I started dancing in the Worst Possible Strip Club ever, but...
Wicked_Gypsy
Ohio
In a way, I'm glad I started off there, though. That wretched place helped me discover my backbone and to stop allowing people to push me around (I have a blog about it on a different site, so feel free to message me if you're in for a good horror story). It also help me discover my passion for dancing and entertaining people. I knew I couldn't continue working for them if I ever wanted to retain any of my dignity or self worth. It wasn't a matter of me not being able to do my job, or deal with drunken idiots – I can do both of those things quite well; this place was really, honestly that bad. I feel that I cannot stress that point enough.
Anyhow, I loved dancing so much and I was improving every time I got on stage. It got to the point that I was actually avoiding talking to customers, or (politely) talking them out of private dances (again, if you want to find out why, just message me). I work another job that was in the next town over, so I was basically just going in to get some exercise and dance for fun, not worrying about making money because it was only about 3 miles out of my way on my trip home from my day job so I wasn't losing much by walking out with empty pockets.
I finally told everyone there that I was done with that hellhole (in a not-so-friendly manner) and never went back. I started looking online and asking around about other places to work. A very good friend of mine told me about this place that he and his friends went to on a regular basis and they had nothing but positive things to say about it. Nothing was posted anywhere online so he gave me a number to call to ask about getting hired. The gentleman I called gave me all the information I needed and answered all of my questions without making me feel obnoxious or ignorant. I was nervous because the club was so much further than what I was used to driving but I decided to give it a shot anyway. He assured me that if I decided that it was too far for me or it just wasn't a place I'd like to work, there'd be no obligation for me to stick around if I didn't want to.
As soon as I walked in the door, I was comfortable. I felt welcome by the entire staff. Before I even got to the locker room to get ready, I texted my boyfriend and told him that I had a good feeling about this place and that I was probably going to stay. I auditioned for the man I talked to in the phone (who was manager, bouncer and bartender), and his girlfriend (who was also manger and bartender, and a seasoned dancer with over 13 years of experience) and they loved me. I became really good friends with them quickly, along with the DJ.
I've now been dancing here steadily for just over 2 years. I love everyone there, even though the staff has changed quite a bit since I started. Staff, customers, dancers, we're all like one big, happy family. There's barely any drama (shocking, right?!) and if one dancer as a problem with another dancer, they handle it maturely by talking it out, not fighting and talking garbage about them behind their back. This place is home to me. I'm appreciated. When I don't show up, I have people calling and texting, asking if everything is okay. Words cannot describe how happy I am to be where I am.
Thank you for reading! Please feel free to message if you have any questions for me!
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Seriously, if it works for you, that's all that really counts.
A lot of SCs are owned and managed by low-class shady characters w/ zero people skills – it's a dirty business often with dirty/shady people running them.
Having douche-bags owning and managing a club sets the tone for unhappy dancers and often bad dancers – and unhappy dancers means unhappy customers and thus the club is an unhappy negative environment for all (dancers & custies).
Perhaps the fact that the club you are at now is managed by a former dancer whom knows what is like is the reason it has a better and healthier atmosphere.
It's important to like where one works; so I'm glad you are at at such a place.
But you also need to be cognizant that the strip club is a customer oriented business and “avoiding talking to customers, or (politely) talking them out of private dances” is not the best way to treat customers (although I assume this is b/c you were at a bad club and you currently don't do this at your good club).
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Here is my review (posted on TUSCL, but I'm not sure if everyone can see it):
*** I used to work here and I feel that there are a lot of important things that need to become known about Tiffany's in North Lima. I hope a lot of people read this.
The inside is actually really nice (despite how shitty the pink stucco on the outside looks) and it looks like it could be a relatively high-class club. The décor is awesome and it just has this elegance about it.
And that's all the positive there is to mention.
This place is a disgrace. The majority of the girls are obviously drunk or drugged up and heavily lack class. Most of the drinks are expensive, and any drink you buy for a dancer is $10. A dancer ordered an ICE CUBE in a shot class, and the customer was still charged $10 because it was "for a dancer". If the girls earned a percentage of the drink price for themselves, that would be a different story because they are pushed to talk customers into buying them as many drinks as possible so the club makes money.
This place outright screws over their girls on money. First of all is how they handle alcohol and alcohol sales... girls make 0% off selling drinks, the girls are absolutely not allowed to tell a customer they don't want a drink (this is very bad if the girl is not a drinker because the bartenders will not give them non-alcoholic drinks) and they push alcohol consumption on underage dancers. I worked here for a very short while when I was 19 and 20. Beth, Dave and all the bartenders and severs knew very well that I was not 21, and I was still forced to drink alcohol so that “the customer gets what he paid for”. Numerous times I told customers and the bartender that I preferred a soda or a water, which I was then scolded for and told to never request a non-alcoholic drink if a drink was offered to me.
Next are the private rooms. They are $110 per 15 minutes (so $440 for an hour), dancers make LESS THAN 50% for private rooms - that's right, the club takes nearly 60% of the total room cost and the dancer gets what's left over - I have seen firsthand used condoms, used tampons, dirty panties, douche bottles and men's underwear left in the private rooms, along with cum stains - on the carpets, mirrors and couches - vomit, spilled alcohol and likely other bodily fluids.
I was nearly raped in a private room by a man that was easily 2x my size and weight. He was already completely naked when I got into the room. He grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap and started ripping my clothes off. I fought hard to get away from him and immediately went to Beth. She told me to GET BACK IN MY GODDAMN ROOM AND FINISH THE JOB. So I did, which meant 30 minutes of fighting with a very large man that I had little or no chance against. Fortunately he was so drunk that it was difficult for him to do much of anything.
I told Beth when the time was finally up on our room that I was going to go to the police. She then told me that if the cops came to the club, I wouldn't make it home. So what exactly do you think that means?
Many of the girls are forced into prostitution by Beth (and those who aren't forced do it willingly). If girls don't have sex with the customers, they don't do rooms (which usually means taking home little or no money). You know exactly what customers are paying Beth extra to ensure they get laid, because she always tells the dancer that they are her “good friend”, and to “be sure to take good care of them”.
Any bouncer, DJ, bartender, manager or customer there, or servers and dancers that learn the truth and continue to work, are are absolute fucking garbage. There are so many better clubs than this. You think that just because you live in or around Youngstown that this is your best choice because it's so close? You're dead wrong. You're entering a prostitution ring. This club is a brothel and drug den. If you start here and quit, they will be calling you for weeks and months, begging you to come back.
There is so much more that I don't even have the patience to mention right now. Again, I hope this review gets read by everyone because I want to warn anyone considering entering this place (dancer or customer) before it ruins you, like it has almost ruined me.
Please message me if you have any more questions. I would love nothing more for than this place to get shut town entirely.
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Here is the additional blog piece I wrote to shine some light on the whole thing:
Beth does this nasty little thing that nearly made me swing on her multiple times. If you're sitting with a customer for more than 3 or 4 minutes, she will walk over to them and introduce herself. She'll start off nice and sweet, saying something like, “Are you thinking about taking this beautiful lady in the back for a private show?” This usually goes one of 3 ways:
1.) The customer says yes
2.) The customer says they're thinking about it
3.) The customer says no
If the customer said yes, she would hurry up and rush us into the back immediately, regardless of if we were having a conversation, watching another dancer on stage, or wanted to finish our drinks. If you're anything like me, you want to sit with someone a little longer than 3-4 minutes before being locked in a private room with them for however long they decide. Some customers and myself like to get our talking done before a private room. We like to get to know each other a little bit and feel out one another to get an idea of what kind of person the other of us is. Private dances should be about the dance, not catching up on the normal introductory smalltalk you're supposed to have with your customer beforehand.
If the customer said they'll consider it, or they will but want to but want to sit and talk a little while more, Beth gets upset. As mentioned before, she rushes everything. The quicker you go in, the quicker you come out. The quicker you come out means the sooner you're available to go sit with someone else and sell more rooms to make Beth more money. She will leave your table, only to come back within just a few minutes. At this point, it's more harassment than a sales tactic. She will repeat this behavior until either the customer gives in and goes in the back, or just leaves entirely. During this process, she will “encourage” us to talk the customer into buying a room. She does this by taking either her fingernail or knuckle and digging it into the dancer's back or shoulder, out of sight of the customer. There have been times where she has even resorted to pinching us.
If the customer said no, you may as well have just told Beth that someone vandalized her car. She becomes irate, her face gets red and she starts to sweat. She gets a nasty attitude with the customer, then grabs the dancer's wrist and says, “Come here a minute, I gotta talk to you in private,” and drags them into the ladies' restroom. At this point, Beth will either tell us to leave that customer and go talk to someone else, or scold us for not having sold a dance after having sat with them so long.
This was the very first place where I'd ever danced. I'd never even been inside of a strip club before as a customer or prospective dancer. I was very nervous, I didn't really know how to talk to customers at this point and was just trying to figure things out on my own. Needless to say, I had the wrong idea of strip clubs and dancers for the longest time. I've moved on to bigger and better things, and now I'm as happy as can be.
[[Here is a snippet from a different post]]
I danced there on and off for about a year until I realized that maybe this wasn't the industry for me. I was treated like a piece of meat in a den of hungry wolves. I was exposed to things that no girl should be exposed to without consent. This place was everything I was told it would be – drugs, sex, drunk women getting violated by drunk men – and yet, I stayed. I made a couple of good friends there, and the money was [occasionally] awesome. It wasn't far from home, I could sit at the bar and get free drinks all night despite the fact that I was underage and everyone knew. Plus, I had a passion for dancing on stage. I learned a lot in my time there. Everything from reading people, to how to do my makeup for the club lighting, and even how to dance a little. I especially learned not to trust anyone, ever.
I quit. I was sick of being seen as nothing more than a vagina in stilettos and then treated as such. It's not that I couldn't handle it, I just didn't want to have to. And anyone who knows where I'm talking about knows that management and staff were absolutely no help whatsoever. The customers were rapists, and the staff were their accomplices. They even provided all the furnishings in their rape dungeons. The words “brothel” and “whorehouse” don't even begin to describe the fresh hell that this place actually was. Have you ever seen the movie Taken? Liam Neeson's daughter gets kidnapped and sold into a sex-trafficking ring. This place was pretty much that exactly, except us girls were willingly walking into this place every night. I rarely made money because I usually chose to do everything by the book. Men didn't admire me for my skill or personality, they wanted a good ole fashioned suck n' fuck, and that was it. I've been told this straight to my face by the men themselves. Though I must say, I'm glad for the experience. Like I've mentioned, I really did learn a lot and it was a stepping stone that led me to be where I am today. This place scarred and jaded me, it brought me to tears, made me hate myself and question every decision I ever made. However, it never broke me.
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As my own little addition, I will tell each and everyone one of you that this place turned me into a prostitute. Customers didn't tip on stage or buy lap dances. Everyone in the area is in on the dirty little secret, which is why rooms are the only way to make money. I have given totally legitimate dances in the back, only to have a couple customers complain that it wasn't what they expected (which are some of the ones who outright asked me to perform extra services while in a room). I had to have sex with people to make money. At the time, I needed the money bad enough that I just bit the bullet and did it. My boyfriend was beside himself for the entire ordeal. We have an open relationship, and I'm allowed to sleep with whoever I wanted; I just didn't want it to be the way it was. He understood my predicament, and helped me look for other places to work. Nowhere in my area was any better, so I lost all hope. I would cry most nights when I would get home, and just sit in the shower until the water ran cold. I felt less than human, like I wasn't even worth the dignity and respect of other women who were models or professional dancers. I felt like I was nothing.
Just know that I don't condemn those who choose to have sex for money. I have no problems with it if it's something you want to do. Your body, your choice, right?
Thank you all for your interest! If you have any more questions, please feel free to shoot me some more messages or post here.