Great post!

I should chat with you about this sometime, because I’ve been torn with what to tell people when they question my pole dancing or cut it down.

A lot of the posts you have written have really opened my eyes a bit, because in the beginning when I first began pole dancing, my thinking was a bit backwards.

Call ya soon!

What a thought provoking blog!
And good question.

I would never support nor encourage women to become strippers or prostitutes (i’ll explain why). But I also don’t look down self righteously on women who do/are prostitutes and strippers. People do ask me if I am a stripper because I teach the wonderful, beautiful art of pole and exotic dance. To them I just say “no”.
I don’t think you have to support it in order to to avoid being judgmental and self righteous.
I choose to lovingly disagree. I choose to discourage it when I can. I earnestly care about women as I am a wife, sister and mother to 2 little girls.
Like you said, not all women who are in this field are victims. Some choose it quite willingly. But why?
I believe that some women feel forced into these fields due to economic hardship and fears, but others choose because of greed and lust.
I don’t believe women in these professions are taking good care of themselves and I don’t believe it is healthy on a physical, mental, emotional or spiritual level. How can it be? I would hope for true love for EVERY woman. I hope for every woman to be truly valued and adored. Not used for sexual gratification.
It is startling how supportive our culture is becoming of things that are so destructive. It is clear to me that if you are engaging in pornography or prostitution or stripping you are harming many people. I take the men into consideration here as well. Addiction has been a serious problem for men. These men are our brothers, fathers, husbands and friends. Those who believe that looking at porn is harmless are fooling themselves and are truly naive.
I think that many become ‘supporters’ of evil things to try to correct all the wrong of those that have been cruel, self righteous and plain old judgmental. Many have been mistreated to be sure. There is of course a middle ground. The pendulum always swings from one extreme to the other.
The reason why I don’t believe that stripping or prostitution are healthy for women is because I believe we are spiritual beings. I believe we have a soul and that our sexuality is precious. Not disposable like our culture keeps telling us. I think you would have to be atheist to be able to say that stripping and prostitution are o.k for a woman. (If you don’t believe is God life is hopeless, so it doesn’t matter what you do.) Sex and our souls are completely united. When we use sex to get money, love or because we are afraid we won’t survive we are damaging a beautiful and wonderful sexuality. “whatever makes you feel good right now must be right!”. That belief is a lie.
Pope John Paul (of all people) once said that the thing wrong with pornography is that it doesn’t show enough of a woman-it doesn’t reveal her as a woman made in the image of God.
Pornography portrays just the exterior of a woman. A shell. This shell is used for sexual gratification only! How sad is that? You cannot say that pornography does not devalue a woman.
In my blog “5 reasons you shouldn’t dance for him” I wrote this: It is disturbing to me how casual sex has become. In our culture it has become the equivalent of simple physical function, such as a sneeze or an itch to be scratched, divorced from any spiritual or emotional value. On this I would encourage women to search their own hearts. (sometimes our hearts have become to hardened to hear anything). If you believe that exchanging money for sex is o.k, than you clearly don’t value yourself. I love you weather you value yourself or not. I value you and I am going to tell you the truth.
I want more for women! MORE.

I am a pole dancer and a stripper. I love the beautiful art of pole dancing and I work as a stripper. I liked the way you wrote your post and thought I would help contribute to your question of, “If it’s wrong for pole dancers to look down on strippers, why is it okay for strippers to look down on prostitutes?”

I think you nailed the pole dancers looking down on strippers portion.

As a dancer, I don’t look down on prostitutes. However I do not welcome them in my club. The reason is simple. I am not willing to compete for customers on their level. I am not willing to preform sexual acts and favors for money. By doing so, I lose money and potential clients. Many strip club managers and owners, including mine, encourage sexual interaction between dancers and customers. It makes them more money.

I believe that strippers get a bad reputation because it is assumed that we are all selling ourselves for money. Angi was very opinionated about that.

Some of the things Angi writes echo the cliche beliefs that people often associate with strippers.

She says, “I believe that some women feel forced into these fields due to economic hardship and fears, but others choose because of greed and lust.”

She gives two example of strippers here, women who are forced into the profession and money hungry women. This is not necessarily true of all strippers. It is fair to say that some or several women turn to dancing because of this. It is unfair to assume that all strippers dance because of this.

No one forces me to dance. I am not greedy . I am a little confused on her use of lustful. I believe she means to use it in a sexual way. While strippers are sexual, it brings me no joy when a guy tries to grab me where he shouldn’t. I am a college student working on my masters degree in business management. I used to break my back as a co-manager for Bath and Body Works. There, I was unable to continue my education, I was financially and mentally taken advantage of by my regional manager and my store manager for four years. If anything dancing, was a chance to reclaim my life and better myself.

Angi also writes, “I don’t believe women in these professions are taking good care of themselves and I don’t believe it is healthy on a physical, mental, emotional or spiritual level. How can it be? I would hope for true love for EVERY woman. I hope for every woman to be truly valued and adored. Not used for sexual gratification.”

I can understand that these are her personal beliefs, but I can not agree with them. It is wrong to claim that all strippers adhere to one standard. Sure anyone woman that has legs and breasts, no matter the amount cellulite or how saggy, can work as a stripper. However, to make the most money and work in the best environment, i.e. elite clubs with the best patrons, a woman has to look her best, feel her best on a mental and spiritual level. I think too many people get confused with the cliche lifestyles of strippers and the job of a stripper. If you went to work at your office, or store, or etc., and you were not taking care of yourself, would you be able to work well? Would you be able to do your job. Probably, not.

I choose stripping as my profession, not my life.

From what Angi wrote, it seems, that she believes strippers and prostitutes to be involved in the same profession. Strippers sell a fantasy, they do not sell sex. Prostitutes sell sex.

I apologize for the long post, but felt that strippers deserved a positive light for once.

Ironically, many strippers look down on dancer who dance for fitness. Food for thought.

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Evalynn, thank you for the wonderful post!!! You said all the things I was thinking.

I, too, have been a stripper and don’t look down on prostitutes. Yet I found myself constantly battling the misconception that they are one and the same. This assumption not only made things harder for me when talking to customers, but it also spills out into my “real” life. When I say, “I was a stripper, not a prostitute,” I am not saying it in a demeaning way… I’m simply explaining my truth.

I also want to say that I am a VERY spiritual person. I would pray every night before I went into the club that I would help people see the spark of God in themselves. Through stripping, I learned to love and appreciate myself (both physically and personality-wise). I met a few great men who started as customers and turned into friends. Even though I haven’t been dancing for a few years now, we check up on each other from time to time.

I told a ‘friend’ once that I had been a stripper. Her response was, “Well, as long as you learned from it…” (like it had been a big mistake). I wish people would remember that, with sex work (just like everything else), some people have bad experiences but some people have good experiences too.

Thanks for bringing up a topic that needs to be discussed!

Evalynn, Kelly, thank you both!
I’m not a stripper, not a prostitute, not even a pole dancer (yet) but simply the mother of 3 girls that that had a strange situation in live with strippers/prostitutes/husband and decided to see for herself what kind of world is that! I found that sometimes things are very bad, both in prostitution and stripping clubs, but I went to a strip club, all by myself, and I talked to the girls, saw where they changed their clothes, heard a little bit of their lives, and, all of the suden, their live/work is not as glamorous as we think! On the other hand, it’s not all bad and dirty and many of us think. I was, during a long period of time, obcessed with strippers and prostitutes, and found myself digging harder to get there, wherever ‘there’ was… I found out that I, in my 45′s, have an open mentality about these matters, and DON’T LOOK DOWN either on strippers or prostitutes. I myself couldn’t bring myself doing such a job (I don’t have the right body or the skils to do it), but I really don’t condemn. I guess that one should do what one can to make yourself happy. I thanked you both earlier and now again because reading what you wrote gave me that feeling of “Great! Here’s some gals that really dig what they do, and DON’T CARE MUCH ABOUT THE OPINION that some Dick, Tom or Harry have.” Good for you, and for me, for evolving….

Wow! This is sooo well articulated and thoughtful. I remember taking Women’s Studies in university and having to sit in class and run the gamut of emotions while listening to the arguments of well-intentioned feminists who had very preconceived notions about the sex trade. There were things I loved about WS and I developed excellent critical thinking skills in those classes, but as a former stripper, I felt very degraded by the very people who (ironically) were seeking to save womankind from degradation!
Thank you so much for posting this!!!!

Great post! I think the one thing I enjoy most is how your posts bring forth true critical thinking. To many “open minded” people truly don’t think critically! Keep em coming!!

I loved the post Jen! Gives me hope we’re heading for a better world in truest spiritual sense.

S

I really loved this post. I have been very curious about the line between being a sexual being and a sexual object and I think this post brings out a lot of good points. One thing I would like to point out is that although many feminists speak out against porn and sex work, there are many feminists that do the opposite and embrace female sexuality in whatever way a woman chooses to express it. You should check out BUST magazine. Anyway, thanks again for this great post.