Ava Adore

Obs: Perspective$

I have two thoughts around stripping and money right now.

1) If you want to know how the economy is doing, ask a stripper.
2) If you should ever need to change jobs, everything else sucks.

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Obs: Misconception$.

Sometimes the stereotypes we fight are not strictly personal. And sometimes they’re not only outside the club. One of the stereotypes that’s got me thinking a lot lately is the “lucrative stereotype” and how it can really bite you in the ass.

Imagine you’re sitting with a client and instead of the myriad douchebag excuses he gives about why he isn’t getting a dance, he instead pins it on you: “But you make so much money, you don’t need my help.” Thaaanks, buddy!

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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.

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Obs: Dating Stigma

thestoryofstory:

i’ve known for awhile that my stripping would affect my dating life. my ex-boyfriend’s words spoken long before i started dancing are seared into my memory, “if i knew you ever had stripped, i would never date you.” when i started stripping i thought long, hard thoughts about who would never love me if they knew.

Because we’re easy, or we’ll do anything for money, or we only care about money; because we sleep with all of our customers so we can never be loyal; because our job means compromising ourselves, we be can never be our own whole person, let alone share that with anyone else. Because we share “too much” there—and yet because we’re selfish and “never learned to share at all.”

Because we’re a theoretical ideal that no one wants to take the time to understand or actualize. Translation: a prize to win and then discard (‘Yo, bro, I’m gonna take that stripper home tonight!’). Because we’ll look good on your arm… but don’t let us touch anything (we will ruin it). Because we were never loved as children, we do this; because we do this, we’ll never find love.

Simultaneously desired and unwanted, we are the lost children of the madonna/whore dichotomy. This is what society feeds us strippers about our future, this is what society tells us about who we are and what we want from other people; this is what society tells other people we want in life and love. And it is wrong.

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Obs: Terminology: Sex Worker.

Not all sex workers are strippers. Not all strippers are sex workers.

Some in the industry joke that the only people who deny strippers are sex workers are the strippers. With a feminist mind, I ask you to examine that statement, that joke. That the butt of the joke lies in a woman’s ability—or seeming ‘disability’—to know what she is. To ‘know her place.’ To make her own self-aware decisions.

I resent being told I live in a fallacy bubble because I don’t identify as a sex worker. I sell sexuality—not sex. I am no more a sex worker as only a stripper than your usual actor, musician, model; those professions who also sell sexuality, sensuality. Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, Angelina Jolie, Adriana Lima…

Would you call the Victoria’s Secret Angels sex workers?

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FL Files: 3: Checkmate.

Never before had I ever felt that weight. That heaviness of shame not earned, guilt not afforded; the crushing, sinking feeling when you realize that someone feels entitled—and what that someone feels entitled to is your body.

That moment that feels like snakeskin not yet split; too tight, that gaze. Eyes with lucid clarity and appraisal held years behind them, experience in secure understanding of property, and in that moment you are seen as property.

It was slow that night, which added fuel to the fire.

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Obs: Unify the Dichotomy

Big words, but I did warn you I’d start being thoughtful again soon. In this post, I highlight an exchange on Ginger’s blog: I want to point out that I support both of these people, however, the exchange highlights some problematic feminist thinking.

Someone just said something about not being able to watch your movies after becoming an online “friend/follower.” I have to say, that I agree with him, and here’s my thoughts why:

We feel like we know you better. You’ve become a person to us. A person who has amazing thoughts and problems (I just wanna find your stalker and beat the living shit outta him), and you’ve moved beyond “damn, she’s hot and nekkid!” to somebody we’d like to know and respect as a person.

I understand the niceness of the intent of that comment, but this runs directly counter-productive to writing about being a stripper (etc) at all. ‘Become’ a person? The goal is that we are always people: we want to be recognized that way off and on stage.

It is intensely problematic, this dichotomy: respected woman/sex worker.

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Obs: Camaraderie

The girls at the House are really unusual. Not only are we all really, really good looking (and if you didn’t say that in a Zoolander accent, shame on you), 98% of us are total sweethearts who actually care about and look after one another there.

We all have those nights. Nights where you will feel ashamed that you’re crying in the locker room. It will be rare, but it will happen.

Nights you just got into a huge fight with your roommate and its irreconcilable and you used to work together and now you don’t. Or maybe the night your exboyfriend calls and threatens your life. Or maybe the night your kid is sick and you feel helpless.

Sometimes it feels like a sorority of skin, these girls, your sisters. You don’t start out knowing them, but you do in time, these girls slow to unfurl; and when they are gone a few too many days, you start to worry about them. I care more for these girls than any other coworkers I’ve had.

I think it’s because we all share something deeper: there’s something to this that I just can’t explain… and I do wonder if it’s a culture particular to the House. I hear about some catty clubs, some cutthroat clubs. But not ours, and that’s why Lilah and I chose it.

I do hope that somewhere, in other clubs, is a drunken cuddly Ds. ready to help and to listen; I hope there’s an Ag. to talk some loving common sense into a dramatic situation; a Da. with a smile and tight arms for hugging.

I hope for a club where not only your bouncers and managers protect you, but you feel protected by the very bond you share with your coworkers. As Da. said last night, “I don’t know if it’s different other places—but I know I’m happy for it here.”