It's nearly impossible to survive now as a dancer who wants to follow the law. I started dancing 18 years ago and it gets tougher every year. I dance in Phoenix, AZ and if you follow the law exactly you probably won't make enough money to survive. You're not even allowed to accept tips in your g-string. It's a $250 fine for every dollar that is put in your costume rather and in your hand or set on the stage. Technically, you can't give a legal lapdance because you can't actually touch someone's crotch. I've only seen one other dancer in 18 years consistently give legal personal dances.
All of those laws and rules were there when I first started. What's gotten worse is the mileage expected. There are even girls now who give extras now without charging more for the dances. Recently I had a regular get a private room with me out of loyalty but told me not to touch him because the dancer who did a room with him before I arrived to work already "got him off." I didn't bother to ask how. Every year there seems to be more ladies dancing and less customers spending. Competition gets cutthroat. I've even seen dancers charge less than the dance price minimum the club sets.
No judgment on what people want to do outside the club but the fact is that having sex in the club is illegal. I don't care what girls do outside of work but the dancers who are also acting as prostitutes put my club at risk. They can get us raided and shut down. I dance so that I can support my rescue dogs and horses. It isn't fair that I should have to compete with dancers having sex in the VIP and private rooms. The other day a dancer was caught having anal sex by the bouncer. I won't go into the details but she didn't even get fired.
I'm grateful for the experience of dancing. I learned a lot about people. I became much stronger physically and mentally and emotionally. I developed a much thicker skin. I was able to buy a house and support myself while still spending more time doing animal rescue than working in the club. I've even made some really good friends. However, every year I also add to the number of people I know who have been murdered or died of overdoses. I've even danced for people later convicted of rape and murder. I've had people try to do horrible things including a customer who recently tried to blood choke me. For the first time in my life I had to file a police report for assault because the attack was so extreme.
I feel like the whole world, especially this industry, is going a little crazier every year. Every year I think it's time for me to do something else. However every year I find myself back at City Hall applying for another Dancer License. Next year I'll be turning 50. I'm not sure how much worse things can get. When you walk into the club, try to remember dancers and staff and customers are all individuals who deserve respect. Be kind and try to treat others how you want to be treated. Ask permission before you take liberties. Don't hit or choke or sexually assault others. Personally I like to imagine everyone else has a Golden Retriever or some other sweet and lovable pet at home. I want to treat each person I meet in a way such that they go home happy to their pet because I can't imagine anything worse than disappointing a big ole friendly fluffy dog. That's just me.
Comments (23)Latest
Your third paragraph seems to run counter opposite to what what most men on here are writing and complaining about?
@IRman I’m new here so take it what I say with a grain of salt obviously but a lot of the time on the internet what feels like the “majority” is actually a very vocal minority.
I personally have only ever been to 4 clubs and when I went to one in Dallas I literally was offered sex if I tipped her enough. It was my first time there and I literally had only gotten a 35$ dance.
Many of us feel what would truly be good is for the government to stop trying to regulate what consenting adults do with each other. In states with alienation of affections laws, a wife could sue a stripper if her husband divorced her after becoming the stripper's devoted regular. Even if all the dances were air dances.
If the cops forced strip clubs to only allow air dances, most clubs would close I think. You don't really need a club anymore for that, just video calling and CashApp.
It's certainly sad how changing times often mean occupations with solid incomes disappear, without leaving the people in them with equally good alternatives.
Thanks for sharing your insight(s). Not an easy job for sure!
Sorry bad things have happened in terms of your safety. All I could add is that the value of sex work is going up as relationships seem less and less worth it to a lot of men. We might see something like decriminalization in some places in the next 20 years for economic as well as social reasons. Obviously you do you, but I think the times are changing.
This seems to be the growing norm of strip clubs nationwide. It sucks to say, but I think that in the coming years more and more clubs will be more tolerant of extras. Like with here in the Los Angeles area, many (well over 90%) of the clubs are brothels disguised as strip clubs. I think your two options would be either A) Quit the industry entirely or B) Find a new club to dance at that won't tolerate prostitution. I've frequented the clubs in Phoenix, AZ before. From what I've seen, Bourbon Street is not an extras club which is nice and refreshing, the same goes for Christie's Cabaret in Tempe.
@thottiusmaximus I found that in LA you have to pay outrageous prices for "extras"
Don’t mind me, I’ll be here for the popcorn. There are certain Phoenix tusclers who have bragged about their $120 extras since 2005 or whatnot. There is nothing wrong with this article, I just want to see a flame war. 👀
@nicespice It seems like the scathing accusations of GPS are usually for those who want more for extras than others. Not for those who don't do them.
Nice article! I’ve been a Phoenix SC junkie for decades, and agree with most of what you say. However, with respect to the AZ laws, you sound a bit like DavePhx, who likes to point out that you can’t legally do anything in a club. While the wording of the law is strict, everyone knows it doesn’t reflect reality.
There’s a huge difference between feeling and maybe sucking a dancer’s tits and caressing her ass in VIP versus fingers down below, DATY, HJ and fucking. I’ve never heard of any dancer anywhere getting busted for letting a guy feel her tits. If a dancer’s boundary is that rigid (no tits), they simply are not gonna have success. However, if the girl is hot and friendly, she can make money without performing actual sex acts. Most dancers at Bourbon are evidence of this. I wish you good luck, whatever you decide to do.
@azdd I think maybe it's only Orlando and Utah that require strip clubs to be air dance only. It seems like something like 20 - 30% of clubs are one-way contact only. But it's a club rule, not a rule that the cops are realistically going to show up and enforce. An OTC fav told be she switched from an extras club to a one-way contact club, with no loss of income.
You put yourself out there writing what's on your heart...kudos..
Some questions for you.
1 What does animal rescue have to do with extras?
2 Since you opened that door why do we get the feeling that every time someone (and it's almost always ladies) talks about "rescue" that they have a savior complex or they are trying to create a relationship with animals that they are unable to create with people?
3 Where did you rescue these animals from? A burning building? Drowning?
4 Or is it more like the Goodwill where you take someone's items they no longer want, clean them up and resell them
Perhaps you actually donate them to deserving families, in which case I would gladly give you a gold star and a pat on the back for being truly altruistic. But since you won't donate your body for a lapdance anymore then a shelter will donate a dog, it all seems rather mercenary just like your lap dances you feel gives you a higher moral ground
At the end of the day its a strip club and you are selling access to your body . .whether its animals or stripping let's not turn it into something its not.
@ruhroh Dogs and cats have evolved over thousands of years to live in symbiosis with humans. When they are strays, on their own, they don't do well. They need people to rescue them from that situation. All pretty obvious, I'd be surprised if there are many people unaware of this. It's true that, in less developed societies, people are more indifferent to animal suffering. They also tend to be more indifferent to domestic violence, human trafficking, etc.
@ruhroh The desire to rescue stray or injured animals is a sentimental, motherly impulse. For many men, that sort of personality is their ideal of femininity. Which is something some customers may prioritize over extras, at least occasionally. Or, as described by the OP, after the extras.
I've been going to strip clubs for over 25 years and absolutely nothing has changed. There were always stupid laws making almost every dancer-patron interaction illegal, including any lap dance within 6 feet of a customer and dancers bearing their breasts in a club that served alcohol. Those laws were rarely enforced unless a club became a nuisance or... Clubs were always under threat of being closed or fined for stupid things beyond their control, like a fight or murder in the parking lot or underage kids sneaking in with fake IDs. There was always cut throat competition among dancers, with ladies going after another ladie's whale. There were always dancers that offered "extras" to try to make more money or to get an advantage, even in clubs were management tried to stop them with cameras and bouncers. Strip clubs have been always magnets for criminals, drug dealers, mentally ill and social delinquents. Most dancers were always people on the margins of society: scammers unwilling to invest in education or do the hard work necessary to make money legitimately, single moms with loser babydaddies, drug addicts, nymphos and illegal immigrants. People who consistently make bad decisions that put themselves in positions where they get murdered, raped, overdose, etc because they don't want to play by society's rules.
To me it sounds like after 18 years of dancing and being 50 you should hang up your heels if you no longer enjoy what you're doing or are unwilling to adapt to changing circumstances. I would give that same advice to people in regular jobs outside the sex worker industry too.
@vajmon You have the same idea of the typical sex worker as do people who want to make sex work illegal under the Nordic model. That only a self-destructive person would want to be a sex worker. Therefore, choosing to do sex work is proof in itself that the person is not a competent adult, and needs the government to act as their guardian.
If you think stripping makes for an easy life, that almost certainly means you're too ugly to try it.
One of my favs had a degree in accounting. From doing the books for a strip club, she realized how much more money the strippers were making than she was.
Thank you for sharing this perspective. One thing I'd like to point out though is that, at least from my perspective, you are not really competing with the girls who do extras. There are two kinds of dancers: those who do extras and those that don't. Each visitor to a strip club is looking for one or another. When I visit a club I'm usually looking for extras, so I only am interested in those girls; the other girls are invisible to me.
I'm fortunate in that I'm often near Akron Ohio which is the best strip club city I've ever been to. Yes, most of the dancers are old, fat, not so hot. I get bbbj in vip for $20 / song. Sometimes a young hottie will try working there. They often don't want to suck, which is fine, but is there any reason they can't put on some rubber gloves and do a handy? Some guys might go to a club just to see some hot young girls and then go home to bang the old lady while fantasizing about the hottie. Other guys like me want to eat some pussy and get sucked off. A young hottie who does extras has guys waiting in line for vips. We don't have 50 year old dancers that don't do extras.
Thanks for sharing. It’s always great to hear from the dancer’s perspective. I would agree with you that it is likely very difficult for a “legal” dancer to make a decent living. Here in south Florida it is pretty much expected that all dancers do extras - at least I’ve never met one who doesn’t.
Also credit to you for still dancing at 50. That’s quite impressive. But for me, if I wanted to see a hot 50 year-old naked, I’d stay home with my wife 😘
The author’s action items are listed in the last 6 sentences of her post. I agree 1000 percent with those statements and hopefully all PLs would agree as well. None of that is inconsistent with engaging in consensual but Illegal acts with dancers who are so inclined and therefore won’t alleviate the plight of “good girls” like OP. It’s a challenging problem and I don’t see it as my place to come up with solutions, but one option would be to relocate to a market where where extras in SCs just aren’t on the table and you can fairly compete based on your skill, charm and good looks. DMV ares near me might work. KCMO seems like it has extras pretty much locked down, community vibe seems ok, and cost of living isn’t bad. I’m sure there are plenty other areas like that.
I think the problem is the fact that most of the people who come in are 'bad actors' and a lot of the strippers who make the most money are 'bad actors' as well.
A stripper who goes in and does extras in a vip room will make the cost of the vip room + the price of the extra which will be a guaranteed $200-300. If she does this 3-4 times a night she walks out with a guaranteed 1000. If she's known to be the type to give extras, she gets easier access to customers who will just come in for an extra and leave quickly.
For a good girl stripper, they have to play the game of talking, getting the tip money from the stage, and hoping/praying for a VIP/private lap dance. Not only that, the time she spends talking to one customer means another dancer is talking to another customer who will have less money to spend on other dancers.
I know in Seattle a lot of the strippers are stressed out of the dichotomy of it especially with locations. They effectively have to gamble the north strip clubs where those are confirmed extra clubs such as Pandoras/Kittens so you effectively have to give extras; The new one/old one on Auroara Avenue called Mamacitas/Baby Dolls where now they effectively fight against the open prostitutions and customers who start driving up, gets distracted by one of the street girls and decides to pick her up instead; the south clubs near stadium that is too far out for tech people so you rely on sports people; and then Devil Triangle (pretty much a black club that doesn't vibe with tech people) and the one at Pike Place (that people say is getting too expensive even for tech people and only has one stage)
I sympathize with your frustration, particularly when other dancers’ actions could jeopardize your livelihood. But I’d challenge the idea that something is inherently wrong simply because it’s illegal. After all, you’re understandably frustrated by laws restricting how you can accept tips or interact with customers.
If consenting adults choose to exchange money for sexual services, why should the government have any more authority to prohibit that than to dictate where someone can place a dollar bill?
The club certainly has every right to prohibit those activities, and you have every right to refuse them. But the real problem isn’t that other dancers are offering services you won’t. It’s that government criminalizes consensual behavior and threatens everyone else’s livelihood in the process.
Assault and coercion are entirely different matters. Those violate individual rights and absolutely warrant enforcement. That’s where the law should draw the line.
do you nutcrackers realize she isn't going to fuck you for your sympathy ? spineless simps. Stop tryna pretend you're a nice guy when every motherfucker on her has fucked in vip and doesnt help the homeless even when they beg, delusional mfuckers