
he night I stripped for
the first time was the night I became an activist.
It was December 2003,
and my friends and I – having just finished final exams
– decided to celebrate by going to a gay male strip club
in Washington, DC. I had no idea what to expect; I had
never been to a strip club before – gay or straight.
Approaching the club, I
could here the thumping bass of the music from inside,
and my heart was quickening in time with the rhythm as
we made our way toward the front door. We paid a small
cover charge and made our way onto the main floor. The
source of the music came from floor-to-ceiling speakers
on either side of an enclosed DJ booth. In front of us,
patrons sat around a bar while nude dancers performed
acrobatic routines from brass poles hanging from the
ceiling. The small main stage – backed by sparkling gold
streamers – lined the far right wall as a muscular
policeman slowly removed his clothing while a
bachelorette party watched in awed anticipation. Along
every wall, television monitors broadcast images of men
in every possible sexual position.
My friends and I stood
in shock, attempting to process the sensory overload
that had hit us only moments earlier. I hadn’t even been
inside for five minutes before the club manager – a
smallish man in his mid-thirties – walked up to me and
asked, “How would you like to dance tonight?” His
question caught me off guard. Me?! Dance? Naked?! Only a
few months had passed since I lost my virginity, so
being suddenly propositioned to enter the sex industry,
however briefly, was a complete shock. I glanced at my
friends, giggled, and coyly declined his invitation. He
didn’t persevere, but told me to let him know if I
changed my mind.
After much deliberation
with friends, and after the manager and several dancers
again attempted to sway me, I decided to suck it up and
get on stage. With gold streamers twinkling behind me, I
stripped down to nothing but my socks (where of course
attentive customers would place their generous tips).
Like any virgin, my
first time was less than spectacular. I don’t imagine it
was very erotic as I had no idea what I was doing – and
I wasn’t particularly confident with my body. Not to
mention the fact that my two best friends were staring
up at me from the floor below! Additionally, whenever I
noticed one of the club’s patrons watching me with any
interest, I would quickly look away, embarrassed by
their attention. But I finished my thirty minute shift,
collected my tips (a paltry $20), and left the club
quickly, afraid to hear any comments from the other
dancers, patrons, or the manager. But as I exited the
club, my emotions took over and I felt a rush of
exhilaration at having broken out of my comfort zone and
tried something new. I was hooked!
While I had a great time
on stage that night, my overprotective boyfriend and a
stint overseas to study abroad hindered my return for
almost a year. When I was given an assignment in class
to develop an ethnography around a designated “queer
space” in DC, I immediately thought that the strip club
would be the perfect place to conduct my research – and
possibly make my return to the stage. So I made a deal
with the manager who had months before coaxed me onto
stage: I would strip periodically at the club, in
exchange for interviews with club patrons, employees,
and other dancers. And, of course, I got to keep all of
the money I made. It was a perfect arrangement!
For the next four
months, I became something of a regular there, talking
to dozens of customers and strippers while writing
furiously about the ins and outs of participating in
this particular queer space: How the dancers interacted
with the customers; how the customers interacted with
each other; and how the venue itself facilitated social
networking among everyone in that space. Concurrently, I
felt empowered by dancing. Never before had I been
admired for my body – and the ability to make money
simply by using what nature gave me was liberating and
my self confidence grew immensely.
As time went on and my
research project came to a close, I felt that it was
time for me to make a decision: to continue stripping or
end my career as I ended my project. Although my friends
and my partner all knew that I was doing field work at a
strip club, I had decided not to tell anyone about the
full extent of my involvement. I felt gratified by the
work, but the negative reaction from my boyfriend after
my first foray into the world of stripping frightened me
into keeping my silence. And that fear ultimately made
my decision for me: I would stop dancing. At the time, I
couldn’t bring myself to face my friends’ reactions, and
although it saddened me, I felt such a relief upon
quitting. No longer would I be lying about where I was
going or what I was doing there. In fact, I found myself
so afraid of what people would think of me that I didn’t
tell anyone about my work until several years later.
Even though my tenure in
the sex industry was relatively brief, my work at the
club impacted me immediately. I began reading anything I
could get my hands on regarding strippers, sex workers,
and others working in the sex industry. Unfortunately,
most of what I read was disheartening. Little to no
testimonials or research have been done on or by male
sex workers, and many of the texts I read addressing
female sex workers were derogatory and unenlightened.
Sex-negative feminists, such as Catharine MacKinnon and
Andrea Dworkin, viewed sex work – even gay male sex work
– as being exploitative of women and inherently evil;
and many of their colleagues seemed to subscribe to that
particular point of view. From what I found, it seemed
that academia had agreed that the sex industry was put
in place for one purpose: to exploit and degrade its
workers... (continue reading)
4 COMMENTS ON THIS ESSAY:
Listening to your essay on podcast, I found myself identifying with a lot of your experience; I'm not actually a stripper myself, but I work in webcam porn, which is basically its cyberspace equivalent.
In fact, what I can most identify with is the fact that I'm a little bit scared and ashamed to acknowledge that I've worked in this for reasons I can only partially explain and cannot at all justify.
I keep thinking, "What if my parents knew?" "What if he knew? What if she knew?" I keep worrying about what people would think of me. I'm much more closeted about working (even so mildly) in the sex industry than I am about being bi.
On some level, I want to take the direction you did, run with it, maybe even get into actual stripping (it pays much better; that "paltry" $20 for a half hour is more typically three hours at what I do, because 95% of the time is unpaid); it seems like it'd be fun, exciting, lucrative, and indeed liberating and a step towards justice.
But on the other hand, I worry: in the world in which we live at present, these sorts of things can very easily bite oneself in the ass. If I gather a reputation as a sex worker, will people not want to hire me for jobs? Will universities turn me down for research positions? I wish I could confidently say it is not so, but I can't.
Hey Eric!
I just wanted to make a comment, which you might consider odd from a Christian queer guy. I'm an anti-assimilationist. I don't think queer sexualities need to fit the straight boxes that mainstream GLBT orgs seem to push at the moment.
On the other hand, I feel a little nervous about an interpretation of "sexual freedom" (not necessarily your own) that contributes to dehumanization because we excuse it under the rubric of "mutual consent." I would hope that queer people could develop communal "ethics" that allow queer spaces to be really queer AND that recognizes people as whole entities rather than primarily as dis-associated body parts.
Is there are way to reconcile these concerns, in your opinion?
Rob, my dear, you always know how to ask the most poignant questions! I think you're pointing to a tension that exists between "radical sex" philosophies (exemplified by the work of Pat Califia) and feminist philosophies (with many strains arguing different, but somewhat contrary points).
This is a tension I have trouble navigating. On the one hand, I do not want to criticize gay male communities because of the kind of sex they have, because I do not wish to contribute to a deeply anti-sex, normative literature that demands gay men to zip it up and get hitched (see Larry Kramer's most recent diatribe, "The Tragedy of Today's Gays"). On the other hand, I'm tempted to make some distinction between something I'd like to call "healthy sex," and something that I'd like to say, well, isn't quite so healthy.
For instance, while I believe that hooking up can be quite healthy and productive for people in many circumstances, I think it can become quite monotonous and dehumanizing at some point. When pleasure stops being a person's goal or concern, I start to think that something suspicious is going on. I think this is just what's happening in some online / urban gay male sex cultures. That troubles me.
Phew. Too many words from me. I hope Eric chimes in.
A million years later I respond. :)
I want to focus on Rob's comments (and Trevor's by extension) about the ideas of good sex vs. bad sex and dehumanization.
I always find it interesting that sex, when it is consensual but involves a transaction between a sex worker and a client, is often viewed as demoralizing or degrading. Although I never exchanged actual sex for money, only getting money for showing my body, I did find it empowering. It was only outside perceptions of the industry/industries (ie my boyfriend, friends, etc) that resulted in my feeling bad about my then-career. The perception that working in the sex industry can never be valid or empowering, as Trevor hints about, is really the socialization that there is such a thing about good sex vs bad sex. However, before I get into muddy waters, I will say that consent(ie rape) is they keyword. As long as both or all parties are ready, willing, and able, then who is to argue or judge?
As far as dehumanizing, one of my favorite stories to compare my time as a stripper to is my many years working as a waiter. Working as a server, I was told not to make eye contact with certain customers, to never contradict customers, and my very livelihood was dependent on doing so. So is working in a restaurant for tips and being treated as lower class in comparison to the guests more noble simply because I'm not fucking the customers after their meal? I don't believe so. In fact, I felt I had more power as an employee of a strip club than I ever had working as a waiter.
Now, sex work isn't for everybody. I've wrestled for years with the idea of actually pursuing a career in prostitution and, admittedly, have reached the conclusion that it might not be the right fit for me. Just like I would never make a good nuclear engineer or painter. But because sex is involved in prostitution, for me, isn't the dealbreaker.
That was lot, so I will stop now, but hopefully that answered some questions. Thanks to everyone's comments!