already not liking it! That’s the first rule the managers will tell you. No boyfriends or girlfriends in the club, especially while you are working. Jealousy kicks in, although they should know everything you’re doing is fake. Some people won’t understand and it’s a strip club fight waiting to happen.

Now go to sleep, bitches. Get your beauty rest. You’re all hustlers and we love you!