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Stripper Music Monday: Nickelback Edition

We've all done it.
We’ve all done it.

I love Nickelback.

Since the dawn of time it has been quite trendy to hate them. But with last summer’s resurgence of normcore, maybe Nickelback finally has a place in the lexicon of pop culture’s tastemakers.

And this is Stripper Music Monday and since when do strippers give a fuck about being ahead of the curve regarding trend forecasting? We don’t. We care about money. When the DJ makes some lethargic attempt at a beat-match to crank up the latest Nickelback jam, a stripper knows she’s about to make some coin.

Because every single Nickelback releases immediately becomes the next douche anthem.

Naked Music Monday: Take Your Vote to the Poles

vote-strippersI don’t want to alarm anyone, but tomorrow is election day.  Are you registered to vote? Good. Do you know your polling location? Excellent. Got a handle on the candidates’ platforms? Fantastic! Sounds like you’re ready to vote.

Voting for president as a sex worker for most feels somewhere between futile and downright alienating. It’s not like a new president is going to make sex work any less criminalized, or anti-trafficking hysteria any less rabid. But you can still head to the polls and vote in your local elections, which are ten times more important and actually will directly affect your day-to-day life. Speaking of local elections: If you’re in California, you need to vote NO on Proposition 60, the measure that would make condom usage mandatory for porn workers.

A common refrain I hear in progressive circles is that “your vote doesn’t matter anyway,” that voting is a sham, that the electoral college has rendered our democracy a joke. I can’t argue against those sentiments, but maybe keep them to yourself on election day? Smugly quipping “lol ur vote doesn’t matter  lolzz” is a pretty dismissive slap to a friend of yours who may be more marginalized than you, or to the person who patiently navigated through a system of voter suppression to get their ballot counted.

Sorry about all that! Nobody likes it when their favorite neighborhood sex worker blog condescends to them about what they should do on Tuesday. Moving on!

What I’m going to be doing on Tuesday (besides voting) is stripping and the thing that sucks the most about working on election day is that every customer wants to ask you who you voted for and then tell you why your vote is wrong. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing, also it’s impolite to ask strippers who they voted for,” Socrates once said. Not one strip club customer listened.

Stripper Music Monday: Picks From a Queer DJ

There was a long time when I first started working as a strip club DJ when I’d engage in small talk with customers. Almost always it led to them saying “You must have the best job in the world!” It was hard to understand why. I don’t have benefits. Trying to get days off is a daunting effort, and when I have to cover for another DJ I am yelled at for reaching overtime. I’m the whipping boy of management and certain dancers. Then the slow realization dawns of why they think it’s so great: I get to look at naked women all day.

So I wonder what they’d think if they knew they were talking to a fag (well, queer male, in the Rainer Werner Fassbinder/Paul Bowles sense. I’m attracted to women romantically and intellectually, but mostly sleep with men) who remains pretty indifferent to all the nudity. But since I don’t really want to discuss any more with them, or ruin any part of the illusion that comes with the territory, I nod and say “Yup,” then proceed back to my booth.

I’ve worked at two different clubs and there’s not much to the job. I come in, turn on the sound equipment and lights, put music on shuffle and wait out the day until I can clock out, chatting with the dancers or staff when free or not reading a book. I’m not out to my coworkers by any means for fear of being fired. In an industry that hires solely on looks and can fire someone for such bullshit excuses as saying no to a drink when already very drunk or trying to signal a customer over from stage, I’m sure a queer man in a highly hetero male space would cause waves.

Stripper Music Monday: New Synth-Pop Edition

Playing all or any of these songs has resulted in at least one customer per set asking me which 80s band was responsible. “Need You Now” in particular always makes me imagine some sort of John Hughes movie montage. Play these and confuse your 40-to-50-year-old customers!

Stripper Music Monday: The Sad Stripper Trope Exemplified

Reposted with permission from Jacq the Stripper.

I found this music video. It made me so angry I wanted to vomit.


(Eds. note: this song is absolutely terrible.)

Behold, another sad girl who “drinks all day, dances all night.” She’s sad; she misses her daddy; she’s a cutter; her boss is abusive and – gasp! – she does drugs.

This is the story line of Beech’s new music video, “Dance for the Money.”

About four seconds into it, I want to throw my laptop across the room.

First of all, if we’re dancing all night, we are also probably drinking at the same time. During the day, we are SLEEPING. BECAUSE WE ARE TIRED FROM DANCING FOR YOUR JUDGY SELF.

This sad stripper trope has got to stop.