The 4 Types of People Who Run Strip Clubs

I sat in silence at the kitchen table in awe of my purple and blue legs as the night’s tequila shots slowly wore off. My knees and shins were bruised in ways that two weeks earlier I hadn’t known were possible. It was nearly five am and although my mind was wired, my physical will to do anything besides sit and ache was non existent. So I counted my stack of waxy Australian dollars for the fourth time, quietly reveling in my success.

It was the first time I had held that amount of cash from a single night’s work. Seriously. It was more than my week’s pay for the restaurant management job on Wall Street (yes, that Wall Street) that I had slogged 60+ hour weeks at for nearly four and half years. My brain launched in to the adrenaline fueled gymnastics that only comes from earning your first fat bag at the club. I felt euphoric, invincible even. I had finally arrived. I told myself I could definitely do this work until I turned 30. And as I began climbing the mountain of imaginary stacks I’d have after stripping for 4 more years a massive cockroach soared through the second story window of my shared Bondi apartment, jolting me back to reality. I didn’t even know roaches could fly.

This February will mark thirteen years since that night in Sydney, Australia. Thirteen years of not only navigating a stigmatized job that society tells you isn’t real, but approaching it like a career in an industry that seems hellbent on chewing us up and spitting us out. If you’ve been here with me for a while, you’ve likely gleaned that doing this work has never been easy and is often paradoxical. Within this neon microcosm I have fostered some of my most wholehearted, healing, and inspiring connections to other Strippers/SWers. I have also suffered and eventually learned a lot of tough lessons. Many of which have been a direct result of how strip clubs are run and by whom.

Recently, as part of an outlining exercise for my book, I tallied the cities, states, countries, continents, and number of clubs I’ve worked since publicly donning my first lycra g-string. As I recalled each of the 37 tittie bars, Gentleman's Clubs, and everything in between, memories of how those establishments were run and by whom came flooding in. Low and behold what I realized is a majority of strip clubs are owned and/or managed by the same 4 personalities. Science!

The following is a breakdown of each of these personalities, in no particular order. Think of it like a personality test. But saltier. The data I’ve used to compile these archetypes stems from a single source. Me. And while my experience is vast* it does not account for every single club in existence and therefore every strip club owner/manager. I am positive there are at least 5 kinds of personalities who run these places. It is my hope that fellow Strippers will feel called to contribute to this study.

*Cities: 17, States: 10, Countries: 4, Continents: 3, Clubs: 37

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

Characteristics:

“Been in the nightclub and/or strip club industry forever”

All. The. Hubris.

Knows everyone

Knows everything

Formulaic in mgmt style

Cliche in values

Volatile

Uses vocabulary incorrectly

Micro Manages

Money Talks

Predatory

Type of Club: Corporate

EMO

Characteristics:

“We’re all family here”

Emotionally manipulative

Quick to cut you off if you don’t stroke their ego

More concerned with being liked than making sure the club is ran well

Sneaky

Complacent

Not so secretly hoping to date you

Mansplains regularly how to do your job

Micro Manages

Money Talks

Predatory

Type of Club: Mom & Pop

MIDWEST CHILL (not necessarily from the Midwest but reps that legendary chill)

Characteristics:

“Bruhhh”

Rarely engages with Strippers

Slow movers

Not particularly vigilant

A lot of try in particular ways

Encouraging

Respectful

Exhibits ownership in attitude but is hands off in day to day

Money Talks

Too chill to be a predator

Type of Club: Corporate or Mom & Pop

ORGANIZED CRIME (i.e. Bikers, Politicians, Mafia, Drug Dealers)

Characteristics:

“Don’t see nothin, won’t be nothin”

Zero small talk

No frills

Intimidating

Entitled, cheap “friends” that seem to live at the club

Eager to beat ass

Preoccupied

Subtle

Hands off mgmt style until something goes very wrong

Money Talks

Not predatory but their “friends” sure as shit are

Type of Club: Corporate or Mom & Pop

Noticeably absent from this pie chart is former Strippers. And while I’ve heard of the occasional former Stripper turned manager, or even rarer club owner, from other workers- I've yet to work with her. Sadly the tales I have heard from fellow Strippers who have worked with her are often accounts of how terrible the experience was. What is it about crossing over in to upper management that causes former Strippers to one up their male counterparts in harsh and/or exploitative work practices? I don’t know. But I cling to a dream that this is the exception and not the rule. That the more Strippers turn management and club owners, the better clubs will eventually be ran, and our work environments will continue to improve. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll find myself being among them ;)

Next Post: I am taking the month of November off to be with family, and will

be back December 6. In the mean time, if you enjoy these posts,

Please share with someone you think will value them.

Xxo, Val

Photo taken by: Bettina May, Valerie Stunning

Gone Feral

There should be a Nobel Prize for well executed Irish exits. While they seem to really grate on some people’s nerves I’m positive they’re just misunderstood and when done right can be a true public service. Personally, I’m a big fan. Particularly during large social gatherings like networking events and soirees of most kinds. If it’s a public congregation in celebration of people’s pets, scholastic achievements, work promotions, and unborn babies you best believe I will eventually Houdini my way out of there.

The way I see it is by rsvp’ing I have agreed to show up and participate. I’m not a savage. When I arrive I greet the host and thank them for having me. I’ll schmooze with other guests or not, savor a snack, down a drink or three, and shake my ass on the dance floor (off duty and event permitting of course). My end of the agreement is to show up. It is not to spend forty minutes tracking people down to offer a half assed farewell. No one cares.

Frankly I feel it’s rude. It’s rude to interrupt people who are still in the throes of merriment, or at least selfie-ing like they are to announce my departure. “I wanted to let you know I’m taking off…getting out of here…headed home.” To what? Feed Fluffy or eat the over-ripe banana that’s been dying on my kitchen counter, binge scroll memes, and then clonk out. Hard pass. I can send the host and whatever folks I connected with a thoughtful message the following day that will get across any appreciation I had of our interaction. And mind you, be home forty minutes ago scarfing down my over-ripe banana whilst propped up against the kitchen counter trying to sober up.

Just so we’re clear this has nothing to do with social anxiety. Never heard of it. Nor have I ever been accused of being shy. What I am is done. And once I’m done it’s time to go. Like right now.

I consider it a sign of respect. One that I also apply to my relationships. Well, sort of. Sort of because I’m still not a savage and when it comes to the meaningful connections I’ve shared with people, projects, and places an actual Irish exit feels too much like ghosting, and I’m a grown ass woman. Instead when it comes to my interpersonal relationships and commitments, I have always made the decision to change course very carefully and in discussion with any parties involved. Not an Irish Exit. Although executed with the same shrewdness once I’ve concluded I’m done.

It’s a life skill I’ve been honing for over twenty years. And when I say “honing” I mean moving my life in the wrong direction regardless of any and all red flags present. From my late teens through my early thirties I exhibited a self sabotaging arrogance that propelled me to ignore my intuition in favor of simply willing reality to exist on my terms. Or so I tried. I stuck around in relationships I had long outgrown or should have never been in to begin with because of hints of potential. I pushed projects I didn’t connect with up rigorous mountains because I’ve always had the smarts and confidence to do something well, but I haven’t always had the humility to ask myself should I be doing it and why?

Too many times I overstayed far past my desire to be somewhere. As I inch closer to forty I can see that I did so because I was convinced that the time, energy, and resources I’d invested were only worthwhile if the outcome lived up to whatever cockamamie expectation I had attached to it. Even if it were painfully obvious that changing course would have been for the best.

I learned recently that this is known in corporate speak as the sunk cost fallacy. When you google the term, it reads: the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial. Bingo.

The last time my gut signaled that it was time to go was a couple of years back. The calling was to get off of social media so I could relearn how to be present in my own life. On my own terms. In my post A Tough Pill To Swallow I share about the time I was feeling disconnected from the life I was living. Chasing a dream that I no longer felt connected to in a city that no longer inspired me. I explain how taking a break from the internet helped me reorient myself which eventually led to me making new life choices. After all, nothing changes if nothing changes.

When I recall that experience in 2021 of disconnecting from social media and intentionally re-engaging in my analog life, I see it was the planting of a seed to return to the wild. In a way I’m like a house cat that was let outside after years of domestication. Although I’ve returned to the place that seems communal and comforting, I keep going back outside, each time for a bit longer.

The longer I’m out here, the more I remember what it’s like to create for the sake of creating. Not with relevance in mind, but because it’s what lives inside of me and what needs to come out. I recall the exhilaration of pursuing something because I want to and not because some corporation’s algorithm brainwashed me in to thinking I have to. I remember what it’s like to engage fellow humans in a sensing caring way. To navigate these interactions in real time and based on my genuine interest, or lack thereof. Instead of every interaction being reduced to a calculation of engagement by an entity that curates what I’m exposed to based on how much advertising potential I’m worth.

What I realize is that I’ve gone feral and I’m done.

Next Post: 10/18

Photo: Barranquilla, Colombia. Feb 2023

Overhyping The Hustle, Are We Caught Up? (Final)

By year three of grinding on dudes for dollars I had had enough shitty experiences with civilians (both customers and not) that had taught me the world was especially unkind and unfair to Strippers/SWers. I was exhausted by the micro and macro aggressions that had become my new normal, and by the dehumanizing questions and comments people often hurled at me. All I wanted was to be seen as a person who worked a job (albeit an interesting job) and provided for herself.

It was around this time I reverted to the ancient mantra of my BK roots: fuck bitches, get money. It was around this time I arrived in Las Vegas and started building an online presence. It was also around this time I started to buy into the myth that if I hustled harder/smarter/right I could win this game. i.e. Earn all the money, flex how I did what most won’t to have what most don’t, and finally shut these jabronis up.

As mentioned in Part 1 & Part 2, I didn’t initially see how my insatiable work ethic and sole focus on securing the bag was deeply rooted in fear. How wanting to escape society’s stigma against Strippers/SWers had only reinforced my belief that I had to lifestyle my way out of being persecuted. A belief that was seeded long before I ever strapped on a pair of plastic stilettos, back when I was coming up as a poor city kid with very little guidance.

It’s a common story, not the only story, but one I’ve for sure commiserated with colleagues about in many dressing rooms. Growing up without means, internalizing society's whorephobia, and getting caught up in justifying our human right to work by holding ourselves to impossible standards. And I'm convinced we only perpetuate these impossible standards when we glamorize, dramatize, and proselytize partial truths about stripping in exchange for viewership.

When I pay attention to what’s currently being PSA’d by Strippers on the internet the gold glittering elephant in the room is often fear.

Follow me here. Yes earning enough to support your livelihood is essential. That’s what we came here to do. Yes understanding your emotional relationship to money and establishing healthy money habits is important. Especially because for a lot of us this is the first time we’ve ever been able to sit in the same room with this kind of earning potential. However, if we’re serious about treating Stripping/Sex Work as real work, then we also need to address that we do not get longevity out of this job by solely fixating on the money.

That’s the trap. Coming from a place of surviving, securing a job where we can eventually earn enough to not have to survive, then solely validating our success and self worth on how much we earn, which reinforces starvation mentality, and keeps us stuck in survival mode. And when we’re afraid there’s not enough to eat it’s really hard to see the value in engaging thoughtfully (not pandering or projecting an image) or in connecting on a human level.

Gone are the days when I would fool myself into believing that it was a single moment or incident that led me to seeing how I was stuck in survival mode and in need of a reality check. As if one event occurred and poof, voila, I was a brand new bitch instantly capable of seeing how I got caught up and instantly able to change course. Not only would I be doing you a disservice by selling you on the fakest news, but I’d be disrespecting myself. Disavowing the years it’s taken and the really hard work I’ve done to get to what I consider the other side. The other side of fear. Fear of not surviving. Fear of being marginalized for the work I do. Fear of losing family and friends because my job has somehow deemed me unlovable. Fear of not living up to this persona I created to project I was above this fear.

That and truthfully, now that I’m on the other side I’m still not sure I’ve fully arrived. Some days I can see myself objectively. Not only will I ask myself why? Or should I? I will even accept when the answers to those questions don’t support the outcome I was hoping for and then pivot accordingly. Other days, not so much. I can get so attached to reaching a certain outcome that I will intellectualize and rationalize my decisions until they support the reality I'm hoping to create. I chalk it up to human nature. We’re all comprised of contradictions. I’m just really grateful to have a solid support system that helps keep me accountable when I’m on one.

But maybe it’s never been a matter of fully arriving? Perhaps getting real with yourself is a continual action like loving or forgiving? Everyday you wake up and you make the choice to do so. Not because of some societally agreed upon hypothetical ROI, that it’s somehow good for you or that you’ll feel better for doing so, but because you’ll never truly be you otherwise.

The irony of #striptok and other forums like it is that content creators often project authenticity when delivering their PSA’s. But how can we be authentic/keep it real when our sole metric for success is wrapped up in winning? We’re over here like, “money mindset”, “manifest all day every day”, “don’t get stuck doing this work in your 40’s and 50’s”, “crypto this”, “investments that”, and “racks on racks on racks”.

But what about the time this work affords us? The fact that we can create our own schedules and have agency over our lives in ways most corporate jockeys do not. What snapped me out of believing the myth of winning this game has never been about the money I stacked. It has always been the real whole hearted connections I have made with fellow humans. In real analog life. The support system I have dedicated years of intentional time and meaningful effort into. My friends, my therapist, my community, and my family- they have helped keep me grounded and accountable.

There’s something about this mirror, so to speak, that gets held to us by the people in our lives. When we engage one another, ask questions, and have discourse it challenges us to think about why we believe something or do something and should we believe it or do it. But I’m convinced doing so via the online community is not enough. While working through these last 3 posts I’ve thought a lot about the vulnerability involved with being our authentic selves online when it’s likely we’re being viewed by potential or existing customers. And I want to say, by no means am I advocating to dox ourselves or put ourselves at risk in order to keep it real with one another.

What I am advocating for are a few things that I have found non-negotiable in my process of getting out of survival mode and getting real with myself.

• Use the time this work affords you to connect meaningfully with people off of the internet. The power of being in the tangible presence of a trusted friend or confidant when relating to each other and being heard and/or actively listening is profoundly healing. The benefits of which far out weigh any internet feedback, and will facilitate healthy sustainable connections. The kind of connections that will have your back and help keep you accountable for the times you lose sight of what’s real.

• Approach creating content for Strippers/SWers the way you would approach talking to a colleague in the dressing room. Hopefully that’s with empathy, compassion, and from a place of not needing to be right. And if that’s tough to do, perhaps it’s because you have a hard time doing so for yourself. I for sure did and at times still do. Practicing empathy, compassion, and patience has definitely been a work in progress but it has radically changed the way I relate to the world. I also think having a dedicated online space that is vetted for fellow workers will become essential if we’re looking to speak frankly to one another but are concerned with being viewed by potential/ existing customers.

• Approach consuming informative/PSA content by Strippers/SWers with respect to the fact that there is no one size fits all magic formula to doing this work “right.” I don’t care how fly, confident, and goddess-like the creator of said content is. I don’t care how many hundreds they’re waving in front of the screen. We’re all just operating from a perspective that was informed by our own unique life experience. Sure, there may be validity to what someone is saying and there may not be. People tell the truth and people lie. Algorithms, platform induced time constraints and word limitations make it insanely difficult to suss out a more informed conclusion. I think we’d benefit most by abandoning this fallacy that there is some secret sauce to winning this game and instead accept and honor each other as fallible and human.

Next Post: 10/4

If you find value in these posts please share with a friend you think will relate. Xxo, Val

Photo: Valerie Stunning by Angie Ortaliza