Situational Virtue

Yoda, I think the reason that I often expand my comments beyond the strip club is because I regard strippers first as people, second as strippers. And I think that the rules of human nature still apply, even when one is in a strip club. I think many of the behaviors that we find so puzzling aren't unique to strippers, they're typical of 20 year old girls everywhere. But that doesn't make them any less puzzling.

If a dancer has only worked in a topless bar where touching is not allowed then I believe that she has stricter boundaries. I speak from personal experience. I had worked at a couple of topless clubs then came to Cheetahs nude club in San Diego. I wanted to dance for the guys and do what is customary during the dance but found my muscles tense and I was worried during my first couple of weeks. Worried because I didn't know how to grind and concerned because I didn't want to get in trouble with vice. Now that I'm comfortable with dancing and have found, crossed my boundaries and returned to my comfort zone, I believe that dancers who work in stricter clubs who have experienced clubs with less restriction are just as loose as other dancers but are conforming to the rules. In order to have looser boundaries (morals, actions) you first have to experience the more provocative behavior. -T

FONDL: I don't totally dissagree but, as you often like to do, you are expanding from the original topic to a much broader discussion. My original comments are based on the original post and the opinions I have formed over many years of spending money in strip clubs, talking with dancers both current and retired, and even spending a bit of time with an escort or two. I know your a big fan of generalizations but I tend to try and stick to the specifics since, though there are similarities between SC's and the real world, there are also many particulars that really only apply to the adult entertainment industry.

I know Yoda will disagree, as is his right, but I think we all make moral judgments about both others and ourselves. If there are limits to what you will or won't do because you think some things are just wrong, then you are not only making moral judgments about people who do such thing but you are also saying, "I'd never do that, I'm better than that" which of course is a moral judgment about yourself.

I think MOST dancers have both some guilt and some discomfort about what they are doing. It's only natural. That being said, they are dancing anyway. Why? For money. It's a job first and foremost.

Another line of thinking, which I see more of in online forums, is self-described "exotic dancers" drawing a distinction between themselves and lapdance "strippers", whom they patronizingly deplore as fallen women. While the ED has "class" and self-respect, the poor stripper's whole life is caught up in a cesspool of shame. When I read that, I can't help but wonder how "classy" the ED really thinks she is in the eyes of whoever occupies the next higher rung on the virtue ladder. Not that it should matter - which is the whole point.

I agree with FONDL on this one. We may not want to call it moral judgement nowdays since that has a religious right connotation, but if we removed the "moral taint" from stripping, the societal idea that it is somehow wrong to expose your naked body, especially for money, there would be a lot more and a lot better looking strippers. Within that larger framework there will always be some distribution of personal codes of behavior. Just about everyone agrees that killing and robbing is wrong (except for some sociopaths). When we get to things like abortion opinions vary and the societal consensus breaks down (and we fight and argue about it). Overall as a society we agree at some level that nudity and sex are linked, and are private matters. Some people are comfortable being nudists, some believe in open marriage, but most people will follow the large society wide taboos. Take this phenomenon to a smaller level like stripclubs and you get a selection effect. In a bikini club you'll get the girls who may feel that nudity is a step to far, but in a nude club you'll have very few dancers who are uncomfortable with nudity (some may overcome their inhibitions with drugs or alcohol). I think the contact will go the same way. In a high contact club you won't be as likely to get the girls who are not comfortable being groped, or at least they won't last as long. I think that these codes can "evolve" if the situation requires it (i.e. faced with the choice of supporting a drug habbit or doing extras), but they are still "moral" judgements about how far is too far.

I don't think it is just about the money, although I'm sure that's sometimes a factor. I think a lot of dancers have some guilt feelings or at least some discomfort about what they are doing. And one of the ways they sometimes deal with that is to badmouth other dancers as doing things that they themselves would never do, which is their way of saying I'm better than she is. So yes they are making moral judgments about themslves although they would never admit it, especially to themselves.

In the sex industry, as far as suppliers go (dancers, escorts, etc), it’s not about moral judgments; it's about earning a living. Dancers don't rip prostitutes because a prostitute isn't hurting a dancers ability to earn in her venue-unless she struts into a SC, sits her ass down at the bar and starts soliciting tricks, then she's a "dirty whore". An "extras girl" is sharing the same venue as a "good girl" therefore directly affecting her ability to earn. Morality is a very personal thing. I don't think that what a woman is willing to do with her body to earn a living necessarily has all that much to do with her personal moral code.

I always listen to what the girls are saying. At any club, it is the girl that matters. Girl A pans the club down the street because "the guy I was with was offered a hand job right in front of me by another girl. That's gross!" But girl B describes the same club by tell me "It is a fun club but the bar staff, bouncers, etc. just take too much money from the girls," I'm taking girl B every time.

Yoda, you seemed to be saying only outsiders placed moral judgments, but I figured you couldn't possibly mean that.

And, lest we think this "cattiness" is limited to strippers, or to women, it is a very common human trait for which Freud coined the phrase "narcissism of small differences". I think "myopia of small differences" might be a more understandable way to put it. We reserve our greatest scorn for others who resemble us most closely except for one small point of departure. That point defines our boundaries and taboos more clearly than more obvious differences between ourselves and total outsiders. So, you don't hear dancers talk much trash about streetwalkers, but the other dancer who does an occasional extra is made out to be some kind of Hitler in a G-string.

Gentlemen. I beleive that what I said was that dancers seldom make moral judgements on themselves. That doesn't mean they don't criticize other dancers whom they think are "looser" than they are. Keep in mind that anytime a dancer slams another dancer she is merely planting the seed to try and get your business.

Several years ago I had two favs at the same club who where friends. As time went by one of the ladies started aging a little less gracefully than the other. As the uglier dancer started losing business to the pretier one she started spreading false rumors about the pretty girl doing extras in the champagne room. The rumors where false, in fact, the uglier dancer was the one who had actually resorted to offering extras to try and get back her lost business. Never underestimate the effect that money and jelousy can have on a woman.

I disagree with Yoda's contention that the girls themselves don't make moral judgments. In fact I've often noted just the opposite, that an awful lot of dancers are very quick to condemn the other girls at their club ("I'd never do the things that she does" seems to be a very common line.) Every girl seems to have her own rules which are always superior to the other girls' rules. I think this stems from a need to justify their own actions to themselves and to feel superior to the other girls. Similarly girls at one club will often talk about how awful the girls at the club down the street are. What seems like insignificant differences are blown way out of proportion. For example, my current fav was recently talking about a club nearby where the laps are done fully nude and she commented that she could never work there, she could never do that, yet there's more touching and more privacy for the LDs at her present club than at the other place where the laps are out in the open and closely monitored.

I would only say that the only clubs where I have ever been propositioned for OTC activity were full contact clubs. OTC has never been suggested to me in clubs that have only one way contact, and I have thus far been lucky enough to have never darkened the door of a no-touch club. So..does that support the proposition that dancers will go to the "next level", however that is defined in any particular dancer's club?

Yoda, I used "morals" in the narrow sense of adherence to sexual codes or taboos, not its broader application to questions of good and evil, character, integrity, treatment of others, etc. Perhaps "standards" would be less misleading. However, many are the times I have heard strippers place moral judgements on each other's conduct. I pay close attention, because I get a lot of my best referrals that way.

I wouldn't use the word morals. I think dancers who work in a certain type of club adapt their boundaries to that club. They do this in order to earn a living. Moral judgements may be placed on what they do by outsiders but not by the ladies themselves. Their are always girls who push the envelope at every level. In high contact RI clubs it's breast or cookie contact when leggs and butt are what's normally expected. In the clubs where breast and cookie contact is the norm, it's the HJ/BJ/FS girls who push the envelope. If you sit and have a conversation with the "go ahead and touch my tits" girl, you will find she is not all that different from the " wanna fuck" girl. Virtue and morality won't make a dancer much money in many SC environments. A woman's ethics in the SC environment are much more important to me than what she did to the last guy she danced for.