A new kind of six inches

By Diamond (she/her)

Popular media has been paying special attention to sex work lately. Stripping has become Hollywood's new ‘darling’ storyline. Season Two of The White Lotus, Anora’s Best Picture win and rumours that the best character in Euphoria (Maddie) will be becoming a stripper in Season Three are all signs the world can’t get enough of pleasers. 

I’ve tiptoed around sex work my whole life, flirted with it so far that it’s become my assumed occupation. My Instagram is full of chest shots, nights out and large disorganised parties. I’ve sold my nudes in my own dms and danced through Courtenay Place in ultra mini skirts and sheer tops. I watched Coyote Ugly and dreamed of dancing on a bar and slinging back shots in a cheetah print tank and skin tight leather flares. I loved watching dancers on TikTok talk about their shifts, and run errands at ULTA. The heels, the money counts, late nights dancing. I wasn’t stuck in this deluded dream of piles of money. I knew there’d be slow nights, where I’d be sitting reading book upon book (I’ve already finished five this year). Still, stripping excited me in so many ways. Plus — I loved convincing men at bars to buy me drinks. How hard would it be to convince them to pay to see me naked?

At my first trial I arrived with a bag full of slutty outfits, sheer slip dresses and babydoll tops. Sensing my hesitation to step out of my comfort zone, a bra and panties were picked out for me. I shivered through my first dance in a black I AM GIA lingerie set and platform leather boots that barely survived the floor work. Now, a couple of months in, it’s routine to exfoliate, tan, bronze and blush, pick out my music for the weeknights and get on stage. I started with no pole dancing experience, and I still need to start taking classes.

There is of course grime under the glitter, the amount of my income I have to put back into my appearance, fear of discovery and judgement and the allusive 'future job prospects' that I might lose. Your coworkers are your friends, cheerleaders and competition. Sometimes I feel like the sex symbol in an MTV music video, other times I feel like a trained pet duped into the illusion of choice. There’s a societal perception of strip clubs as dark, borderline illegible red-light district companies and strippers as desperate people, which leads customers into thinking they can dehumanise us and expect us to beg for dollars. Strippers are performers, dancers, a lot of us love what we do and have a lot of passion for our work. I’ve had my top pulled open, told to just do it for $5 or I don’t get anything, asked what $1 could get someone. I'll leave it up to your imagination on how those conversations went. 

As a worker you make your own rules, set your own boundaries. Occasionally those boundaries won’t be respected, just like they would in any other job, or on a night out in town (I’ve been groped in Mishmosh many more times than at work). I want to make it clear that strippers are not broken people in need of rescuing, we are not in dire need of validation or an enemy of your relationship. We are entertainers and human beings who have lives outside the club. You don’t treat people like shit at work, at the beach or on the street, so don’t treat them like shit if they happen to be in a bikini in front of you.

Despite all this, I still love my job. I still get excited when I have a new outfit to debut and enjoy watching the other dancers on stage. It strikes me how every girl has a unique way of commanding attention, some move slowly and sensually, smiling as they turn their bodies, others dance quickly, clacking their heels and twerking to the beat. Every night I'm surrounded by an array of different bodies, all desirable in their own way.

I still get anxious before my first dance of the night, but slowly as I focus on the music and think about the hottest way I can arch my back, kick my feet up in the air, and run my fingers over my skin the fear fades away and the thrill takes over. I thought the industry would chew me up and spit me out, that I wouldn’t be able to keep myself afloat, but so many dancers were incredibly kind and supportive.

There’s something about packing a bag of beautiful sateen sets, black lace and doing my makeup. It’s like getting ready to go out to town and do my favourite thing in the world: talk to strangers. Instead of dragging my friends to Dakota's smoko, and slipping Mishmosh men’s vapes into my friends bra, I’m guiding men and women to the bar, chatting about nothing and everything, ranting about Uni and talking about myself. There's an order to the chaos — a job to be done under all the music and smoke screens.

It reminds me of when I used to work in luxury retail, I’d sell $12,000 crystal toucans and glass costume jewelry. I used to love listening to customers, engaging with them, trying to crack the code of what was holding them back. Even though we received hourly pay, there were commission bonuses, and I learned to train my envy into excitement when my coworker would put through a huge sale. I’m still learning to apply that to my work now; afterall, it’s all a chase versus attract mentality, the more time I look at others around me the less I focus on myself and what I can do to ‘work the floor’.

A couple of years ago I was at the height of my delayed ‘rebellious’ phase. I went out every weekend, drank every free drink and shot that was offered to me. I explored kink and casual sex, and was basically experiencing peak levels of libido. I am so happy I didn’t start working then: while it would’ve made sense, I would’ve been way more volatile and at risk of letting the job consume me. A couple years ago I’d fall for customers, drink too much, over objectify myself and put myself at risk. Now, in my almost post freak caterpillar phase, I’m a cocooning homebody. After work the only thing I crave is some gentle vanilla sex and a very intense everything shower.

Before I began I had this debilitating fear of judgment, that crossing the line and working at a strip club was losing, or failing in some way. That I’d fallen victim to some kind of power I didn’t even know existed or believed in, that this was a win in some way for my exes or men that had slutshamed me in the past. But after feeling this way and moving past it, I ultimately don’t care, this job brings me joy and financial freedom. I can choose to not take a tip or go for a dance.

Stripping has connected me to my inner self, this raw primal part of me. I feel so much more freedom and connection between the words ‘need’ and ‘want’. More of my wants have become my needs, I listen to my body more, when it aches I soothe it, when it hungers I feed it. Working in an office I felt pressured to ignore myself, to work through lunch breaks to meet the tight deadline, to not buy food because pay day was coming up. Dancing feels more intrinsic. I am constantly answering questions about myself, remembering where I come from, my studies, my values.

I get to invest in local artists, support the local economy, go out to eat more, and thrive during a year of study that I thought I’d be starving in. It reminds me to bring pleasure into my everyday, to focus on the scent of my body wash, the feeling of knots in my muscles slowly being unwound, the pull inside of me to have fun, to indulge in the richness of a sensual world I used to only dip my fingers in. Stripping is good money but hard work, and every club and every country is different. I still consume ‘day in the life’ and ‘come work a shift with me’ videos from American and Australian dancers, however, they aren’t a true reflection of what you’re going to experience in New Zealand. I urge everyone who holds an opinion on strippers and the industry to step foot inside of a club, and listen to dancers when we talk about our work. We know our own empowerment, we know our own bodies.

My experience with stripping and my feelings on it do come from a place of privilege: stripping is a side hustle for me. If I injured myself and couldn’t work I have other sources of income to keep me afloat. For other dancers, stripping is their sole source of income. A lot of dancers are disabled or deal with chronic pain and this job is one of the only that works for them. Knowing this, I always promote my fellow dancers and encourage customers to pick them for a private dance.

I’m still just a baby stripper, I’ve only just ordered my fifth pair of heels, but I don’t plan on hanging them up anytime soon.