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

Overhyping The Hustle, Are We Caught Up? (Part 2)

If you haven’t read Part 1, I recommend doing so before continuing. Cheers!

When I first started writing this piece I thought it was only about how #striptok participants (and the like) overhype hustle culture and glamorize partial truths in exchange for viewership and validation, and how this in turn oversimplifies strippers’ circumstances and contributes to the stigma we face. I’ve since realized it is also about how using our work persona and the tactics we use with clients at work when addressing fellow strippers online can become cannibalistic. The more I think about it, the more I realize there’s a lot to this theory and I aim to explore it thoroughly. But I also don’t want to squeeze too much in a single blog post. So let's begin with how I got caught up.

The very first day I arrived in Las Vegas I had one suitcase and enough money to stay a single night at Motel 6. Since February 2011 I had been shaking my ass from city to city earning just enough to make a few memories and then move on. After an adventurous two plus years of living without a home base to say I was road weary was an understatement. But I had just put my last cent toward lodging, so after check-in and a quick refresh I took off in my jalopy of a 97’ Subaru Outback to audition at a club I’d read about on stripperweb.com (rest in peace). I returned later that night with a lot more cash than I had left with and an inflated sense of confidence that I was going to make Vegas my bitch. Ahhhh, twenties…

One of the things stripping eventually provided me with is access to an earning potential that I otherwise could have never sat in the same room with. I come from generations of poor working class people. In terms of “formal” education I have only a high school diploma. And my pre-stripper resume flaunts a slew of fast food joints, highway side diners, and chain restaurants that I worked back breaking hours at from the age of 15.

One of the things stripping eventually taught me is how to impersonate a socioeconomic class I did not come from so I could appear more relatable and therefore more valuable to prospective clients in that tax bracket. This is known as class drag.

*Lawyers, Realtors, and Strippers are a few examples of the professionals that regularly employ class drag to signal relatability in hopes of closing a sale. Perhaps it’s also why a significant amount of lawyers and realtors are also former strippers ;)

But it was when I began building a social media presence as a Stripper living in a fabulous city doing fabulous things, that’s when I was able to curate the version of myself I wished to see in the world. And at some point, I can’t remember when, the line between me and my work persona began to disappear.

I lived and stripped in Las Vegas from May 2013 to December 2022. And while no one makes Las Vegas their bitch, I did spend several of those years hustling with zero chill and flexing on the internet that I was that bitch. There’s a weird thing that happens when constantly viewing yourself through the lens of a constructed persona who performs on social media. (Yes, performs. What else would you call the act of curating a post that takes into consideration any of the following: lighting, setting, makeup, wardrobe, angles, and diction?) Especially if you work a job that is heavily stigmatized and the internet feels like a safe place to publicly exist and celebrate this aspect of what you do. Especially if you grew up without means in a tough environment with very little guidance. *Waves hand emphatically

The thing that happened to me, despite it’s superficiality and parasocial nature, is that I started to internalize the the social media attention I was receiving for the persona I was promoting as personally validating. I saw that the more I adopted my internet persona as my actual personality the more the world seemed to reward me with access to spaces and social spheres that were once considered above my pedigree. And while this was a slippery slope to conflating my self image with my self, I’m not sure that I would consider the entirety of the years I spent caught up a problem. I think the problem specifically is when I stopped being able to separate the person I was on the internet for work purposes from the person I was on the internet for community purposes.

It’s an easy trap to fall into and because I've been there I now see the signs of buying into one’s own internet hype reflected back at me in many of the people who PSA on #striptok and other forums like it. In fact there seems to be a general disconnect that we Strippers are collectively ignoring when it comes to which audience is the appropriate audience to direct one’s work persona and/or class drag at when flexing on the internet.

I didn’t make the rules. But I can tell you after dancing naked for money for over twelve years throughout sixteen cities in four countries and on three continents (fakes humility, flips hair) being a Stripper is so much more than the hustle hard/right/smart, look expensive, rack out and go home messaging of social media lore. I believe when targeting prospective clients, yee-fucking-haw, this is explicitly work. But when we are sharing insights, stories, and advice with fellow Strippers, we owe each other the aggressive overhead white lights no bullshit truth. And we owe it to each other because when it comes to navigating the full spectrum of hard realities that doing this job safely and sustainably requires, we are all we’ve got. This is evident in the very act of us coming to the internet and looking to each other for guidance.

In Part 3. I’ll share how I got real with myself, and will explore the ways we can practice holding ourselves and each other accountable when creating and consuming content made for Strippers by Strippers.

Next Post: 9/20

If you find value in these posts, please share them with a friend

Photo: Valerie Stunning by Sophia Phan