Tonight I've been reading over just about every post The Angry Stripper has posted in hopes of learning something new I could use when I came across this post.
You see, I have a confession to make that I really don't want to make...
I'm a broke stripper.
I'm a broke stripper with no drinking, drug or really even any shopping habits (other than thrifting occaisionally) who has no other bills than her car, insurance, rent, phone and food. Oh right, utitlities... Point being, this (broke) stripper has no huge loans to pay off and can't seem to get money into savings. SAVINGS!
Why am I poor? Good question... please help me out with an answer.
Let's look at the facts of my day
1) bust my ass to look good naked (we'll break this down further)
a) shower and make sure everything smells clean
b) I take the time to shave my legs
c) I also take the time and deal with the pain of shaving the vag, I don't care if they like hair or not, whatever I do with it still means I'm taking time on it and it's again for customer enjoyment (also working around razor burn is really effing difficult no matter what methods you use, I have sensitive skin, this take a lot of work)
d) put on make up (and it's not cheap)
e) put on fake eyelashes
f) style my hair (whether flat iron or curl this takes a good 45 minutes, I have long and all natural hair)
g) keep my nails groomed
(I'm sure there is more but I'm tired and ready to move on)
2) I find an outfit that compliments my body perfectly and makes them want to see more...
3) I wear heals bigger than the average customer's dick
4) all night
5) dancing
6) and on the pole
7) I talk to the customers
8) and deal with sob stories,
9) or guys treating the club like a dating service,
10) or even better a whore house.
11) I make an effort to improve all moves I do to make them look better and sexier to the customer
12) I also work to improve my pole tricks, I haven't decided if this ends up just being for me but oh well
13) I bruise and batter my body doing #11 and 12
14) I don't get paid an hourly wage
All of those things seem like good reasons to be making an average of AT LEAST $200 a night. Lately I've been lucky to make $450 a week (working at LEAST 5 days, and at LEAST 5 hours per day).
Let's break that down shall we? $450 divided by (at the least) 31 hours
$14/hour
About $14 dollars an hour... at best
Yes you can argue that $14 is better than minimum wage but minimum wage isn't paying for a normal lifestyle AND minimum wage isn't getting naked, or even semi naked... and doing something other than sitting at a desk.
$14 an hour means less than one dance an hour. Or less than $20 for two stage sets which means 4 songs...
$14 dollars an hour means me wanted to pulverize customers and other strippers a like when I hear "what do I get with that" when I ask them for dances. Or "I don't want a dance but you're really intriguing, can I get your number?" No mother fucker you can't. If I had a hundy for every girlfriend hunter I had I'd be set. But that's just the problem isn't it? Girlfriend hunters have no money, they just want you to give them dances where they can touch for free in their house, and tell them you like them, and get all mushy over how wonderful they are, and quit stripping because they don't want to "share" you. Can you tell by this rant how far my finger is down my throat right now? Gag.
I'm not sure why I'm so broke unless this is a common Portland thing. I don't need to be overly famous, though I would like it if I were well known and paid well. I get it, Portland has a lot of strip clubs where just about anyone, oh wait, NOPE, anyone, can strip if they want to, but I'm fucking pretty. Like unicorn status pretty (I know because some customer told me so...wtf). But seriously, I use to be really self conscious and self loathing but if there is one thing I've gained in my path to being fed up it is a knowledge that I deserve far more money than I am making.
But why D? All you do is take off your clothes?
Oh really, that's all I do huh. Let's see you try it lame girl in the back glaring or ugly male at my rack thinking he can give his opinion on every inch of my body. Lets see you get up here, bust out these moves, hide your razor burned balls, wear skimpy outfits, walk in 7 inch heals, no wait, DANCE in 7 inch heals AND make it all look good/that you like doing it. And that's just the mother fucking beginning.
Sarah, from The Angry Stripper says it best like this:
"$200 a night is not good money. $300 a night is only okay money. $400 is getting a bit better … "
If I were making $200 a night which would be about $40 an hour I would be so stoked. Sad, I know.
Time to move on to a new club or five? Yes, yes I think so.
Now go pay your local stripper.
-D
You're probably just venting, but if you don't like your job so much why are you doing it? I'm still waiting for the "Why I do it" article as you see.
ReplyDeleteI used to think you guys made a bunch of money. Then I read a lot and thought you made decent money. Then I read some more and realized some make great money and some make crap money.
Why so much work for so little?
$450 for 31 hours...I make about $700 for 50 hours on a normal work week. But I don't go through the bull crap of looking pretty and going to nail salons and tanning beds in my 'free' time. So that definitely sucks, sorry.
I was in the hospital for a few days last week after I had my appendix removed. My roommate was an old (50 something) man who had broken his back at 21 and thus couldn't use the toilet which of course meant he had to be cleaned up.
Lying there in my bed, trying not to think too much on the smell, I wondered how those young nursing assistants could do such a job for $11 an hour. Literally wiping somebody else's ass. I mean, they were genuinely helping someone with something they couldn't do. And all the while I saw them they were smiling and hushing the patient when he apologized for what he couldn't help doing.
I gotta say. The days I was in the hospital, incapacitated, I was so thankful to the staff there. 12 hour shifts that commonly turned into 14. Working through the night. On-call. The nurses were very understanding of me not liking needles, took the extra time to inject the morphine into my IV slowly so it wouldn't burn, and always asked if I needed something. They were just doing their job, but it didn't feel that way. I felt a special glow from them. I could see how tough they were. Tough as nails, but so very very nice.
Were they there for the money? Did they genuinely like doing that job? Perhaps it was somewhere to start their nursing career at. Maybe it was rewarding to their inner self.
You like to dance. So much so it seems you put up with a lot of crap to do so. To me you're a mystery. You're the CNA cleaning bottoms into the morning with a smile and I have no idea why.