Lap Dancing jobs - are they really proper employment?

"So what do you do for your day job?"
One of the most common questions I get asked - or a variation thereof;

"What are you going to do in the future? After this? When you can't do this anymore?"
"What field do you work in when you are not here?"
"You can't be a stripper forever you know..."

I'm sorry. You ask me that question, night after night, and quite frankly, I find it insulting.  Lap dancing is proper employment.  I have to pull an 8 hour shift - its a full 9 to 5, give or take the clocking in times, and I am potentially rostered to work every day of the week in many of the big London clubs - thats right, Monday thru to Sunday, ad infinitum.  What other industries have the crazy working hours that a stripper can? Frontline frickin services matey.... Lap dancing venues are often open seven days a week, from lunchtime till the early hours of the morning - Secrets is open till an eyeball bursting 6am! If you are ever desperate for naked women in the middle of the night, they have venues all over goddamn town (see here)

I got asked this today, when I was soooo tired - and thats just from doing a weeks work at my strip club. I've worked every night apart from Sunday and the Strike action yesterday till the sun came up.  yeah, so some nights I've been home by 4am, but mostly I have shut my eyes as the birds were crowing and the traffic was building.
I've been reading that book that was published recently by Danns and Sandrine, and its full of women complaining that their hard work and long hours are not recognised as valid by society, even though 'raunch culture' is encouraged (you can see a really interesting review of it here by a feminist book reviewer)

Well look everybody.  Whilst I might say to your face that I am studying/caring/being a PA - that being an exotic dancer is just a stepping stone to new and bigger things -  I'm telling you now, I'm in this for the long term.  As I've said a million times boefore, I like my job, I like lapdancing, I think it is a great profession if you approach it with the right attitude.  No job is perfect, and neither are there perfect customers. Besides, with the economy as it is, the job market sluggish, and youth and graduate un-employment rising, why not capitalise on my strong sales skills and good looks by providing a second to none service?

Besides, if my contemporaries can't get a job, wouldn't it be greedy of me to take up two or more???

No fighting on the floor

It's been a slow couple of weeks in London's lapdancing industry what with Halloween and Guy Fawkes both taking up the weekends, not to mention half term. Whose gonna end their night at a stripclub if you are carting your family around dressed as a Vampire?
Stripclubs aren't as catty as you might expect - it's a glorified sales floor after all, but when the going gets tough, us girls get our claws out...

Firstly, it's the powerful mixture of money, booze, and large groups of competing women. Most dancers will have a drink or two to warm them up at the beginning of their shift at say, 8 or 9 o'clock, and if there are no customers to talk to they will keep on slowly sipping away. Stripclubs are renowned for big double measures too...

Throw desperation into the mix and shit gets nasty. It's simple striponomics - every night a large number of girls do badly, but they still need to pay their rent, so they come in the next night too. Thus the amount of strippers increases till you get twice the normal amount on even the usually quiet Sunday,Monday,Tuesday shifts. That's a lot of girls hungry to hustle whoever walks through the door....

So I've seen a fair number of bitch fights recently. The scramble when a guy comes in has escalated into an Olympic sprint across the club, pushing & shoving is a daily occurrence, and everyone's complaining to the management that so-and-so is a greedy slapper.

It's quite amusing really. If you like the idea of half-naked wrestling girls, visit your local stripclub and wave a few pound notes into the air. You big tease!

5am breakfast

I just ate a massive jacket potato with chilli AND baked beans AND cheese. At practically 5am, in a sleazy soho diner full of bitchy gay boys.  It was not the most pleasant or salubrious of dining experiences, I'm teeling you.  Am now sitting in bed, farting copiusly, and had to run to the toilet when the taxi finally dropped me back home.

And did I make a decent amount of dosh tonight? Enough, say, to pay my rent or organise my birthday party, which is meant to be this friday?

No.  Of coursenot.  But it seems that all my friends did, and do, frequently, so it begs the question?  Whats wrong with me?

I know the answer.  I'm not pushy enough, and I take my eye off the ball, and trust too much that the customers will tip me adequately, rather than badgering them till they do shove the money into my palm, and then badgering them again, minutes later, till they do it again.

Better get those sales tips and self help books out again....!

Voodoo at the strip club

Now I know everyone is broke right now, and trying to pull a fast one, but theres ways top get your own way and then theres ones that are right out of the ball park.  The excuses that don't quite wash, the protestations that go on and on till they wear you down, even idle threats - I have dealt with all of them, and I am usually fireproof. 

But this one guy tonight right, well, when I had danced awhile for him - say 5 songs, and he'd only paid for one, he came up with a whole new get out clause-
he said he practised black magic and he was goin to call Satan and his devils onto me..... bad nasty luck n sh*t for life....
To be honest, I didn't laugh it off - I couldn't.  I have a good luck corner at home, carry a jade crystal in my bag, and fully believe, even practise, cosmic oredering.  And karma?  Suscribed from birth.
So when this drunkard looked deep into my eyes and said all this, being totally unreasonable, I was scared.  Real scared.  I thought he was going to hit me to be honest, and all of a sudden he seemed all-powerful, and a big man, whilst I was a small girl, half naked, in a room.

Of course, the b*stard got away with his crappy behaviour, I am now back at home fuming, and my handbag is half empty, and the rent still needs paying next week.

who needs voodoo threats when my luck is running this badly already???

Dazed and confused

I will always argue that my work persona - the girlwho is the stage name rather than the girlwho hides behind it - does not affect me oin a day to day reality basis.
But then I have a normal night, and the gulf that lies between me and us seems to be a bit more flexible.
I hang out with a load of old pals, for the past decade or so, and yet I feel detached.  My behaviour, my clothing, my points of conversationalreference just seem off .
F***knows why, darlings....
 
The worst thing that this job has ever given me is a serial short term memory.
It's either because;


a)  I want to forget (sorry to convention, but thats just not true.  I long to recall in HD detail)

b) The drinking, the drugs, the partying, the grooving and the talking, endlessly night after night, have rewired my barin till its all one big blur)

So anyway, why do I feel left out?
Even amongst old friends, a shadow of my former self?

I will tell you why,    it's beause, earnings wise, I am simply a shadow.

I am on the breadline compared to the financial freedom I enjoyed until even just a few months ago.

At first I was afraid, I thought it was me - I was too fat, too blonde, my hair was all wrong, my outfits were like a sack of potatoes.

But tonight I shared my problems, and an old, bestest friend of mine pointed out -

"It's not just you - the whole world's in trouble"

So next time you hear me complaining, just remind me of today's post!!

An epic 5 day week for zilch...

Ok, so I know what your thinking - 5 days of work a week? Absolutely no sweat.

Yeah well, I've had 'normal' jobs, and 5 days did drag on, but in a totally different way. 

normal - you wake up early, but get home at a decent enough time to visit the pub and watch decent telly.
stripping - you crawl fuzzy headed outa bed at midday, the pubs full of losers and all you mates are at work till....

n -  ...till  its 6pm, when your pals begin arriving home
s - ....just as your leaving for work

n - you get paid a wage, day in, day out
s - you pay the club - anything from £40 to £100 a shift !!!

n - its 9am to 5pm
s - its 8pm to 5am

So ok, I am feeling kinda sorry for myself, which is why I haven't written much recently.  This has been the hardest month, money wise, that I have had in a 7 year career of stripping.  The money has just been painfully crap, I feel fat, the hairdresser did a really dodgy job on my highlights, and the sun only started to come out yesterday.

There haven't even been any sexy customers coming in.  I usually can find one or two semi-attractive, or friendly guys, just so that I can have a little flirt and get my game on before running round the rest of the club, letting those pheromones waft over all the other customers.  So yes, lapdancers do find some of you guys cute!! 

(still no sex in the champagne room though, sorry)

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  I know this sounds WRONG, seeing as I am a twentysomething lady who has taken her clothes off in front of half the local male population, but recently the local university students seem to be coming in, and well, they can be really hot.  Really, really hot, and they get so excited by us girls, and you can just sense that young teenage lust oozing out of their every pore, especially for their favourite dancers.....

So, Jacob, that young aussie in a checked shirt who had cheekbones to die for, and a nice little packed out chest on him - I rubbed up against it for the whole of our (longer than usual) dance..... come back sometime and say hello to me   .......

There is SUCH a point in being a lapdancer!

As I sit here, enjoying a glass of Terraza de los Andes Reserva Malbec 2007, and nibbling on multicoloured Japanese rice crackers, looking around at my nice flat and the bulging bag of cash that I earnt on Friday night, I can hold my hand up and say;

"It's fucking great being a lapdancer!"

See, it's been tough since this credit crunch happened, and I've had to go into work more often than usual, and rein back some of my spending habits. Not as bad as some, but it's still never a nice feeling, is it?

Thats why last Friday was AWESOME - the club was so packed it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I didn't get one sitdown - I got TWO !! And the dances didn't stop coming....

In fact it was so busy, I felt like I had done a million aerobic workouts, so gorged on Macaroni Cheese when I got home at 5am, and then met some pals at lunchtime on Saturday for a big greasy-spoon fryup. Imagine, health freak readers, slodgy carbs and tons of grease at the worst possible time of the day times two!!!

I'm going to pray that this trend of a busy, happy lapdancing club continues so that I can pay off all these debts I've accumulated..... Fingers crossed xxx