I'm Not Alone

If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I have been talking about the issue regarding all the extra nasty stuff that goes on in some (most, unfortunately) strip clubs. I am absolutely against it and I don't think that sex and strip clubs go hand in hand. I feel very strongly about this issue and have been upset many times and even felt sad at work because I have seen stuff that should not be going on at all in a strip club. After all, in majority of the clubs management makes you read and sign paperwork where the rules are being dictated. Rules that adhere to touching and sex. There is usually limited touching, in some clubs no touching at all is allowed and absolutely no sex. Strip clubs are not brothels. And to be fair, I have worked in clubs where management do a pretty good job to make sure that the rules are being followed for the most part. But I have also worked in clubs where the rules are only some words written on a piece of paper and basically everything goes. GROSS! I am a dancer, yes in strip clubs but I have not signed up for guys grabbing me wherever they think they should, I don't allow it ever and I don't think it should be allowed. Period. If I was ok with all the extra stuff, I would had worked as a high class courtesan in large cities across the world and raked in the money, trust me. But I don't want to do that. I am glad to see that I am not alone in feeling like this. And not the only one talking about it. There are other dancers that wonder what the hell is going on at the clubs they work at, they too are fed up with it and upset. I have been reading some online discussions with interest and I am going to share some of it here so you can see what other dancers are saying about this. I am withholding the names of the ladies.

"I've been dancing almost 10 years, and in the last year sh!t has gotten BAD, not only $ wise compared to 04-07 but in general, I cant do a $20 dance anymore without a customer thinking its OKAY to grope my tits, really...WTF??? this is getting ridiculous, I dont even feel like im a dancer anymore rather than a freaking babysitter. I should be able to DANCE for one song, without having to fight off every single guys hands that i dance for, COME ON, ladies have some balls and start telling the customers "HEY! if you want to touch lets take it to VIP" im guessing this has gotten so bad lately cause girls are so hard up they are allowing this MORE and more, so how bout we start enforcing a little more, so we can all be happier dancers!!!!"

"The club I'm at is just as bad with the demand of extras and lack of respect... plus half the customers come in to 'have a drink', no tipping, no VIP, and then leave (oh and half watch the music videos or a football game on the teles with their backs to the stage). I wonder sometimes if I am a dancer or a naked girl in a bar..."

"Lazy or desperate girls, scummy cheapass customers & scummy club mgmt. Can't tell you how many times I've slapped customers or kicked them in the face for grabbing me inappropriately or smacking my ass hard enough to leave bruises - then mgmt taking me into the office to lecture me for being a liability."

"This 'downward evolution' arguably started back in 2001 as both the result of the post 9/11 economic downturn plus increasing availability of adult internet content. It got much worse around 2008 as the result of major reductions in customer 'discretionary spending' budgets as well as an influx of new ''''dancers'''' whose primary objective was instant income ... sometimes by whatever means necessary. It was at this point that I personally decided to retire from live dancing, as the strip club 'show business' model clearly mutated into a 'sex business' model."

"Clubowners that find themselves increasingly hard pressed to turn a profit after paying higher property taxes, higher utility bills, higher insurance premiums etc. may make the situation even worse by tacitly or blatantly encouraging ''''dancers'''' to offer 'extras', from which the clubowner directly or indirectly earns a 'cut'. As was mentioned above, in a few instances this has now progressed to the point where some clubowners view clean dancers as a 'liability', since their failure to attract customer 'extras' money ( thus a 'cut' for the clubowner ) represents de-facto lost income for the clubowner versus replacing the clean dancer with another ''''dancer'''' who is willing to provide customers the 'bang' they are now expecting in exchange for their bucks."

"It sucks, but this is becoming the norm. I work in Detroit, which is extrasville. I just found a 'clean' club (guys still try to grope you and they get away with it if you don't stop them), but at every other Detroit club I've worked at, the majority of the girls did extras (I'm talking bj and sex). A lot of the clubs are basically brothels. These are the same clubs where touching didn't even used to be allowed.
When the economy went downhill, things changed. Girls started offering more for less. Some clubs started allowing it. Clubs lowered their hiring standards once they switched from paying the girls a wage to charging a house fee, because now the more girls they have the more money the club makes off them.
I don't know if the industry will ever recover. I don't want to diss my age group, but there ARE a lot of young, dumb strippers who just became a stripper for the hell of it and only want to get wasted and party with their stripper friends at work; they're not serious about the job. I feel like these days, unless you're at a super high end / competitive club, you'll see so many girls who are simply trashy and don't take their job seriously. It's not a 'job' to them, it's a social experience. Girls at mid tier clubs used to have to look great, well put together, hair done, nice outfit... now this is ONLY the case for top tier clubs. Dancer quality has gone down to the point that girls do extras and let guys grope them because they don't know how to be strippers. They don't know how to entertain; they don't know how to engage customers in conversation; they don't know how to keep a guy in VIP for hours. Until clubs raise their standards, this will be the norm. Trashy girls who let guys have their way because they don't know any better. So now guys think it is OK, and the cycle continues."

"In my city, you really can't do a legal dance or even a "clean" one and expect to make money nine nights out of ten. I have been dismissed by customers within 10 seconds of songs for not offering enough contact, and IMO, I begrudgingly offer medium-high contact dances. Groping and grinding is the baseline norm here, but now I have guys bitching if I don't immediately rip off my clothes and shove my crotch in their faces. I haven't been into work for two weeks because I flipped shit on someone who kissed me when I leaned in for his name and he then refused to tip me when I became angry--and my manager didn't give a fuck. I redirect hands, I ask them not to touch my nipples, I dance farther away, I get the manager--it all comes down to me walking away with $86 after working for 7 hours because other girls are fucking in plain view within fifteen feet from the main stage. It's insane. I have met fewer than five normal-minded girls in clubs. Most of them think I am ridiculous for not drinking, getting high, or fucking customers. They truly think that being a discount prostitute is the job description, and it's all good as long as the guy is buying them shots."

"While there have always been extras girls the difference is for the most part they did it outside the club because the club would fire them. Now even formerly clean clubs are now extras ridden and what used to be considered extras are now the norm. Hard to believe now but I got in trouble for kissing a regular on the cheek or even allowing a regular to briefly touch my legs. Also, yes the standards look wise have gone down. Back in my dancing days I worked at the midlevel clubs because I wasn't the Barbie type but even those clubs had standards. I recently saw the website of a club I once danced at and the dancers looked sleazy."

"IMHO today there is only one 'clean' strip club business model that can still be successful / profitable. That business model involves upscale clubs in big cities which only hire the 'best of the best' dancers ... which are able to attract upscale customers who fall into the 'top 5%' earnings tier. This caliber of customer can afford to spend $500-$1000 for basic 'entertainment' from low contact dancers during one trip to a strip club without feeling that they haven't gotten their 'money's worth'."

"I have spoken a few times where I saw this happen: owner gets greedy and either starts raising house or starts hiring less desirable dancers. Often times these less desirable dancers also happen to be hookers (and in one case were actual streetwalkers). Quality dancers leave and with them the quality customers. The club then becomes a skanky club full of hookers, pimps, drug dealers and low class men. Club then gets busted and often closes. Dancers that are used to making $200 a night doing air dances don't exactly like the idea of making $50 after doing extras (just throwing out random numbers). I resented when these clubs became unworkable because at one time they were nice clean clubs I brought friends to and wasn't ashamed to admit I danced there."

"I think if these dirty clubs start getting busted more often, and instead of just the dancer getting fire, the club gets a fined, it will end this quickly. Management can do A LOT to keep the club in control, by changing the club layout and enforcing the rules."

"Evolve with the times. Lots of guys spend money in strip clubs today, you just gotta be picky with you you dance for, I find. I refuse to dance/ talk to anyone who doesn't treat me with the respect I deserve, therefore I attract mostly respectful customers. Not all of them are perfect gentlemen, but all of them mind when I say no or I won't see them. Stripping needs a serious makeover. It needs to evolve. This is no longer the 80's/90's when girls where banking soooo hard every night. It needs an upgrade. The internet is the new thing of the day and I'm sorry, but it's 2014, if you are ashamed of your job/ worry about what others think of you working in this industry/ are afraid others might find out, this is not the arena for you. There need to be new standards for hiring in strip clubs all across the board, who is allowed in, webcams in clubs, schedules of dancers online, totally revamped websites etc. Nothing will ever beat meeting a woman face to face for some men and those men will spend bank. Stripping needs something to spice it up, I don't have all the answers, but it can't remain the way it is and continue to be successful.
My club recently put in ad in a local Mexican magazine, attracting more cheap ass rancheros with no money to spend and rampant expectation of extras/ sex/ titty licking/ haggling. It increased the clubs' drink sales, but did pretty much nothing for the dancers except piss us off and make our club look like a place where cheap asses come for a free show. I gave this guy a dance and asked for a tip after and he handed me a dollar... ONE DOLLAR. Lol... If you want people to come into the club and spend MONEY, go for QUALITY, not quantity. The club I work at has become a bikini bar where naked girls happen to do pole tricks and if you tip a dollar, they will grind on you and you can stick your finger in their ass. /sarcasm."

"Honestly, I think the party girl strippers don't help as well. They treat the job as a hobby and guys think they can get away with spending a few dollars. I know the club I'm at now has some extras, but according to the bouncers it just happens once in a while, and usually the girl is getting paid quite well for it. I honestly think the industry needs to become unionized. I think girls should actually have interviews instead of just stripping down during "auditions", which was basically my last one. I think we should get paid just like a server or bartender. I'm sick of seeing ugly bitches at high class joints and guys thinking they're entitled to more for their money. I think it needs to go back to what it was and be about entertainment and enjoying time with nice, hot girls instead of being whore houses. I also think that more dancers should learn pole work (working on it at the moment), have a kind of gimmick, instead of some dead faced looking girl half assed dancing on stage. Being paid employees would stop all that half-assedness."

"Things need to evolve or die. It's the nature of things. I think we're going to die. Between the advent of home poles, pole dancing classes for suburban soccer moms to "Unleash their inner stripper" eyeroll and trying to get pole dancing into the Olympics, it has gone mainstream and therefore not taboo anymore. Our job's glory days were when it was taboo and shocking."

"I am glad im not the only one noticing the HUGE decline is quality of dancers that are fucking up this business (aka 18-21 yr old skanks that dont treat it as A JOB) and the lack of guys actually realizing what they are getting themselves into when they walk into a strip club!!! I am repulsed every time i walk in there and see a table of 5-8 guys with NO GIRLS cause they dont spend a damn thing!!!!! wtf??? you think this is our community service??? not to mention most clubs show 0 appreciation for the dancers, and WITHOUT US, they wouldnt make shit!!! sorry for ranting i just hate that a once amazing business has turned into panhandling!!!"

"if there is any offsetting 'reality' from the 5-8 guys that aren't spending on dancers, from the clubowner's standpoint these guys are at least still paying cover charges and still generating club profits from drink sales. Without that revenue, the clubs would be seeking even more dollars out of the dancer's pockets and/or closing the club's doors due to bankruptcy thus reducing dancer earnings to zero."

'Welcome to the new US strip club paradigm ...
- a comparative handful of upscale large city clubs who hire a comparative handful of 'top shelf' dancers are able to appeal to 'top 10%' earning club customers who can actually still afford to spend a significant amount of money in a strip club, or
- 'dirty' clubs where girls offer enough 'extras' to pursuade 'working class' customers to spend their limited dollars for a happy ending tonight, and worry about how they'll buy groceries and/or pay their rent tomorrow, or
- neighborhood / small city 'clean' clubs that are being 'starved' into slow motion bankruptcy due to insufficient available 'non-essential' spending dollars from the club's customer base to 'pay the club's bills', and/or to provide the 'clean' dancers with enough income to make dancing at the club worthwhile in the future."

"And this is what has made me hate this business. I know everyone says that if you no longer enjoy dancing..get it out..But it isnt that easy for me, and prolly many others like me.
People do still come into the bars..They come in in groups..What pisses me off is that they sit around and dont feel obligated to tip the dancers..They dont care that we are there to pay bills and be able to survive...They just care about buying their alcohol and sightseeing for free.
It has become cool to hangout in stripclubs and be a part of the scene..Meanwhile shitting all over the dancers and making fun of us many nights that I go into work at least. And if u rnt the 'favorite' of the night u dont make shit...
I miss the days when people came in and appreciated us..Those were some enjoyable times..I miss dancing in that era."

"This was the major reason that I retired from live dancing 4 years ago...when it became crystal clear to me that the 'old' strip club paradigm... where dancers were considered to be 'performers' rather than 'sex workers', when 'top shelf' but clean dancers were treated with at least some element of respect by clubowners and club customers alike, and where 'average' club customers could still afford to spend a fair amount of money at a strip club without short-changing their mortgage payment and/or car payment and/or grocery and utility bills...was not going to come back into existence within the practical 'lifetime' of my dancing career !!!"


Yeah....there you go. There is much more about this subject, that was only a taste. But I need to go, I have other stuff to take care of today also besides the blog. I am glad that there are other dancers out there that feel like I do. There have been times at work where I have looked around the club in despair, wondering where all the "normal" and clean dancers are.