On the days I don’t forget what I’m doing here, I ask my question of the night. Tonights is banal, nonetheless de rigueur. Why did you become a stripper?

Talia is the first to answer. Talia, who joined us just a few days ago, is both the newest and the oldest stripper at the club, claiming to be thirty-seven. She recently bought a brand new truck, but found that she can’t make the payments. To me, an obsessive-compulsive credit report slave, this is what it means to truly live on the edge. Talia had jumped into the groove too quickly for this to be her first time, so I press her on it.
“I left home at sixteen and I had boyfriends here and there to help out. I went to go get a waitressing job, but ended up dancing because there was so much more money in it. I liked having nice things and taking trips. I like being able to afford the things that I want and not have to depend on anyone else to get them for me. I couldn’t afford nice clothes or my apartment working at the mall or flipping hamburgers.”

Not entirely myth, a few dancers are, in fact, college students. The higher rate of return per hour is the biggest draw for all us whether we want to buy nice things, pay for college, or make enough money to support, but still have time for, our children.

I needed money and a girlfriend of mine was already doing it and got me started.

They took the job for the money, and anesthetized their initial misgivings with alcohol. Each of the dancers had only minor variations on this theme. Most had grown up poor or working class, alone with their mothers if they were lucky; if unlucky, their mother’s boyfriends. If present, their relationships with biological fathers were not necessarily positive, but I did hear an exception that surprised me. One long time dancer maintains a good relationship with her father, who also happens to be a full professor at an Ivy League institution. However, I did not get the impression that this had always been the case.

Jess Belle, wagging her finger in the air, responds to the discussion of family histories,
“Nothing will piss me off faster than some shithead talking pitiful to me and asking me if I do this because I’m looking for my daddy. Trust me; I would never look for my daddy.” Someone interjects, “If anything, I did this to get the hell away from my daddy!”

I am surprised at the extreme consensus on this point, and I’m not sure I believe it. I look around for Katrina or Miranda, wondering if they might have a more positive spin to share, but they are nowhere to be found. I ask, “Are you trying to tell me that every single woman here had a terrible childhood?”

Emotion makes this pronouncement,
“I’m telling you that every single stripper in this place has either been sexually abused, physically abused, or comes from a broken home. Now which one are you?” Me? Wait a minute. I ask the questions around here. And besides, I’m not really a stripper anyway. As I am about to vehemently deny that any of these categories apply to me, I hesitate. She prods me,
“You’ve thought of one, haven’t you?”

Just when I think I am about to be done in by my own question of the day, it’s my turn on stage. I set my sights on the big, gleaming poles at the four corners of the stage. It’s not that I don’t make use of them, I do. I swing and spin around and lean on them to regain balance or to slow things down. And when I can put the thought of how long it must have been since someone last cleaned and disinfected them completely out of my mind, I’ll even go so far as to squeeze my breasts together around the pole in a move that is both trashy and undignified, but profitable. Still, when it comes to poles, I’m a piker. The pole, it mocks me.

Tonight I follow Jess Belle, who knows her way around these big, shiny, imitation brass poles as well as anyone else here. She is young, foul-mouthed, drug-abusing, trailer-trash. Jess Belle is tall and not quite plump, but curvy in the hips. The phrase that comes to mind is “corn-fed.”
She once told me a story about how she spent ten days in a D.C. jail cell for illegal possession of Xanax. Some loose pills at the bottom of my purse make us fast friends. She is ignorant and cheap, but also very funny and nice. Jess Belle is the epitome of another observation that Emotion once mentioned to me,
“The thing about strippers is that they may be bitches, or they may be slutty and dumb, but they are the first to admit it. They pretty much like themselves for who they are and what they don’t like about themselves, they don’t take out on you.” Emotion should seriously consider writing a Chicken Soup for the Stripper.

When I get on the stage I complain to Jess Belle that I can’t hop up and spin around on the poles. I want to, but I don’t know how, and I’m afraid that I’ll fall and crack my head open. Acknowledging this distinct possibility, she shows me what to do in steps.
“First, grab a spot on the pole up high and rub your hands on it up and down to create friction. It’ll keep your hands from slipping around. Then plant your hands on that spot, and in one motion, jump as you pull yourself up with your arms, then wrap your legs around the pole and lock your knees. You hold on kind of like a monkey. Once your knees are locked, lean all the way back. Then you can let yourself slide back down until your shoulders meet the stage.” She demonstrates it for me as the few customers nearby look on.

“Okay, I’m going to try it.” I rub my palms on the pole until it isn’t slippery anymore. I’m trying to concentrate, but I can’t get over that the word “friction” somehow made it into her limited vocabulary. The grab on and pull myself up part is a success, but I fail to adequately commit to locking my knees. That’s okay; I can feel what wasn’t quite right on the last try and try again. Strictly for the amusement of those watching who are privy to my mildly phobic concern about germs, I pantomime the spray cleaning and wipe down of the pole before I make my next attempt.

This time I feel my own strength and know approximately where the backs of my knees will need to land if I am to be safely perched on this pole. It’s all one swift motion and my knees are locked, more like clenched, but either way I feel secure enough to release my hands and slowly lean back. I’m upside down, excitedly calling for Jess Belle, who has since shifted her attention to a paying customer, to look at me.

“Look, look, I did it! Look, you taught me how to do it!” I see some of my computer geek groupies and wave at them from upside down, and then let myself slide down. I do it a few more times during my set, but it’s very tiring and the sliding down part stings the backs of my knees. Playing around on the poles looks great, and I’m proud of building my confidence and overcoming my fear. I can cross the poles off my to-do list, but I think it hurts more than it’s really worth.

When my set is over, I go wash my hands and freshen up. I sit down with a group of men at a table not far from the stage. Three of them work in the same company, and one is a friend of theirs in from out of town. It seems that most of our customers are from out of town. I solicit a drink from the youngest of them and settle in to try and get one of them to invest in a table dance.

They want to know all about me. Yes, I’m married. I almost never lie about that and it does cost me tips. I’ve tried, but I’m such a terrible liar that when they ask and I say no, I’m told I get a weird look on my face and giggle involuntarily. Yes, I’m new. No, I don’t date customers.

They’re not interested in buying a table dance, but I don’t feel like moving on to another table either, so I relax and we chat for a while. I tell them about having recently purchased my first new car, a sensible Honda Accord, and we all agree it is a solid purchase. A new dancer comes on stage, and they stop talking for a minute or so to watch her. One of them turns to the younger man closest to me and remarks that the dancer’s legs are too big. He doesn’t think she is very attractive. I’m annoyed by his comment, but I keep it light and reply that I think she is curvy and sexy, and does he need his glasses or what?

“She is fat, her ankles are thick, and her boobs are kind of small compared to the rest of her. You are much prettier than her.” He was picking her apart as though she was nothing but the sum total of her body parts. Tits + ass + legs + hair + face = stripper.

“Do you think that I’m flattered by that?” I’m upset and insulted. I want to say, And you can say this because you are the finest specimen of manhood on the planet? or You couldn’t be with a girl like her even in your wildest dreams. I want to call him a pencil dick and throw a drink in his face for having the nerve to judge her that way. I’m not defensive about her personally – I don’t even know her. This pompous prick is judging whoever is on that stage, including me, and probably every other woman he comes into contact with regardless of her occupation. When all was said and done, I ended up not saying anything.

I pick up my drink and leave briskly as though I had just seen someone standing on the other side of the room with whom I urgently wished to speak. I find Pandora in the smoking room and regale her with the ever so slightly embellished tale of my recent conquest of the magnificent, menacing pole.