Ava Adore

Obs: Autonomy & Context.

These are two important words to me in the World of Strip Club: Autonomy. Context.

These words can change that world in which we work. These two words can mean the difference between comfort and violation. Remember the half-joking statement, “there’s no such thing as sexual harassment in a strip club”? It’s kind of like that, to me. Autonomy. Context.

Autonomy: At the end of it all, it’s my choice. I choose to dance for you. I choose to walk away. I choose to throw french fries at you. I choose to make this memorable. I choose to let you touch my hips. I choose to stare at the bouncer until he throws you out. I choose that X amount of dollars is worth this to me—or I choose that it’s not.

Context: I understand that you can’t understand, those of you who haven’t worn these heels, done a set on stage, been behind the red curtain, sat in the leather chairs; that even if you’re a non-dancing coworker, or if you know me outside of the club, you will not understand the club until you’ve come at it from the angle of exchange.

When autonomy is taken from me is when I start slipping from feeling empowered to feeling like the sex object that critics popularize us as. When I get a humper, or someone who grabs my hips and chooses how I move for me, or someone who bounces me, I get wicked uncomfortable and slip into naked ninja mode where I do everything I can to be as far as possible.

At first I want to shake the client and be like, ‘You will enjoy this more if you let me do my own thing,’ and then the quiet voice creeps, ‘It doesn’t matter what you do, you could be a blow up doll, this is what they want,’ and that’s where the slipping starts. That’s when I start feeling uncomfortable in my skin and in my job. I hate that feeling and I’m grateful that it’s rare.

And then I think about context. I made the mistake (?) the other day of sitting by the cameras, just chatting away with the bouncers during downtime, and my eyes slid to the black-and-white monitors. I felt ill. Out of context, it’s… so out of context. No music, no sounds, just black-and-white “factual” movements: it makes the viewer an outsider. I was an outsider for that moment, looking in on my job.

It removes all the emotionality from it, all the entertainment value, all the artistry, and turns it into something you might see on the 11 o’clock news about the dead girl in the trunk. It’s dehumanizing. It startled me to feel that way, to know the social programming reaches me there, because of course if it’s just the ‘fact’ of movement, it would be meaningless… just movements.

But it’s not. It’s almost somehow incriminating.

And it’s for these reasons that I’m grateful that cameras aren’t allowed. No photos, no video, no history, no lack of context to turn it into something it’s not outside of the moment in which it exists in this adult theatre. You can’t capture a show without music. You can’t experience consolation or elation.

You can’t capture the exchange without being part of it.

Realizing that, I can only imagine how the bouncers see us, how management sees us, and certain things about how we’re treated start to click into place with a subtle clarity. But I guess that’s also why (save for my family) I invite those close to me to come into the experience. To come to the club, to patron, to understand. And for me, that makes a difference.