The first stripper I ever had a crush on was an ex porn star who turned me on to Tori Amos. She said, "If you like Kate Bush, you'll love Tori Amos."
She was a feature dance, which meant she was booked for a week I went to see her on three occasions, and on the third, she pulled me up on stage and had me soap her body with a luffa sponge and enough suds to accentuate but not hide every luscious curve I felt of that beautiful body.
The second dancer I ever had a crush on would dance to "I can't be with you", by The Cranberries. And I don't know if she was giving me a message, but never the less, I loved that song. It's very danceable. And so music, has always been an element of seduction for me.
She was paying her way through college, studying to be a vet. So few of them make it all the way through though: once they realize they can earn more than a doctor in a week.
For a while, at least. As they get older... they negotiate a little more... and a little more... what services they can provide in the confines of the champagne room.
A stripper once told me, "Once you accept that your body is worth a certain cash amount, you start to put a price on everything else you'll do. Talk to someone you don't really like. Kiss someone with bad breath. Go down on them. Agree to fuck them. Most guys can't get it up in the champagne room anyway. When occasionally they do, you at least have protection."
If you want to know the difference between a hooker and a stripper who "puts out", it's this: a stripper has sex in the same place, with a bouncer nearby. A hooker changes her locale, and if she's got a pimp, it's best he remain invisible, or the client might get spooked. A stripper has regulars, whom she will see again and again, over time. A hooker is always fucking someone new. A stripper to talk to over time and you get to know each other's life stories. A hooker is watching the clock, and will tell you when your time is up. A stripper is constantly reinforced over how sexy and beautiful she is. A hooker is treated like a vagina with a life support system.
But chiefly, and perhaps inexplicably, a stripper is more confident, even free spirited, than a hooker who may be working through some guilt, or even low self esteem.
Now, there's an argument, that strippers have self esteem issues too. Walk into any strip joint in the country, and you'll find that a fair amount of the boobs on display are silicone based. And sometimes the buttocks too. And whatever their issues, strippers aren't stupid. They know the "assets" for which they are being praised are transitory; and beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder.
They know the level of charm they have to bring in order to stand out from the crowd. They know they trade in fantasy, in an alcohol inebriated den of lust desire. They rarely date their customers; preferring instead the complicated relationships of deception they have with their friends, family, and lovers. How much self esteem can you really have, when you lie to everyone about what you really do? But they carry themselves with confidence, and they're aware of their seductive charms.
The last stripper... I fell in love with, is like no stripper I've ever known before. On the occasion when I found myself broke, but with enough cash to buy a $20 bottle of Victoria's Secret "Secret Passion" glitter body spray (with a 20% employee discount) and turned it over as a Christmas present, she not only paid for my drinks ($7 for a bucket of 5 beers), but gave me money, a handful of dollar bills, to tip the ladies with, as they came off the stage to collect their tips. THAT'S (at the very least) unusual and exceptional. Judged on its appropriate and relative terms, it is kind, generous, and even loving. A stripper that gives YOU money, is a rare creature indeed! So rare in fact, that I tried to set up a date with the lady in question, and meet her outside of work. Just to see what would happen.
But strippers are not the most reliable of beings, and they lead very complicated lives. On the day in question, her dauhter had her car, and she had to work overtime, and I wound up sitting in a restaurant, waiting for two hours, getting drunk to the point of resentment. And anyway... do I really want to have a relationship with a girl who sucks dick for a living?
But I still love her: at least, in the measured doses I allow myself to. We're still sort of "friends with benefits", in which commerce for "services" is engaged.
Understand, there are two kinds of strip joints. The big, fancy, gentleman's clubs that on a Friday night will employee, easily, 100-150 woman: model babe after model babe, strutting their stuff on stage.
And then there is the neighborhood bar. The neighborhood strip bar especially before 7pm. is where you get to have a few drinks, in a quiet corner by yourself, listening to good music, admiring the scenery, even occasionally writing, until your favorite gal walks off the stage to collect her tips, and you invite her for a round of drinks and some conversation. Shift change occurs between 7 and 9pm. Day shift girls, are by and large, not as pretty as their night shift counterparts, but some of the are; single moms who have no one to take care of their kids at night and find they can provide better for their children stripping than they can working retail. In Miami, we have a large immigrant population. A lot of people who discover for the first time, what a truly industrialized nation can offer for those who can afford it. But to earn it, they have to work much harder than they ever have before. And not being versatile with the English language, (although it IS Miami, where the majority of the population speaks Spanish. But still, the expectation, and demand, that you are fluent in English is still prevalent among most employers), hampers their ability to find good jobs, in what is already a service industry driven economy. And stripping is... well, to quote Glen Fry, "It's the lure of easy money. It's got a very strong appeal!"
I'm the son of a professional gambler. A very good poker player, who loved to play the ponies. He loved the big payouts. He loved how your fortune could change in an instant. He blew a lot of money at the race track. The opposite of a very cautious style he had developed at the poker tables.
So I understand the urge to "go all in." I understand having big dreams, and the feeling of being frustrated by fate. It is that ability to dream that for good or ill, has always defined my art. And it is the reason why I am drawn to the fringe.
The fringe is not the underbelly: that soft spot/weak spot from where some people lash out and others reside. The fringe is right on the border. The fringe is where you get to have your principals, and compromise them to a degree. From the underbelly, your in survival mode, which is when you finally toss them away. It's at the fringe, where we have sympathy for others hanging by the precipice. It's from the underbelly, where we may even take pleasure, or a kind of solace at least, as we pull them underneath. People on the fringe, have generous spirits. People from the underbelly, wallow in despair. There's something very honest about people on the fringe. People from the underbelly will lie to serve their own ends. People on the fringe can trip and fall over the precipice. But people in the underbelly, often have nowhere else to go.
I hang on the precipice on a daily basis. I'm broke, uneducated, and desperately alone. We face the chasm in our solitary despair, and we dream (or pray) of the inciting incident that will pull us away. And that's what we have in common. No matter how we express or negotiate those terms. We pull for the little guy; we root for the underdog. We buy our lotto tickets, and celebrate with hope renewed, when we win a free ticket.
Because anything is possible. Because anything can be won. Because dreams are meant to be followed; and promises are only waiting to be kept. Here, on the borders of the fringe, we see the remains of dreams broken and renewed; and gather the pieces, as we try to make something new.
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