Curiousity almost broke the stripper's knees

I was waiting in a long hallway for the manager to get my paperwork ready when I noticed it - a dark, deserted room to my left.

The sign on it's door read: ONLY SIX GIRLS ALLOWED AT ONCE! NO EXCEPTIONS!!

At first I was just curious. I poked my head in and tried to get a look inside, but it was pitch black. I continued waiting, rocking back and forth on my heels.

After a minute, I looked in again. But still, my eyes still hadn't adjusted to the dark and I could see nothing. It was probably just an empty room. Unless...

Some of these fancy clubs, I'd heard, had leisure amenities for the ladies - things like spas and hot tubs. What if this was it?? What if I was standing right outside a free spa?

Now I needed to find out. I reached around and felt the wall for a light switch. Nothing. I checked the wall outside - also nothing.

Well, I'll just go ahead and walk in. I'm sure I'll be able to see once I'm in there.

"I'm sure I'll be able to see once I'm in there." Let these be words of warning to you all.

I took a step forward, into the darkness. And then next thing I knew, I was flying through the air as if launched - one stair, two stairs, three stairs...my knee scraped along one of them. Carpet. And then finally, blessed concrete.

I stayed there for a moment considering the facts. This might not be a spa, after all. I did not sense that blood had been spilled, but I did feel a sharp pain in my knee. No one had seen me - that silver lining was certain. And all I could hope for, as I quietly gathered myself together and then broke into a stiletto-based run to get away from the room, was that no one had heard, either.

Cause I landed pretty hard.

You sick fucks

Everyone's heard by now that Roberta Busby, a woman in Tarzana, CA was set on fire as she walked out of her workplace, Babes and Beer.

The suspects were caught today.

I had never heard of the place she worked until the day before it happened. I heard about it again at my new club, where she worked up until two weeks before the attack. My new colleagues apparently knew the perpetrators.

Newspapers and websites have, predictably, eaten this up because it gives them the opportunity to use the word "stripper" in a headline. Never mind that she is a woman, a mother. Maybe "Mother set on fire" wouldn't be quite so tantalizing?

But what pisses me off more is that this incident is leading to the most useless, jerk-off line of questioning about sex work. Not "What can we do to make it safer?" which might be a question that would actually lead to productive action, but "Is it inherently unsafe?" And then: scratch ass, do nothing, think about naked chicks, jerk off and go to bed.

When a disgruntled employee walks into an office building and shoots it up, where are the stories about whether or not being an office drone is dangerous? This didn't happen because she is a stripper. This happened because two sick fucks did something sick and fucked up. Stripping might be unsafe for other reasons, but linking sex work to the actions of two deranged individuals is (while convenient for selling papers) nothing more than shoddy, irresponsible journalism.

However. That doesn't mean that this isn't reason to re-examine safety around strip clubs - but again, I haven't read anything about that, anywhere. Why wasn't she walked to her car? Why wasn't there better security? Why are strip clubs located in areas that allow people to chill out with containers of gasoline, lying in wait? This attack should be a reason, like any other workplace violence, to re-examine what is being done to make the workplace safer.

If anyone actually gave a shit, and actually didn't want to see this happen again, maybe we could talk about real protection for sex workers.

But, alas, we won't. Will we? Fucking useless.

My prayers and thoughts are with her, and I hope yours are too. She is still in critical condition.

Why is it so hard to stop?

I found a new place. Driving home from it, I realized...

I am done.

And at the same time, I'm so, so not done. I'm on the schedule for tonight, because of course I had to give them my next shift, and so I'm back to where I've been so many times before: avoidance via reality TV. Hoping the clock never turns to 7 p.m. so I don't have to make a decision. Still in my pajamas, waiting for a phone call that asks me where I am, and hoping that I haven't made some horrible mistake that can't be undone - or that will mean I have to go back, audition again, and again decide that I'm over it.

Following the rejection of the spherical manager...

The second place was impossible. I drove up through the Valley, up, up and away. Past the boutique shops, then the dollar stores, and finally, the warehouses. The barbed wire fences. The utter desolation and depression.

I love how they push us as far out of the way as possible, shoving us out by the railroad tracks and the piles of dug up dirt. Like maybe if we're so removed from civilized society, away from the nice, normal housewives shopping for their 2.5 children, the seedy desires of suburban husbands will somehow evaporate. Out of sight, out of mind.

Sadly, I don't know of any man whose desires can be pushed far enough away from residential neighborhoods that they are simply forgotten. In fact, I wonder if our distance makes them want us more. Do our locations in the nastiest, most dangerous parts of town add to our appeal? If we were in the building next to little Johnny's elementary school, would we be too accessible? Maybe those angry citizen groups are doing us a favor!

But I didn't go in, anyway. It was too much. The parking lot was fenced in, with three rows of barbed wire on top of it. Across the street was an abandoned warehouse. And supposedly, this was one of the nicer places. I parked my car and sat there for a minute, my hand resting on the door handle. I should just go in, fuck it...

But for the first time in a while, I heeded the little tiny voice that sometimes tells me what to do, and that I almost always ignore. I'd never come back here at night. Something (something...) about this place is not good.

And I shut the door and drove away.

Addendum: I'd just like to add this. The more I thought about this place as I drove home, the more I wanted to give a big fat FUCK YOU to the people who have a hand in passing laws that prohibit strip clubs from being anywhere even remotely decent, or safe. You haven’t outlawed stripping, you haven’t made your husband’s desire (or your own desire, you repressed fuck) to see naked chicks go away, and you haven't - nor will you ever - rid the world of what your uptight, rigid morality deems unacceptable. All you've done is make my life much more dangerous than it needs to be. I hope you're happy about that.

"Tone it Up"

So I was going to take a little break, and then this really crazy thing happened - my rent was due! I know, it's so weird. So on, like, January 31st, I was like, oh fuck! I better find some way to pay for this shithole studio I spend about one day a month in (thanks to my bf for letting me crash at his place the other 29-30 days). Hmmm...what can I do....what kind of talents do I have that will allow me to make a whole bunch of money very quickly?

New club this time. Downtown. I went in coifed and made up at 2:00 p.m. No time to fuck around.

The bouncer directed me up a set of stairs to the dressing room. I made haste, waved cordially to the manager on my way back down the stairs, and greeted the DJ. First song topless, second song naked.

I've never actually danced fully naked, by the way. I've been a titties and bikini kind of gal thus far, thanks in no small part to the crippling laws surrounding Los Angeles strip clubs.

So, song one, tits out. Song two; my bottoms came off and all I felt was a cool breeze on my outer (and, briefly, inner) labia. Nothing different but the wind.

Anyway, I thought I did a nice little number. I worked in a few pole tricks (never putting my lady parts on the pole though, I don't know, that grosses me out), I moved slow, the guy sitting at the stage tipped me. Wonderful. I walked off the stage butt-ass, stepped into my bottoms on the stairs and checked in with the very chubby DJ.

"Go get dressed and then wait for the manager."

Alllll right.

"Go get dressed" is never something a stripper wants to be told.

For a second I tried talking him out of making me get dressed, but DJ's don't like to do the manager's dirty work, so finally I gave it up and did the Walk of Shame up to the dressing room. I tried to avoid eye contact with the skinny Milf who was up there getting ready, trying not to note in what ways she was hotter than me or in which particular areas I did not measure up to her.

Dressed, packed, walked back down.

Then, the manager showed. The man was a sphere. A perfect sphere. A sphere with a moustache, to be exact. He was short and round, like that chick from Willy Wonka who turns into a fucking blueberry. Had I knocked him over and kicked him in the side, his fat ass would have rolled out the door. And here's what this motherfucker tells me:

"Right now, I'm pretty full, so I probably won't be hiring for another few months (OUCH!!!AND YOU DON'T FUCKING HAVE TO LIE, YOU ASSHOLE). So, I had the chance to watch your first song from my office. You move well, but you need to...you know...tone it up."

Oh my fucking god.

Me: "Tone it...tone what up? My body??"

"Yeah. So you know, if you want to work on that (I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, I'M NOT WORKING ON SHIT SO THAT I MIGHT HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO COME BACK AND HOPE THAT YOU APPROVE OF THIS ASS AT A LATER DATE) and then come back in a few months, maybe we can see then."

First of all, are you fucking kidding me?? Come back in a few MONTHS? Asshole, my rent is due TOMORROW. If I'm going to be building up job skills over the course of several MONTHS, it is not going to be so that I can try to get hired at another strip club. Been there. Done and done. I can go get hired elsewhere, thankyouverymuch. And furthermore, you know, screw you and stuff, for being mean.

Walk of Shame, the sequel, out to the parking lot. At this point, my confidence is more than bruised. What am I going to do - go to the fat chick's club now? The place where they take the rejects? The home for ugly strippers?

Couldn't he have just told me they were full and sent me on my chubby way?

The good news is that I didn't let the Sphere's comment throw me into a complete and total downward spiral of self-hatred, which I would have at other points in my life. I think that speaks to my maturity, my sense of self. But it has prevented me from auditioning anywhere else for the past few days. All I can think of is what I might have looked like - a flabby sac of meat flipping around a pole? Teetering on heels? Quaking and jiggling with every step that I thought was seductive?

OK, maybe I'm in a little more of a spiral than I thought. But believe me - I'm still EATING, and that speaks to my sanity.

And yes, I will go audition elsewhere. Just maybe not today.