Mama’s Fancy Stripper Heels: Working Mothers Dish
[A] person’s labor is not indicative of their parenting.
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Posts Tagged: stripping
STRIPPERDADDY
My thoughts hovered above the scene pondering the reasons why and time felt like the waves of a puddle lapping against cracked asphalt.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #75: Deborah Kampmeier
I met Deborah Kampmeier at a workshop in November. We were two weeks post-election; the room was raw with emotion, and electric with conversations about resistance. This tall, badass woman dressed in all black sauntered into the room, and chose a seat at the table. When she read, my solar plexus exploded, and I couldn’t stop […]
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The Truth About Lying
My gut is a red, fiery drum, a beacon of rosy light. My instinct to run is a bright radioactive pink arrow, a bloody blade. I was correct.
...moreFringe Benefits
A pervasive, and frustrating, myth is that dancing pays enough for us to stop complaining—that we get paid enough to be cool with however we’re treated. But that’s not true. For the Times, Rumpus friend and contributor Antonia Crane details the discrimination and exploitation professional strippers often encounter in the workplace.
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My Daughter at the Blue Venus
My daughter has finished experimenting with chemicals. Now she is experimenting with life.
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Ice, Ice Baby: A Cool Conversation with Bobby J. Robby, Stripper by Day, Drag King by Night
Bobby J. Robby talks about labor issues, gender identity, and the perils of dating other dancers.
...moreLosing the Lusty
The women who danced at the Lusty Lady Theatre were pierced and collared and well-read. When they weren’t breathing fire or taking writing classes, they stripped.
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Albums of our Lives: Rufus Wainwright’s Poses
If I had written a list of pros and cons, I might have seen how moving to Austin from Seattle with a boyfriend who had just kicked heroin, and with stripping as my only job prospect, was not a recipe for success. Two years later, I was still floundering. “Always make sure you’re running toward […]
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Captain Save-A-Ho
I’d been down that road a million times before and had learned the hard way that unless you had some kind of special line just for them, it never paid to give a client your phone number.
...moreLegs That Just Won’t Quit
Rumpus columnist Antonia Crane has a piece up at Salon about the curse/blessing of being a stripper with thick legs. A preview: We’d done this before, dancing for a week in Hawaii and making piles of cash. My goal was to pay my student loans; Trixie’s was her credit card debt. We planned to stay sober. […]
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Here Comes the Girl
I didn’t analyze production levels or consider marketing strategies. I didn’t say to myself, “Tonight you’re going to get with the jack-off program.” I was a dime-a-dozen girl doing a customer service job, and that job demanded more and more of me whether I liked it or not.
...moreRECESSION SEX WORKERS #12: Miss Marty, Mother of Strippers
New Orleans has a textured and macabre history when it comes to the sex industry, particularly regarding house moms–that hybrid of manager, referee and babysitter.
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RECESSION SEX WORKERS #8: The Sex and Politics of Antonia Crane
Antonia Crane has worked many jobs in the sex industry. She’s done escort, BDSM, porn, and stripping. She’s also been very engaged with sex worker activism.
...moreA Survey of the Stripper Memoir
Early on in her stripper memoir Diablo Cody declares “strippers are the most fascinating, inscrutable animals I’d ever observed.” If the number of stripper memoirs that have appeared in the past few years are anything to go by, publishers agree. For a marginalized profession strippers are surprisingly willing to publish their stories.
...moreRecession Strippers #1: The Laura Beth Experience
Dancers always want to quit but rarely do. The cliché is that sex workers are stuck. But, it’s more complex than that. Dancers quit for years but always come back because leaving the sex industry is difficult.
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