I'm going to Portland this weekend, which means I'll soon be spending some time sitting at the edge of a stage in a strip club, giving dollar bills to pretty naked women. When I'm in a strip club, I feel like other people feel when they visit their old high schools--you wouldn't go back, but there's a little nostalgia. Overall, being a stripper was my least favorite job in the sex industry. Smoky bars, aching feet, bitchy co-workers, trying to lap-dance dirty enough to make money, but not dirty enough to get in trouble with the manager--it sucked.
But once in a while, the music and the crowd and the energy would be just right. I'd walk out onto that stage and I'd dance a set that would have made Bob Fosse proud. And when I was done, everyone in the room would clap and howl and offer their money up to me like tribute to a queen.
I loved that feeling, and I visit that memory when I watch dancers. There are the athletic girls doing splits up the pole, and the languid girls who just undulate bonelessly around the stage. Girls who reveal their bodies slowly, and those who strip down to skin right away. I know those girls. I've been several of them.
I like seeing how the dancers respond to me. When I was dancing, I always liked it when a woman came into the club. But it made some of the other girls uncomfortable. Homophobia? Or just embarrassment at being watched by someone whose brain may not be clouded by lust? I don't know. I'm on the flip side now--some dancers won't come near me, even to pick up the bills folded like little tents next to my drink. Others come straight to the part of the stage where I'm sitting, smile and flirt with me, show me their sexiest moves, and thank me for the tips. They don't arouse me in an ooh-I-wanna-fuck-her way--I don't really go for high-femme girls--but I like gutsy women, and it takes guts to stand on a stage, naked, and offer a moment of connection to a stranger. Sometimes I wonder if they can tell I'm an alumna, but that's not really important. I just like watching us dance.
