Where the Dancing Never Stops – an Essay
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about how shaming sex workers makes you a bad feminist, which you can read here. It was an argument that women who shame other women for their line of work was not uplifting, but instead incredibly harmful. One thing that this article failed to review however, is that sometimes the cost of empowerment is high; and the labor of feeling empowered in the face of misogynistic men in a sexist system can be overwhelming. We support all types of sex workers and think every reason to do sex work is valid, and understand that it is an excruciating job, while at the same time this essay is a different perspective on some of the potential effects working in such a marginalized industry can leave on a woman.
The walls are strange. They slant so the roof skims above my head in the darkness and a far off light shows what I’m wearing: suspenders, a black bra, thigh-high stockings. In this sloped room, the shadows are dancers, or should I say strippers, and the shapes around them their customers. My dream soon finds me in the changing room surrounded by fluorescent lights and big mirrors, the reflection showing something unformed, and when I stare at the beast, time stops. I’m in a night terror. I have them regularly in different variations. Here’s another: I’m in a Victorian-style house rich with velvet curtains and rugs and I’m crawling between rooms because a man is chasing me. I don’t know who the man is or why, but I keep going. I scuffle between rooms until I can’t tell one from the other. I never know how the dream ends because I usually wake before it ends, stiff with anxiety. I don’t tell anyone these anxieties because empathy is limited to those from the sex industry. There’s a level of shame implicit to sex work which sticks like warm molasses and marks every aspect of life, no matter how forward-thinking people are. I’ve danced for most of my 20s and still have a bitter taste in my mouth whenever asked of my past.
Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
It’s not strange for a feminist to decry the sex industry, but it’s also not strange for feminist sex workers to tell of the empowerment they find from using their bodies as they wish. The dancers have agency when it comes to the right to choose, and a wield sexual mastery not otherwise seen in everyday life through pole dancing and expressing themselves sexually. You can be a feminist and a sex worker, but when considering the industry as a whole, the bitter taste only sours.
When writing this story, I contacted an old friend I’d stripped with to ask her perspective on the industry since she’d danced for almost a decade and was one of the biggest earners I knew. Quickly, she declined. She was doing the same thing I’d done since quitting, a voluntary witness protection program hiding her identity from society. Even for the most confident of dancers, anonymity is vital for self-preservation, both mentally and spiritually, something I understood well.
For a short while in 2012, I took it on myself to be proud of my job, mostly stripping, and told people about it honestly. Of the reactions I received, here are a few: one man asked what it was like to sleep on a mountain of cash for fucking men. Another sent a long, detailed email listing the reasons I was an embarrassment and disgusting, and some men asked for favors, either a boob flash or a 'private show' depending on their confidence and how well they knew me. Although the women's reactions were more supportive, there was still an air of concern for my career choice and that I was doing something wrong.
Sometime later, feeling discouraged, I looked up the nicer things people wrote on blogs and forums, finding perspectives from strippers. I read about sexual liberation and the choice to use the body and having a say over who could and couldn't use it. This was when the industry started to leave a mark, and something in those words resonated. I'd first started dancing for the rush of using my body and wanting to emulate the women who worked hard and saved for their future. They were confident, beautiful, interesting. But I was drained. I'd told myself I'd get used to the late hours, and the bruises on my knees, and the spiteful words, and the grabbing, and the managers trying to fuck me, and the security guards groping me, and the waitresses looking down on me, and the expectation of giving something for nothing, and the need to party, and the burning taste of vodka, and the 'extras' you needed to do to earn money because everyone else did them, and the dirty looks from women with their friends, and the men who got too attached, and the men who waited and followed me after my shift, and the constant bodily assessment, and the fingers that probed too close to my vagina, and the men who threw beer and coins on stage to make me feel cheap, and the way even after I showered the grime stuck to my skin and never quite washed out.
Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash
Looking back, the liberation is faint and unclear. Where is the liberation in an industry formed by a society that shames women? The job is sexually liberating but within a short spectrum of acceptability dictated by the men and club owners. I've never seen a hairy dancer. Nor have I seen larger dancers. I've seen curvy dancers and older dancers (I was told at 25 I'd soon be put to pasture), but on the whole, dancers are expected to look the same, dance the same and alternate the same outfits provided by the sex stores, usually lycra and seven-inch heels. On induction to some clubs, a pamphlet is given with the accepted attire and the places to get it.
In 2014, before I quit dancing, I started at a club known for its beautiful women and luxurious outfits. After my audition, I received a guide on the weekly outfit changes. Wednesday was lingerie, Monday bikinis and swimsuits, weekends for ballgowns, long spandex numbers provided by the club at a $150 fee. With fines for not dancing the correct way or wearing the correct outfits, we were the unified, undistinguishable embodiment of male desire.
The liberation fades further when I consider agency and the choice to dance, choosing who to strip for and when. Private dances work on a commission basis with a 70/30 cut between the dancer and the club, and when you're having a bad night and the money is slow, it's hard to say no to a half an hour private show paying a hundred dollars. I recall picking the bad eggs from the crowd when dancing on stage and groaning when they approached me afterward for a private show as I'd only earned fifteen dollars and couldn't say no. These were the men that grabbed too hard, probed too close, and requested things like 'spreading my lips apart' so they could get a better look. And for the right price, I indulged them because everyone else did. My threshold was someone else’s payday. But the point is if men didn’t feel the need to be sexually placated and need to indulge in a spectacle of feminine sexuality, these clubs, these requests wouldn’t exist. There’s also the drug use: customers constantly looking for a coke hook-up and the need to re-examine your limits each night if you want the big money.
Strippers aren’t always the victim in this narrative, but they’re not respected either, and the ramifications for working in the sex industry are far-reaching and insidious.
After I made a clean break from the industry, I experienced something beyond my usual anxiety, which kept me tense and unable to forget the past. At night I'd wake in a sweat with nightmares reliving a bad night dancing, or I wouldn’t dream at all, just wake frightened and lost. In the daytime, I’d have flashbacks. I’d stop and be lost in a private room or on the stage in a club while my chest squeezed around my heart, aching. The feeling was so strange and vague words can’t describe it, though it’s somewhat like being adrift in time and reliving the worst days, every day.
I approached a therapist, and after telling her my history and symptoms, she informed me I was experiencing PTSD. The words themselves felt strange on my tongue. I'd heard of soldiers and people with trauma experiencing PTSD but not for stripping and entertaining drunk men. The symptoms under the disorder include 're-experiencing trauma' through memory or flashbacks, 'physical and mental distress', 'avoidance of thoughts and feelings', and others like restlessness, anger, and sleep problems. I recognized and knew all the symptoms, but I couldn't connect my experience with the words. The place where the issue stuck was the fact I'd chosen to strip. There was no coercion or desperation. Usually, there's the perception workers of the sex industry are trapped with the need for money, but the money was only a bonus for me, and I never felt forced to maintain the lifestyle only that surrounding circumstances made it difficult to leave, like having a five-year gap on my resume and not adapting to the nine to five day. I wasn't a victim yet my body was telling me otherwise.
After leaving my therapist’s office, I thought about all the times I’d come home after work and cried, either from being groped in a private show or being shamed by men when they’d ask whether ‘my parents were proud of me’. I thought about this last incident in particular. On a Thursday or Friday night, I’d been dancing on stage and just finished my set, when two men called me over. Their table was on the path to the change room, so I walked over, holding my bra over my breasts. 'Your parents must be really proud of you,' one of the men said. The other laughed, and I didn't say anything. In isolation, this seems insignificant, though when taken in context with the physical harassment and countless other slurs, the abuse becomes more apparent. But an answer to this is why not leave? And an easier response is it didn't seem so bad at first. The first year, you mark it off as drunk men, not knowing what they're doing. You're sure he didn't mean to slap you that hard or touch your breasts that way. The second year, you expect the insults and the grabbing, but you're weathered to the fact. You make sure you're always watching for wandering fingers or unwanted slaps. The third year is when you start thinking about getting out, but it's harder than you think because the money's so easy and the work's so easy if you just put in the effort. Everyone else does, so why not you? The fourth year is when you question things in detail, like the motive of the man who verbally abused you in a private show for lying. He asked several times if I had kids and only got madder the more I said no, but that’s not the point. It’s not relevant whether I had children or not, the goal of this man, and most other men that I experienced who go to strip clubs is to enforce a level of power over women either physically or psychologically. This is where the trauma started for me.
For some, dancing is a way to control the narrative, to take back control of bodies and feminine power and sexuality. But if society weren't formed around a culture that shames and reduces women physically and psychologically, would these impulses need to be fulfilled in the first place? We can choose who we dance with and when, but we don't choose how men speak to us and how men treat us. It's them who choose, them who pay and they who decide to come back if we're good enough.
Lisa Easey is a recent university graduate completing a Bachelor of Creative Writing and is currently a freelance writer on Upwork. She also hosts a small book review podcast called Book Island that you can follow on Instagram @bookislandthepodcast.
