Stripper Retirement, Definitely. (Part 2)

After thirteen years of professional thotting- across 3 continents, 4 countries,10 states, 17 cities, and 37 clubs- I have officially hung up my Pleasers. As in done, D U N, done. That’s right. This puta is retired. 

You might be thinking, “Well duhh Val, the title of your last blog was Stripper Retirement, Probably. (Part 1)” but believe it or not, I actually didn’t plan on retiring until the end of the Summer. 

Yes, I was beyond burnt out. To a crisp. So much so that my therapist and partner (on separate occasions) even expressed concern that my relationship to this work was slipping into dangerous territory. That the weariness I exuded from 8 days of work a month eclipsed any dollar amount I brought home. Stripping was increasingly taking more than it was giving me and I could feel it. As the months rolled by it was increasingly harder for me to shake off the internalized stress from a weekend of club work and slide back into my civilian life.

But in spite of my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimming, I still clung tightly to this abstract idea of exiting on my terms. Which in reality I did exit on my terms. It just didn't look or feel the way I thought it would. In retrospect, I’m not even sure what I thought it would look or feel like. I just know I had an iron tight grip on it.

I can safely say that "on my terms" didn’t look like a closet stacked with hundreds. And regrettably, it wasn’t a parade with an accompanying lifetime achievement award for “What Dat Ass Do.” While I believed I hadn’t felt bound in quite some time to some standard of enough that I witnessed other sex workers hold themselves to, I do admit I’ve caught myself every now and again looking at the houses my sex worker friends have bought and the respectable on paper civilian careers they now boast with an envious side eye. In my most insecure moments I have questioned, did I do it wrong? What have I got to show from all these years?

I’m not proud of it. But I’m also not above it. Even so. While I can recognize that petty comparison can occasionally creep up and get the best of me, I’m also confident that temporary envy is not enough to keep me engaged in self destructive behavior. 

I'm sure of this because throughout the entirety of my sex work career I have never once aspired to pursuing a college degree or buying a house. Hell there were many years I didn’t even want to own a couch. 

When I started stripping at 26 what I wanted was to move through the world untethered, to come and go as I pleased. And I did just that. 

I used the time and money stripping afforded me to live in a way women in my family never had the chance to. I travelled as far as I could and experienced as much as possible. I made intentional choices that kept me buoyant and pliable. I made reckless choices and accumulated a proper amount of regret. I’ve been fortunate enough to see the sunset from countless vantage points on this Earth, and privileged enough to rest comfortably on my soap box and pontificate about my life. 

I did all this based on how I wanted to live. Not according to someone’s idea of what I should be doing.

So why, after sucking so much juice out of life, did I still feel compelled to push myself beyond burnout and continue with a job that was now sucking the life out of me? I suppose I could explain myself with the same ol' go to's, but this time I don't feel it's enough to solely relate my behavior to starvation mentality. Or group think. Or even capitalism. What is that insatiable thing that shames me into believing that I didn’t do enough? That there’s still bread on the table and it ain’t over till I get every last crumb.

You know, logically if I break down the labor I regularly traded for money, it’s easy for me to understand why burn out is an inherent part of this job. The level of compartmentalization required to do this work is in and of itself a lot for any one person to process from a single night, let alone years on end. 

To give those of you who aren't personally familiar, here’s an idea of the baseline of things I am managing during any given dance:

There’s the close proximity to a complete stranger which of course entails various degrees of physical contact AND the sensory overload that comes from smelling and touching new people all the time. Then there’s the energetic exchange and absorption that comes from being that close to someone. *I don’t care how woo woo or not you consider yourself to be- I know for a fact that we human animals are constantly picking up what other people are putting out energetically… 

Then there’s the hyper vigilance of making sure while I’m performing eroticism and intimacy through intricate movement and dance, I am also safe. 

• Is the customer respecting my boundaries? 

• What happens if there is a sudden shift in their character (because sometimes they do bait and switch and who they become during a dance was not who they were on the floor) do I have an exit strategy? 

• Am I quick enough, strong enough, savvy enough to deescalate a possible dangerous scenario? Sure, security.. but can they get there faster than it takes a potential predator to try some bullshit? …

Meanwhile, as I’ve calculated all this, I’m moving with a fluid sensuality, grace, and effortlessness designed to seem natural and turn someone on. I’m also projecting a playful/slutty vibe that’s tailored to compliment the energy each customer is seeking but hasn’t necessarily specified…

As I’m keeping rhythm and showcasing my labia, I’m searching for that thing, the key to keeping a customer enraptured and spending. Is it deeper conversation? Is it a flying somersault? Is it light BDSM?  

I’m also counting songs to mark the time…

And I’m calculating the numbers in my head. 

• What is this customer’s spending potential?

• How much energy do I need to exert based on this perceived information? 

• How much in tips do I need to earn to cover the percentage that goes back to the club?

• When all is said and done is there enough money to make me feel good about the labor I’ve traded for it?

All this while operating anywhere from dead sober to proper buzzed on shots of tequila. And that’s just a dance. Keep in mind this isn’t considering watching and working the floor, dancing on stage, and intercepting colleagues energy/issues/drama. It’s also not taking into account my personal life and all I’m managing with myself and family on any given night. Capeesh? 

A while ago I received a comment on IG from a fellow veteran stripper who had hung up her heels after seventeen years of hustling. I remember at some point during our exchange she said something along the lines of feeling that although she had been out of the club for awhile, she still felt like she was processing the experience. 

In the few weeks since I’ve retired, I feel that so hard. And it’s only been one month. I remember thinking when her and I were messaging, what a wealth of experience and advocacy she was sitting on having had the perspective that only time and distance can shape. It’s way too soon for me to say something profound regarding the summation of my stripping career, if it ever comes. But if does, you’ll be the first to know.

BTS Photo: Valerie Stunning

Stripper Retirement, Probably. (Part 1)

Teetering on the kind of hysteria that only blaring trap music in an empty strip club can incite, I grabbed a blanket from VIP and huddled in a corner booth to do what I often do when it’s painfully slow. Contemplate my life. 

Sure it was a Sunday, but it was also America’s favorite drinking holiday. And we are located right outside of an army base. Why weren't there, at the very least, a line out the door of inebriated GI’s hell bent on making questionable decisions that they may or may not remember?  

Instead I had been sitting around for four hours in pricey lingerie and a well worn pair of 6 inch Pleaser stilettos. In this time I had given a single lap dance, read about the delicate science behind roasting a perfect chicken, and learned the do’s and don’ts of a resume. 

After exhausting my scroll tolerance, which is now a lot lower since I went on a complete social media hiatus back in January, I put my phone down. But because I’m still a masochist, a masochist fresh off of tax season, I began mentally sifting through my 2022 earnings (Las Vegas) in comparison to my 2023 earnings (Colorado Springs.) 

For the record I was well aware that when I decided to move the volume of patrons in the Springs couldn’t possibly touch what Vegas pulls. I was mentally prepared for a pay cut. Throughout 2023 this pay cut became more and more evident as I made my rounds working each of the three clubs in town. Apparently, here it is standard operating procedure to sit around for hours and wait for weekend warriors to trickle in. 

But god damn. 35% less! Thirty Five Percent. I worked five days more in 2023 than I had in 2022, averaged much longer shifts, and earned thirty five percent less. And don’t you dare say it’s the economy. It is not the economy when the average COS jiggle joint customer can easily afford a season pass to the Breckinridge slopes. No, lack of expendable income is not the issue here. 

I took a break from feeling sorry for myself long enough to check the floor to see if anyone had wandered in. Aside from the one customer who had been stationed in the same seat since before I arrived, and had turned every girl down because he was in search of a “deeper connection”, there were several other women in various states of undress strewn across chairs and couches. They too had kicked off their plastic stilettos, were scrolling their phones, and may have also been contemplating their lives. 

I made like that Homer Simpson gif and receded back into my corner. 

Annoyed that I had traded in a cozy night with boo and our dog to sit in an empty strip club and not get paid, I began to curse the health consciousness and outdoor fanaticism Colorado breeds. To hell with these people and their Patagucci wearing, asleep by 10pm, no cheap thrills having asses. It was obvious that the cult of fourteeners*, jeepers**, and snow sport enthusiasts were in a cabal to decimate my livelihood. 

I paused to consider the likelihood of a secret cabal of polite Type A people dripped in expensive eco friendly athleisure out to eradicate adult entertainment. But just as the image of a passive aggressive mob jousting walking sticks at the strip club began to crystalize, I stumbled upon a sneaking suspicion. 

Damn it. I really wanted to keep hating on the culture of my temporary home, but once I catch a whiff of my own bullshit it's too late. I was already on to the fact that behind my internal temper tantrum there lay a touch of hypocrisy and a greater truth that had nothing to do with me earning less, or the club being slow, or Type A people living their best lives. Well, maybe a little, but not entirely. 

The thing is, I too relish in the majesty of the Front Range and capitalize on all the outdoors-ing it offers (so long as it doesn’t require me to be cold and wet.) I too am in bed by 10pm most nights I’m not working. I too dedicate significantly more time to my mental and physical health practices than over-consuming substances and making questionable decisions that I may or may not ever remember.  

Truthfully at this point in my life, it might be fair to say that stripping is taking more than it is giving me and I no longer find this work worthwhile. 

So what next? 

*Fourteeners: People who pride themselves on hiking and sometimes running up mountains that sit at 14,000 feet altitude or higher. They can often be identified by the bumper stickers on their utility vehicles and the tee shirts they wear exclaiming as much.

**Jeepers: People who live and breathe owning and driving Jeeps. They can be identified by their mud caked Jeeps and how fast they whip out their phones to showcase the off road jeeping they've recently conquered.

Photo: Valerie Stunning (Last month in Vegas for my 39th birthday.. living my best Type A life)

The Best Little Tittie Bar In Vegas

Originally published Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 11:09 AM on Slutist.com

There are two kinds of strip clubs in this world: gentlemen's clubs and tittie bars.

Gentlemen's clubs are sleek-looking nightclubs filled with fist pumping, white collar Todds who do more key bumps than tipping. They are more interested in how many people see them spending money than actually enjoying what they've spent it on. These clubs are systematically designed to make you feel like the big spender you probably aren't. It's genius.

Tittie bars are the often-overlooked little sisters of Gentlemen's Clubs. Characterized by their retro neon lighting, tacky decor and poor ventilation, they exude a greasy disco vibe. They are typically patronized by the blue collar Johns of the world who are happy to spend their hard earned cash in exchange for a compassionate ear and a simultaneous dry hump. The drinks are strong and the classic slutty rock jams blare.

From the permeating stench of gardenia and cheap cigars, to the hanging red lamps above its leather couches, The Girls of Glitter Gulch was a bona fide tittie bar - the last of its kind in Las Vegas. It breaks the hearts of many Johns and Destinys to report that, after 23 years of lukewarm tequila shots and enthusiastic motorboats, The Glitter is closing.

Like anyone who’s waltzed down Fremont Street, I strutted by The Girls of Glitter Gulch many times before ever venturing inside.

I was three years into my chosen career as a stripper, having gotten my start while travelling Australia. After twirling my way through strip clubs and burlesque houses across the globe, I eventually came to settle in stripper Mecca - Las Vegas. I took a job at an infamous corporate club: it was big, fancy, and I hustled there for a year before I could finally admit to myself that I was miserable.

Vegas' corporate strip club politics drained me. To get ahead of the hundreds of women hustling the floors each night, you had to be prepared to pay off the right people for an introduction to the big spenders. This put the maximum earning potential in the hands of the men who worked at the club, not the women. This bureaucratic, power-tripping bullshit made me resent a job that I love and am really fucking good at. I was left to decide between adapting to their crooked system or going rogue and risking a significant pay cut.

Anyone who’s been stripping for more than a week is not naive. I welcome a pro quo scenario, so long as it's fair. But there is a difference between "I help you, and you help me" and extortion. The nerve of these washed up former UFC and NFL athletes turned VIP Hosts had them literally forming a human blockade, denying me access to areas of the club where the big spenders were sat. This was because I refused to tip them more than 20%, which is the universal standard of gratuity when it comes to exceptional service in most other industries.

So I went rogue.

Defeated, I considered retiring, but the stripper moon blessed me with a sprinkle of good industry gossip that would change everything.

It was a perfect spring night (a fleeting occurrence in Las Vegas) when I got to talking about this very topic with Mercedes, a Puerto Rican seductress whose fiery attitude paired with her mega-watt smile worked wonders on a NASCAR crowd.

Over a frozen margarita (or seven) I lamented about the pickle I was in: I had finally made it to Vegas - LAS FUCKING VEGAS, STRIPPER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD - and couldn't find a club where I could hustle without hating everything I'd grown to love over the years. Mercedes listened, sipped the last of her cocktail, and stared me dead in the eyes and said, "I know it looks like a dump, but come to The Girls of Glitter Gulch. Trust me."

I trusted her because she was a kindred spirit who loved her job and strongly believed in strippers being protected and respected in the workplace. She was right. Two and a half years later, I'm still here. I will be until June 26th, the day it finally shutters its doors.

I've always preferred a no frills tittie bar to the pomp and circumstance of a gentleman's club. Due to The Glitter’s sordid reputation as a hard hustle dive where strippers go to retire, I found myself constantly defending it. Any time someone asked why I chose to work there and not at one of the seemingly more polished corporate clubs, my response was always the same: "Because I love it here."

Talk to any veteran Vegas stripper and she'll wax poetically about the "good ol' days" or a time I like to refer to as the Golden Age of Grinding.

Hitting its stride around the mid 1990's, the enthusiasm for girls, girls, girls was so extraordinary that it wasn't uncommon for dancers to have to turn away clients simply because there weren't enough hours in a shift to accommodate them all.

Dancers were championed in their home clubs as the rock stars they were because the trickle down effect had everyone working at the club swimming in loot. This iconic era of rump shaking began to fizzle around 2008, when the economic shit hit the fan and many devoted rain makers had to forgo their strip club budgets in order to make ends meet. May they rest in peace.

Generous clients became less abundant, and club owners and management began heavily nickel and diming strippers in order to keep their pockets full. As much as 40% of what dancers earn from lap dances and VIP rooms became a mandatory tip out to the club, in addition to the requisite nightly stage fees*.

They also started enforcing rules and codes of conduct that essentially negated our status as independent contractors** and closely mimicked that of an employee, albeit without the legal protection of minimum wage, overtime and health care.

Defying these rules and refusing to fork over a hefty portion of your earnings resulted (and still does in most strip clubs) in additional fines which you're obligated to pay should you want to continue working there.

Not at Glitter.

True to their old school roots, we were never told how to run our businesses. Any gratuities we offered back to the house were not extorted, they were earned. Management had our best interests at heart, and they were quick to bounce a patron should he or she ever cross a line.

We were given respect and in return, they had our loyalty. Some dancers have called the place home for over a decade.

The Girls of Glitter Gulch was renown for its open door policy, so long as you wanted to hustle and were able bodied, then you could strap on your stilettos and march on in. In our industry, having a reliable home club where you can come and go as you please is as valuable as the potential money you'll earn there.

They were also nontraditional in their hiring process, which contributed to the harsh way outsiders judged it. You didn't have to represent a conventional beauty ideal to work there. In a world of increasingly impossible body standards for women, I appreciated this. I know I'm tall and thin (and very blonde) but diversity is important. When strip clubs hire different kinds of women, they fight dangerous conventions that bombard our society with notions of what it is to be sexy. It also makes the experience more dynamic for customers who come to clubs to indulge in their personal fantasies, not a narrow corporate idea of what they should be turned on by.

People love dismissing women past a certain age as sexual beings. It's painfully evident in our culture, and quite ironic, that our desirability is completely devalued once we actually begin to come into our sexual prime. You are then twice as demonized if you should, heaven forbid, choose to work in the sex industry past said expiration date.For every crude joke (and believe me, I've heard them all) made at the expense of the older babes at Glitter, there were twice as many men enthusiastically emptying their accounts to spend time with them.

A veteran stripper is the hardest hustler I've ever met. She is profoundly adept at her job and teaches me new things every night.

It was because of Serene, a mesmerizing Haitian vet who's cascading curls could rival Beyoncé’s, that I began effectively asserting myself when talking money.

On a slow summer night, just after I began at The Glitter, she offered some unsolicited -- but forever appreciated -- pearls of wisdom. In her silky patois she cooed: "Behbeh, you young girls don't get it. These people coming here because they have money and you are the reason they wanna spend it. Stop suggesting nicely and start demanding what you're worth. If you value yourself, they will value you. Don't waste your time."

It was a fundamental life lesson, taught to me by a woman well into her forties who had the hustle down to such science that she could sometimes earn thousands a night without ever removing her bra. Respect. In fact, the only people in this business who don't respect the veteran dancers are strippers on their first ever shift.

You quickly realize that if you want to earn the big bucks- these industrious babes who've spent years honing their skills are something fierce to aspire to.There is so much to be learned from their finesse and keen understanding of negotiation and sales, just ask any savvy business man who's wisely invested in her time.

Anna, a raven haired Bulgarian vixen, told me that because of the lack of opportunity (read: ageist discriminatory vetting process) for more experienced entertainers in our industry- especially in Las Vegas- a lot of her older friends at The Glitter will be forced to retire.

I am outraged at the idea that a woman, still viable in her industry, is forced into retirement simply because someone else has a problem with the idea of her commodifying herself past the deemed "appropriate" age. I worry what will happen to these women when all the Glitter Gulches close their doors.

As for me, I will continue to comb the valley for remaining tittie bars with hints of the Golden Age of Grinding left to it, if they exist. Though I already know nothing can ever replace the magic of Fremont's greatest salacious treasure. It's closing marks the end of an era, not just in Downtown but in all of Las Vegas.

Through and through, The Girls of Glitter Gulch was one of a kind, and above all I loved it because it felt like home. I knew every single person working there, and I made friends with some fascinating and kind-hearted people. We treated each other with respect, and ultimately had each other’s backs. Traipsing around The Glitter was some of the most fun I’d ever had working in this industry, and I'm heartbroken to see it go.

Valerie Stunning, Girls of Glitter Gulch Las Vegas. Photo Credit: Sophia Phan

*A stage fee also known as a "house fee" is a fluctuating amount of money, determined by the projected busyness of the shift to be worked that is to be paid every day you choose to work it. It is likened to "renting" the club to conduct your business. You receive no base pay or benefits from the club because you aren't an employee, and therefore everything you earn, in theory, is yours to keep.

** Strip Clubs have been classifying dancers as independent contractors since before I was born. What this allows clubs to do is legally avoid paying state and federal tax on said "contractor". It's also a neat loophole that excuses the club from paying dancers minimum wage, overtime, or providing health care or 401k.