The Good, the Bad, and What It's Really Like to be a Stripper

StripandDance
New Jersey
So you want to know the upside and downside of working as a stripper right?&nbsp; This page is designed to help you get a realistic impression of what a typical strippers life is like and what you can expect while working in the club.&nbsp; Warning-I do not hold back my opinion because if you are reading this-it means you want the truth.&nbsp; Let&rsquo;s start with the upside!</p>
<p>The Upside to Dancing</p>
<p>&nbsp;There are a lot of fantastic aspects that can come from working as an exotic dancer in a strip club or working for an agency.&nbsp; To begin with, you pretty much can make your own schedule!&nbsp; Most strip clubs have ask that you work a certain amount of days in order to be employed but in my experience, if the girl has a good excuse -Basically&nbsp; just say your In School or Can&rsquo;t Find A Baby Sitter&nbsp; and you should be okay.Not all adult clubs do this but again, a lot do. I used to give my manager every excuse you can think of!&nbsp; You can choose to work day shift or night shift and in some instances-weekends off!&nbsp; You might think that working weekends is when all the guys are at the club but remember you want quality, not always quantity.&nbsp; As a rule of thumb, younger men who lack real dollars tend to come to the club on the weekends.&nbsp; Weekdays can be very lucrative if your patient!&nbsp; Another upside to stripping is obvious: CASH MONEY and lots of it!&nbsp; Think about it, right now there is a girl working her tail off at some business for minimum wage and depressed as hell because she can&rsquo;t pay her bills.&nbsp; Maybe that&rsquo;s your situation.&nbsp; You have the opportunity to make a lot of money in a very, very short period of time because men are willing to reach deep into their pockets if they like you! I&rsquo;m not sure what happened, but when men get around friendly, attractive woman-their brains suddenly move to their private areas!</p>
<p>&nbsp;Another upside to stripping is unique feeling of independence and self-gratitude from earning your own money.&nbsp; If you plan it right, you can afford to get your own apartment, your own car and have money left over for other things in your life!&nbsp; Traveling is another upshot of being an exotic dancer.&nbsp; If you let the clubs you work at know in advance that you are taking a week or so off you can usually do so.&nbsp; This will give you the opportunity to take time to be with friends, family and loved ones. The freedom also gives you another opportunity&hellip;..the ability to TRAVEL to other strip clubs.&nbsp; Because you are an independent contractor and not bound to any club, you have the right and the ability to go out of state and dance anywhere you want for as long as you want! I know a lot of girls who move about the country and target the best times to work a city.&nbsp; For example, during the winter months, head down to one of the clubs in Miami..&nbsp; If you get out a calendar and find out what events are going on, you can plan to travel to those cities and get out of your club when it&rsquo;s dead season.&nbsp; Vegas is HOT, HOT during convention season in the spring and fall.&nbsp; Chicago, Boston and New York are busy during the summer months.&nbsp; Well- New York is always busy.&nbsp; As far as international travel, I can tell you that countries like Japan pay TOP dollar for American Girls to travel over and work for a few weeks in one of their clubs.&nbsp; The Japanese love American women.&nbsp; Stay out of Thailand and the Philippines if you want to travel and dance.&nbsp; Those countries have very friendly people but the clubs basically do not adhere to American Standards.&nbsp; Basically just find a big city, give the club a call and tell them your interested in coming out for a few weeks. They will usually tell you the audition and hiring procedures over the phone.&nbsp; I mention big cities because that&rsquo;s where you are most likely to get lots of customers.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;A good place to find clubs is on <a href="http://www.tuscl.net">the Ultimate Strip Club List</a>.&nbsp; Pay attention to the postings on the site as they are usually put on by customers and dancers.
&nbsp; Find a city and check the calendar and see what&rsquo;s going on! Finally, the other upside to being an exotic dancer allows you to save tons of money in a very short period of time. Unfortunately, most girls I have worked with don&rsquo;t&rsquo; save their money but the ones that do are incredibly wealthy.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not uncommon for girls in some of the higher end clubs to make well over $250,000 dollar or MORE a year.&nbsp; Being an Exotic Dancer gives you the finances and freedom to truly make a lot of your dreams come true!</p>
<p>The Down Side to Dancing:</p>
<p>&nbsp;If you are thinking of working in a strip club and being an exotic dancer, you should really know the down sides of the business.&nbsp; There are a lot to be sure, but sadly, many girls I have worked with do not use good judgment and fall into a sad and depressing lifestyle. I went thru a long period of drinking heavily and partying. Basically I was just waisting away. Once you have been in the industry long enough, you will quickly discover that strip clubs and the people who work there are a tightly knit community. Make no mistake about it, every single one of us who have danced have had moments where we break down and ask ourselves &quot;What am I doing with my life?&quot;&nbsp; You might also discover that after a while, it&rsquo;s difficult to relate to others who are not dancers or work in the industry. How do you relate with someone who works 9-5 and perhaps goes to school and works in a completly different universie. If I am being completly honest, most girls that strip are counting the days until they can get out of the business. Many girls get stuck in the life style because of the fast money and when they try to go work in the real world-they find difficult if not impossible to relate. It can really suck when you are at a social funtion and you meet others who are in school, or work a professional career. I remember feeling like I wanted to run away in a corner and not becuase I was embarassed because I was making so much money and not doing anything to better myself. I probably could have paid for college and purchased a home my first 2 years and been working a different job with a family if I would have only wised up sooner. If you find yourself in that postion, I can refer you to someone I know that will email with you and seriously help you get it together for free!</p>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; The biggest downside to being an exotic dancer is the stress and pressure it puts on your mind and body! Let me explain this in stark terms: Somewhere out there, you will be putting yourself on a stage nearly every night and trying to get earn yourself money by generating dances.&nbsp;&nbsp; The task can be absolutely grueling because you have to try to be an actress and charm a guy you&rsquo;ve never met before to somehow pick you out of all the other girls in the club and give you his money.&nbsp; More often than not what happens is a girl becomes jaded and depressed and turns to having a few drinks to cover her unhappiness. I would like to make a special mention that not all exotic dancers are alcoholics.&nbsp; Once you start dancing, you will realize exactly what I&rsquo;m talking about.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;A good percentage of girls who work in this industry are alcoholics or have some related substance abuse issue. I only wish there were a help line with the purpose of helping dancers. On the outside, society sees the girls as pretty, happy go lucky people with no problems in the world.&nbsp; If they only knew the reality of it-if they only knew that many dancers need serious help because they never learned how to cope with real life situations out side of the club.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s important to know that stripping doesn&rsquo;t always cause someone to become an alcoholic.&nbsp; People drink because they can&rsquo;t cope with their own lives and use drugs and drinking as a way to mask problems that have already been there for a long, long time.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s really easy to fall into the lifestyle and I talk about it in another page on this site.&nbsp; Another downfall with stripping can be: Girls not sticking to their life goals.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s really sad when I meet a sweet girl who tells me, &ldquo;What do I do with my life now&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired of dancing&rdquo;!&nbsp; This day comes to so a vast array of girls who dance.&nbsp; Again, not all girls end up this way but a great deal do! I&rsquo;ll give you an example. I knew a very beautiful and charming girl named Alexis who started dancing when she was 18.&nbsp; Alexis was one of the top money makers I knew on the West Coast and made well over $500.00 a night.&nbsp; She stayed in the business for ten years and didn&rsquo;t save a dime! Worse yet, she made no effort at all to look towards her future and make life long plans.&nbsp; She had always dreamed of being a real estate agent or an actress but each time I talked to her-she was usually drunk and hadn&rsquo;t accomplished an anything.&nbsp; Ten years passed and she slowly started to loose her looks.&nbsp; All those nights of partying, staying up late and not taking care of herself finally caught up to her.&nbsp; Get my point?</p>
<p>&nbsp;The life style can give you a false sense of security and if you don&rsquo;t plan, you can easily be locked into the business.&nbsp; Trust me, there will be a day when you want to stop dancing! Finally, the last downfall to working as a stripper is-Bad Relationships.&nbsp; If you make the decision to work in a strip club and get hired- you will figure out quickly that most of the girls and the staff are not married.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not a bad thing, it&rsquo;s just a matter of fact!&nbsp; Oh sure, there are dancers who are married but in short, those are far and few between.&nbsp; A large majority of girls are either divorced, broken up with their boyfriends or looking for a boyfriend.&nbsp; Unless you prepare a guy and have the relationship is built on a good understanding of what&rsquo;s expected, most girls end up being single. (Again this is not always the case)! It&rsquo;s easy to understand why right?&nbsp; If you were working a job in an office all day and came home at 5pm to find your boyfriend just waking up with a hang over, would you stick around?&nbsp; How can he possibly relate to your life style of fast money and partying if he is use to his own world? This is exactly why I stated before that it&rsquo;s important you don&rsquo;t let this lifestyle eat you up and take every piece of you.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t allow yourself to work every single night. Make a 3 to 4 day schedule and stick to it!&nbsp; I have seen relationships work in this industry but it took a lot of hard work!&nbsp; If you follow my advice and put your personal life 1st before the club, you will go along way in keeping that boyfriend!</p>
<p>MEN</p>
<p>&nbsp;I can remember before I started dancing that I loved talking to men.&nbsp; After so many years in the club and having heard so many pick up lines and disgusting comments, I started to grow really cold and just closed guys completly out of my life.&nbsp; I think a lot of girls have that problem.&nbsp; We keep waiting for the perfect man to come into our lives and then brush him off because we think they are just like all the guys at the club. Girl, if you meet a guy you really like and you want to date him....give it a chance. Otherwise you wind up like a lot of us who are sad and depressed we don't have love in our life. <br />
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StripandDance<br />

<p>&nbsp;</p>

8 comments

Latest

stripclubspy
15 years ago
Excellent article... thanks!<br type="_moz" />
CTQWERTY
15 years ago
Love the pic.&nbsp;&nbsp; Niece piece, but no mention of paying income taxes.&nbsp;&nbsp; What did Al Capone finally go down for?&nbsp;&nbsp; Income tax evasion.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Officer
15 years ago
good article
paradyice
12 years ago
COULDNT TELL IT NO BETTER!!!

Thanks
LoriB1996
12 years ago
OMG! Girl, I'm a retired dancer (I worked east coast USA thru the 1990s ) and u said EVERYTHING EXACTLY AS IT IS (was)!! Thank u sooooo much 4 writing this article, because I just joined this website 2night and wanted 2 write an article about how it really is (was).....but, u hit every nail on the head n I no longer feel the need 2 write the article...THANK U SOOOOO much....I was reviewed in 1996 n had NO idea that there was ever a reviewer in any club I worked, n when the review was shown 2 me by club management, I was SHOCKED! The reviewer said I was his favorite dancer n a perfect 10....a surfer's dream, long n lank n bodacious....but, what meant the most 2 me was that He loved my enthusiasm! I was a total NO touching dancer n relied on my sense of humor n Witt, my compassion n gift of gab and most of all my LOVE of dance, entertaining, top-notch costumes (I wore a lot of gowns) n being sexy! Those were fun and wild times n love reminiscing about the way we used 2 be treated as the lovely n unique ladies we truly are....now, in this area, girls will Do ANYTHING 4 $1! There is no art, skill, or overall performing going on anymore! And costumes?!?!....girls wear a pair of cut off Daisy dukes, a ripped Guinea tee n thong n bras that aren't even a matching set! Ugh! With Love, Lori B (aka Lorie, the reviewer misspelled my name lol)
savannahWylde
8 years ago
Awesome article. Hit the nail on the head. I am fairly newish, will definitely be taking your advice though. Thank you for writing this.
Meaddow
7 years ago
Been at it 18 years now and I don't drink or do drugs - but being a single mom I can't afford to quit. It's hard to leave and I've never had a sugar daddy or met outside the club but 2 times - I just can't do it! I'm now wanting to quit but I can't afford bills with a regular job. I don't know how people do it.
Meaddow
7 years ago
I should have saved way more money but I like to shop and go on vacation- buy my kid everything - managing money is so hard when u know the next say you can get 300-500 and u just spend it like water - I would be a millionaire if I would have been smarter
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