Note: All names have been changed for the confidentiality of those interviewed.
It's Friday night and the girls are ready to head out. Jennifer's sweet face is adorned with make up and subtle glitter. Katie's clothes hug her bronze body and move over her luscious curves as if a second skin. These two best friends are off to work. They're going to shake their bodies up on stage, completely naked.
Here's the honest, bare naked truth: strippers are ordinary people. Not all are drug users. Many aren't whores. Most are just trying to make ends meet.
Jennifer and Katie were seniors in high school at the time they started stripping. Katie starts from the beginning, "I called Jennifer and said hey I need $10,000 [for tattooing school], and I need to make it fast, so you should be a stripper with me."
Way kept her answer simple and to the point: "um, ok."
That very night, at 2 am., they auditioned. And made it.
Both made $10,000. And more. The goal was to make enough money to not burden their parents with paying for their education.
However, Katie's mom loathed her daughter stripping. Noxima (one of Katie's former roommates and a friend to both girls) gives a summary of the mother's reaction "No daughter of mine is going to be a stripper. If you can't abide by my rules, then get out."
Katie moved out and into an apartment with a few other roommates. Jennifer still lived at home as her mother remained unaware that she stripped. Noxima testifies by saying that "her mom is a sweet woman, but kind of daft."
Way spent a lot of time at Katie's shared apartment. Noxima describes life at the apartment: "They were mature, but they were still teenagers." Both Katie and Jennifer were guilty of leaving dirty dishes in the sink and wet towels on the floor. However, when asked, they would clean up their messes. And they were always good about paying their fair share of the bills.
Brandon (a friend and former roommate of Katie and Jennifer) describes what it was like living with these two strippers. "It was interesting. They definitely had a bit of a wild side ... a few parties ... a little bit of typical girl drama ... it was like living with two typical college students. At first it was like holy shit this is crazy, then it was like, 'ok'. You'd think living with strippers there'd be naked girls everywhere (that's the thought that goes through any guys mind). After a few months you think 'they're just roommates. When they're not stripping they're regular people'."
Katie and Jennifer made good money as strippers. Katie mentions that they easily made $30,000 (as they made about $300 a night). The job was taxing though. Katie began elaborating by saying, "Physically, it takes a toll on you," when Jennifer chimed in, "Not only the heels but then the pole, like the first time you go up on the pole your whole thighs are black and blue."
Worse yet, it was mentally exhausting. Jennifer says, "I know for me personally it wears on me. I could only do it twice a week or else I would feel overwhelmed...you just start feeling like a whore."
Jennifer and Katie fought the emotional overload by remembering to separate stripping from sex. Katie says, "I can either be me, or I can be a stripper." Jennifer describes the experience as being like acting. "I'm just going to be an actor right now. I'm going to be this [other] girl. And when I'm done I'm going to take off all my stripping stuff and just be myself again."
While the job was a challenge, it gave both Katie and Jennifer a new found confidence they'd never had before. Katie explains, "I feel so comfortable in my own skin. Overall I just feel so comfortable with myself. I'm glad I did it."
Jennifer says, "There's a few negative things here and there, but they're just blown away by all the positives. You get so many compliments and you're like 'wow, I don't look as bad as I thought I did'. You just feel good about yourself. And I paid for school, so I felt self-worth, and I felt like I was independent and that I was doing stuff with my life."
Brandon noticed the change in confidence in both girls. "Over time Katie got more confident. Jennifer got a lot more confident and very much as a result of that [stripping]. Jennifer went from kind of being unsure of herself to being a lot more sure of what she wants out of life."
Right now, both girls are done with stripping. Katie is attending school for nursing and Jennifer is studying physical therapy while working part time at Goodwill. Katie and Jennifer are both relieved to not have to strip anymore. Jennifer comments on her job:
"I love it ... I enjoy it a lot more than stripping."
Katie also would rather do "normal" work. "The difference is indescribable. You can't compare the two."
Katie has some enlightening secrets about the world of stripping: "At first we just assumed that the people working there would be crack-heads and they just care about making that extra buck and they don't care how they do it.We thought we'd be the only 'decent' people working there. We figured that if we stuck together that we wouldn't get caught up in the drug world or anything like that."
Jennifer adds, "A lot of people are parents and college students just like us. We've seen so many girls at school that strip. And a few of them have other jobs too. They just needed more money to get by ... it's different than you might think."
Katie concludes about how we as a society should view people that strip: "People should actually talk to someone [one of the strippers] before they judge them. People should bite their tongues and at least take into consideration that maybe someone who does something like that [stripping] isn't doing it because they're a whore or because they're a druggie. Maybe the case is they're trying to get by just like everybody else."
At a Glance:
Strippers can be loved too
Issues of stripping
What would you do?
