And then there were four one seeds and a ten seed left. Readers, your final candidates. Voting is open until midnight TONIGHT and the championship match will be announced tomorrow with voting open until Sunday night. But let’s be honest, “Pony” or “Closer,” that’s the real contest. Here’s the full bracket if you’d like to review how the contest has played out up until now.
Hooking is definitely one of the better jobs I’ve had, but it’s still a job, and sometimes it gets me down. A slow week, a jerk client, a particularly gross newspaper article, being outed by a friend—it can be hard to keep your spirits up and your head in the money-making mindset amid all that noise. At those times, I like to take refuge in quality pop music and pithy political analysis. These songs combine both.
Dolly Parton, “9 to 5”
We all gotta work, and Dolly Parton (my hero) has always been pretty savvy about using what she’s got to get ahead. She also knows it’s not easy, and she never sugar-coats it either. If there’s a catchier, more incisive pop song about working women negotiating capitalism’s daily grind, I want to hear about it (I mean that, please tell me about it, I love that shit). This song never fails to perk me up before a particularly dire day or night of work. Whichever 9 to 5 you work, Dolly is there for you.
Salt-n-Pepa, “None of Your Business”
“Opinions are like assholes and everybody’s got one”.
Oh, Khia. Tell us how you really feel. This probably won’t have as solid a place in the stripper canon as “My Neck, My Back (Lick It),” but it’s just as subtle.
Songwriters seem to love sex workers, no matter how little they may actually know about us. And on a superficial level, we seem like pretty good song material. We’re sexual, illegal, naughty, and easy to desire and pity at the same time. You want to protect us from the dirty men who pay us for sex, yet you secretly still kind of want it for yourself (see “Roxanne,” below).
Hookers provide instant layers of emotional complexity. Throw one in your song, and viola: an edgy, sexy hit single, depressing and tantalizing all at once. (If you find the hooker-heroine of your song isn’t pitiful enough, just add drugs and that should balance things out.) Charlotte and I sifted through some sex worker songs and rated them, 1-10 based on how obnoxious or pleasing they are to hear if you’re an actual sex worker.
We’d love to hear from readers too, on what songs make you smile or cringe. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Friday is Valentine’s Day, that special day wherein we celebrate patriarchal norms and reinforce insulting gender stereotypes with rampant consumerism.
So romantic.
Valentine’s Day is one of the those special “off” days that happen every-so-often in the strip club. Working the night of one these off days is never business-as-usual—it’s usually, business-as-oh-my-God-did-that-just-happen. The day of Cupid falls on a Friday this year, and there’s going to be a full moon.
Get ready.