There is no sex in here…
Can’t believe I’ve never ever posted this little gem that I wrote after stripping for six months. It was for a college photo project (it ended up not working because too much text) but I’ve kept these words ever since.
After twenty years as a sex worker, I can congratulate my younger self on my quick wisdom. These rules are solid and have never been disproven.
This might become an ongoing series as I remember stuff or things occur to me.
— I regret forgetting my walking shoes one recent weekend and having to wear heels more than I’d planned, which caused a foot sprain a couple days later when I returned home.
— I regret giving my real phone number to a Las Vegas strip club for the one or two nights I worked there in 2008. I still have that phone and have gotten text messages from them a few times a week. Since 2008. I wish they would purge their “inactive hires” list. Advice to anyone: treat strip club managers like customers and never give out your real phone number. Granted, I’m obviously a little slow on the uptake. Never had a problem with Dallas clubs texting me for the rest of my natural life, but that was years before. Damn technology.
— I regret not having professional photos taken of me during my stripper years. I had a great body. I also regret not being an international touring stripper. Would have been a blast.
— I regret letting relationships get in the way of my work; the reason I didn’t become an international touring stripper, the reason for my retirement in 2004, and the reason behind other decisions. Something I’ve learned in my 30s is to just say no to being squished by a relationship.
— I often regret being so damn “different” as an escort but that one’s not a full-on regret as there have been a lot of good things about being me. However, when I give advice to others, I always give it on the assumption that they do not want to make the mistakes I have.
— I regret my terrible, trashy taste in fiction. I read a lot of the classics when I was younger and I regret not reading more because my current love of brainless, non-redeeming fiction is embarrassing. (My taste in non-fiction is upright and not embarrassing.)
— I regret buying cute handsoaps with little plastic animals embedded in the soap because as the soap washes away, the hard pointy edges of the animals emerge and every washing is painful but it takes a lot of washing to be able to pull the animals out of the soap.
— I regret not speaking my mind when I really should.
— I regret my lack of time-management skills and how it’s gotten worse, not better, over the years.
— I don’t regret not getting a boob job.
This was my favorite song from the show when I saw it in Paris in 2004. Maybe it’s the beautiful Roxy Tornado, her energy and personality; or it’s just the song itself. I imagine this song has special relevance for some of the boys and girls in the audience.
Roxy is the performer I saw, though the set and her costume were a little different. Her body reminds me of mine when I was stripping, though I was never so on-beat or flexible. That special stripper-posture I talk about? This is it.
These two random memories surfaced a few weeks ago. They both happened while I was stripping, though the incidents were separated by a year or more. What I find interesting in revisiting the memories is my angry non-reaction. I think it’s a woman-thing more than a stripper-thing. You be the judge.
(Thanks to Amber Rhea for sending me the link this morning.)
This is a special $5 tax to be added to the door charge for all Texas strip clubs. The money collected will go to rape victims and shelters. This is the brain-child of Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.
Though the tax seems based on liquor sales, strip clubs are not the only places in Texas that sell drinks. I’ve heard rumors there are many liquor-only stores in Texas, as well as places that serve both food and booze (some of these places bill themselves as “family” restaurants). And I swear I’ve seen bottles of alcoholic beverages in grocery stores and other mundane retail outlets.
A $5 door fee isn’t much (unless you’re a guy who can’t even bother to spend $100 in an upscale club). But why strip clubs?
As we all know — strip clubs cause rape. Men don’t cause rape, naked women do. And damnit, women should have to pay for it, one way or another. You would think strippers would be thrilled to help out their sister-victims; because according to studies all sex workers are rape victims anyway. Why wouldn’t a stripper want to be forced by the state to support a program for members of her sex? It’s a great way of scrubbing that scarlet letter off her chest!
My solution? Raise the tax to several thousand per person and collect it from all men arrested for rape — even if they blame strip clubs for inspiring the violence.