Stupid Stripper Myths People Still Believe

No, we’re not all sleeping with customers, stealing husbands, and swimming through piles of cash like horny little Scrooge McDucks

Photo by Brian Lawson on Unsplash

It’s interesting, the moment you let someone know you’re a dancer you can correctly assume that a number of stereotypes are circling through their heads. Suddenly they have a clear picture on who you are as a person, what you do and what your relationship with your father was like growing up.

So, for public education purposes, here are some stupid stripper myths people still believe.

Strippers are all dying to steal your boyfriend

Trust me, most of us do not want your boyfriend.

If he’s in the club saying things like “I’m not normally like this” while behaving exactly “like this”, he is not the grand prize you think he is.

And now that we know he’s here in the strip club with us (when you’re at home), we aren’t naïve enough to think we’d somehow be the exception.

Also, it’s work — we are just doing our job.

You can keep him. With love.

The pole does all the work

Let me tell you. Pole dancing is flipping HARD. Those girls you see gliding around the pole effortlessly, their limbs contorted in intricate poses?

They are athletes, it’s as simple as that. A lot of hard work and bruises and calluses goes into learning this art to entertain you all and you should have your (plentiful) tips ready in appreciation.

It’s easy money

Approach strangers all night, absorb rejection with grace, stay looking gorgeous 24/7, keep your game face on at all times, loooooong hours on 7 inch stilettos, answer and dodge every invasive question known to man and learn to hustle business like your rent depends on it — because it does.

Nothing easy about that, love.

Every stripper has daddy issues

This line is so tired it needs magnesium and an early night. I wonder if people love this myth because it lets them feel psychologically superior? We all seem to love that feeling of being ‘one-up’ on someone.

Maybe some dancers have father issues. But so do accountants and nurses and lawyers. I’ve dated a very successful man who was completely enmeshed with his mother and father, it was mind-blowing to witness.

Sometimes a woman is just good looking, pragmatic, and excellent at converting male attention in this patriarchal-defined society.

It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

Strippers are all man-haters

No. But we do get an accelerated education.

We see the sweet ones, the lonely ones, the chaotic ones, the married ones acting single, the generous ones, the stingy ones, the list goes on.

If anything, stripping gives you a very rich and layered understanding of men.

We quickly learn that men are capable of being adorable and appalling. And for some dancers that have been in the business a long time, the list of “shitty-man acts” starts to add up.

We’re all best friends backstage

I get it. You see us all smiling at each other and being “PC politeness” out on the club floor. And sometimes backstage is a sisterhood.

But there is also competition, passive aggression, one girl crying in the corner, another girl sabotaging a fellow dancer’s regular, and someone drifting around topless that doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

Much like real life, I think.

We’re all rolling in cash

Some nights, yes. Some nights you walk out wondering if it’s really all worth it.

Other nights you’ve paid house fee, tipped every man and their dog, shaved half your body, stamped on a personality, and spent five hours pretending Trevor from construction is fascinating — only to have the club take the bulk of your income and leave you with an unrelenting headache.

Yes, there is at times, incredible money. But it depends on the day, the state, the club, the customers, the fees and fines, and your own desire to “get it”.

Strippers are dumb

This one is a personal bug-bear of mine.

My favorite people I’ve met dancing have been incredibly well educated. Girls paying their way through college, working and studying at the same time. The girl who took a sabbatical from nursing, dancing her way around the world. The girl who was fluent in three languages and owned a flower shop back home. The girl who danced by night and did arbitrage trading during the day.

I find it interesting that I get more grammar-correction ‘comments’ on my articles than other writers do. Yes, sometimes I get it wrong, I’m not a professional writer. But part of me wonders if people enjoy pointing it out more when it’s me, feeding into the stereotype — that “stupid stripper” that can’t get it right.

Or… I could be reading into things — I do that too sometimes.

Like any job, dancing can be everything at the same time. Empowering, degrading, funny, lucrative, exhausting, absurd, and weirdly educational.

It can leave us flying high or feeling completely depleted.

Maybe the myths persist because the stripping world is still cloaked in mystery. In reality, it’s often much less mysterious and more mundane: strippers are just people with bills, boundaries, and very tired feet.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to continuing the conversation with you below.

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