this post made me realize how much American Apparel is made for stripper wardrobes
Have you heard about this supposed “hipster strip joint,” the Westway, in New York? Stories about it usually are sprinkled with HI-larious commentary about how funny it is to mix hot nightlife spots with tits. SORRY NEW YORK, Portland, OR has been doing this for years. Mary’s Club, Union Jacks, and Devils Point are all strip clubs that draw crowds heavier on leather jackets than raincoats. This results in varying levels of profitability for the strippers (needless to say, Portland hipsters are not necessarily a cash-laden customer base). They might stare for free, or they might give you fifty bucks to play “Roadrunner.”
Will the Westway actually operate like a strip club, though? From the coverage, it seems like it might just have topless go-go dancers—on one night a week, at that—and people got hyperbolic in calling it a strip joint. Can you get a lapdance? Is there going to be a DJ announcing the names of the dancers? Will the dancers be paid or will they be paying the club to work there? And most importantly, who wants to go with me the first Monday in April?
All photos courtesy Dick Hennessy Productions/Hypnox
ATTN: NSFW PHOTOS AFTER THE JUMP
At 10 p.m. last Thursday, I sat myself in the judges’ row at Club Rouge in downtown Portland for the fifth annual Vagina Beauty Pageant. There were six judges, two poles, 22 competitors and 23 vaginas. Wait, what?
“Didja hear the story?” pageant staff photographer Hypnox shouted over the music. “Apparently, when she was a young lady and used a tampon for the first time, she inserted it but the blood didn’t stop flowing.”
The Vagina Pageant has been criticized for its somewhat anatomically incorrect moniker. However, I’d like to state that while it might be called the Vulva Pageant, within seconds of the contest’s beginning I really did view the inside of a vaginal canal and would see several more throughout the evening.
I spied my coworker Juniper Knox from Lucky Devil Lounge across from me, fondling a blow up doll’s breasts and lip syncing to Aaliyah. Nearer, judge Rachel Reckless sat stretched and crossed her long tattooed legs, sipping her drink through platinum-capped teeth. Beside her was Jedidiah Aaker of Portlandia fame (he’s the bearded guy in the thong). To my left was Nik Sin, all 3’6” of him looking devilishly handsome. Nik has appeared on Oddities, Portlandia, Jerry Springer and Maury, and has toured the country doing his Mini Marilyn Manson impersonation. Judge Tres Shannon, of world-famous Voodoo Donut, looked across the room. “I should check on my friend, Poster Boy. He doesn’t know anybody,” he said.
“He smells bad,” I said.
“He has butter on his dick.”
That wasn’t what I expected to hear. Although I already feared that I knew the answer, I asked “Why?”
“He gets lap dances.”
Suddenly the house lights were raised, “so that the judges could see better.” I cringed at the thought of the inability to hide treacherous razor burn and blemishes. Red light absent, shit was gonna get real.
Last August, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the “pole tax,” otherwise known as the Sexually Oriented Business Fee, a $5-per-patron tax on strip club customers, and in January, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, letting the law stand. Collected at the door along with the cover charge, the tax is intended to fund sexual assault prevention programs and health insurance for low-income residents. In the year since, the Illinois legislature passed a similar bill, intended to fund rape crisis centers, which is now awaiting the governor’s signature. There’s also one on the table in California that would, you guessed it, fund “sexual assault treatment and prevention.”
Now the Houston City Council has passed its own pole tax, an additional $5-per-patron tax to fund the processing of rape kits. It was this instance that caught the eye of Jezebel’s Dodai Stewart, who proclaimed it “genius.” It’s not entirely clear if she was being serious or sarcastic when she wrote “Pretty smart to use money from folks who enjoy sexualized women to aid sexually assaulted women.” What, exactly, does that mean? That sexuality, sex work, and sexual assault are simply different points on the same curve of behavior? That a man who pays to look at strippers is somehow also responsible for the rape of another woman? How gross does this tax feel for strippers in Houston who have been raped?
I am excited to see more and more gentlemen’s club/exotic dancers taking this business seriously enough to take matters into their own hands. I think for far too long those of us in the adult entertainment industry have gotten engulfed in the socially acceptable invalidation of stripping as actual work, so that we’ve allowed ourselves to neglect so many of the labor violations, discrimination, and downright illegal actions by management, patrons, and staff that just couldn’t fly in other legal businesses.
I remember seeing dancers getting sexually and physically assaulted by patrons, while the bouncers employed because our naked bodies afforded them that job would do absolutely NOTHING. I recall one time a patron ejaculated on my ass as I gave him a standing lap dance at the bar. I went to the bouncer on duty at the time. He shrugged his shoulders and dismissed me.
The male staff who were employed by the club as stage managers or bouncers were also known to sexually violate us. Although they were employed by the same space we all occupied at the same damn time, they felt they were entitled to free feels and who knows what else from the dancers. If it was a nice day, they’d just insult you for even working in such a grimy industry.
Then there was the highway robbery in fees the club would charge the dancers who were coming in there to work—i.e., bring the establishment business. When I was in the game in the 90s, house fees were only just being implemented. They went from $5 to $20 in what seemed a matter of weeks.
Public perception often shapes law and policy, and vice versa. Without legal precedent or social acceptance we become prey to shoddy business practices.
I was 17 years old when I entered the clubs. I started with Al’s Mr. Wedge in the Bronx. It was the club I worked at exclusively then for a few reasons: Another club, The Goat, was closed by the time I got in the game. And besides, the legendary talk around this club sounded as if it was just too much for my bougie ass. For some reason, I just didn’t like Golden Lady, because its size and structure intimidated me.
And all my attempts at auditioning at clubs like Sue’s Rendezvous and whatever the name of the juice bar near Dyre Ave proved fruitless. I was too dark.
I recall once I went into Sue’s with a friend of mine, this mixed chic by the name of Jackie. Tall, light skinned, sorta looking like a young Mariah Carey, she was half White and Black. I went into Sue’s with her with the confidence that I would be allowed to dance in another club and increase my chances of making money. Young and naive, it didn’t dawn on me that when they told me Jackie could audition and I couldn’t it was the result of discrimination against my complexion.
Jackie ended up working at the high-end clubs in the city. Me and my Black ass had to keep it gutter and stay where they were not too picky.
I want people to stop being surprised that racism, colorism, and other biases against womxn (and Black people/or anyone with “dark” skin) exist. Determining who is worthy of making a living can be as superficial as how far from Whiteness they appear to be.
Last August, the 
Big news this week! Pop superstar extraordinaire Rihanna has changed careers. She’s finally going to pursue her true passion.