It takes all kinds.

I work with a lot of different professions and, generally speaking, you can make some assumptions about a person by their occupation. Engineers are typically good at math. They like gadgets and are usually socially awkward. Accountants are organized and thorough. However I am always amazed at the wide variety of people who become strippers. In my opinion you cannot make any real generalizations about who becomes a dancer.

The first time I ran into a dancer who said she was working her way through college I didn’t really believe her. I figured it was the typical sale pitch. If she won’t tell me her real name, why should I believe anything else? I had a lot to learn then. While I don’t know if that particular girl was really in college or not, I have met a lot of dancers who really are working their way through college. It’s pretty easy to tell if a dancer is really going to college or not. Just check her schedule. During finals week she’ll be gone. Just before the start of the term when they have to buy books and pay for tuition she’ll be working like crazy.

Most people don’t associate strippers with intelligence. I know I didn’t when I first started hanging out at strip clubs. Diablo Cody won an Oscar, yet she still is referred to as a former stripper.  As if being a stripper is some sort of enormous handicap to be overcome. The media makes it sound like a stripper getting an award for writing is like a paraplegic growing a new pair of legs and learning to walk.  This is just an unfortunately stereotype the general public has about dancers.

If you drop your preconceptions and really talk to a dancer, you discover a lot of them are smarter than you. Not only that, a lot of dancers are very ambitious business people.  The general public’s stereotypical view of a dancer is somebody that doesn’t get out of bed before 2pm, their net worth is whatever they happen to have in their purse, and have no idea what they are going to do once they are done dancing. I’ve met some that have started their own very successful businesses. Dancing gave them the ability to make the money to support themselves while they got started and the scheduling flexibility to work when they needed to. I’ve also met some that doesn’t get out of bed before 2pm, their net worth is whatever they happen to have in their purse, and have no idea what they are going to do once they are done dancing. Most fall somewhere in between.

I’ve also met a lot of dancers who are on the other end of the spectrum from the type A business girls and college graduates. These dancers have nicknames like ‘train wreck’ and ‘psychobitch’. These girls represent the minority of strippers, but they seem to get the majority of the attention of the press. The minimum requirements to be a stripper are pretty low. I’ve met some dancers who are really out there. One dancer absolutely believed she could modify DNA with her mind. She really believed she alter somebody’s genetic structure just concentrating really hard. Except for some rather bizarre beliefs about physics and biology, she was pretty smart. I asked her to fix my DNA so my scalp would grow hair again. She closed her eyes and waved her hands over my heads for a couple seconds then pronounced me fixed. Then she charged me $20. So far it hasn’t worked, but I’m holding out hope (not). I’ve decided her new stage name is now Rogaine. This also may be a case of her being a lot smarter than me.

And I’ve also met a few dancers that weren’t the brightest bulb in the stage lighting. The topic of world war two came up once with one dancer. It was an odd conversation:

• Her:  “Did we fight the Germans in world war two?”
• Me: “Umm, yeah, did you ever see the movie Saving private Ryan?”
• Her: “Yes! I loved that movie, I saw it three times”
• Me: “All those guys trying to kill private Ryan, they were German.”
• Her: “Really? I thought it was something all made up. I’ll have to watch it again and check”

I wonder if she new Hitler was a German? I don’t know if she went to college or not. If she did, I don’t think she was a history major.

I don’t think there is such a thing as a typical stripper, probably because the girls are stripping for so many different reasons. Some are just trying to survive. Some are just trying to make some extra money. Some are professionals who make a career out of it, other strip because it’s all they can do.  Like everything else, it’s what you make of it.