A brief history of the heel

I recently became curious as to when the current stripper style shoe came into being. The six clear Lucite or white platform stiletto. Not too surprisingly there is zero information on this particular subject. At nothing I could uncover with a solid fifteen minutes of research with Google. I’m going to continue the research but I haven’t quite figure out where to look. In the mean time this is what I did find, a brief history of the heel. Note: most of the information I got from the Shoe Diva web site (http://www.geocities.com/fashionAvenue/1495/contents1.html) Check it out for more information.

It appears that the platform heel got its start in ancient Greece and Rome. Besides democracy, aqueducts, and olive oil we have the heel to thank them for as well. They were called kothorni and were worn by actors. In theater at the time height was equated to status or gravitas of the character. One interesting thing about Roman society is that actors had similar social perceptions strippers have now. People love to watch them, definitely wanted to go party with them, but did not want to be scene with them in polite society. Actor was not a profession any good Roman aspired to. This is part of the reason why the Emperor Nero was so hated by the Roman elite. Nero had to nerve to think himself an actor and would put on performances forcing the Roman upper class to watch. Nero, Emperor of the largest and most powerful empire in the world, absolutely infuriated the Roman elite when one of their own became an actor. In current terms this would be like President Obama addressing congress “Before I begin my state of the union address, I want to show you a couple of my new pole tricks”! While I would find it refreshing to have a president with both humor and chops to do poll tricks, it probably wouldn’t be received well by most.

There are also some sources that claim internet that butchers in the Roman era also used high heels to keep their feet clear of the blood and gore that accumulated while they work. Two thousand years later they are still being worn in meat markets, albeit the markets are now clubs and bars now.




As the Roman Empire declined and fell, so did the height of shoes. The European continent descended into the dark ages and shoes became merely functional again. It would be in the Renaissance, the age of enlightentment, before the high heel shoe would reappear. In Italy, ground zero for all high heel fashions it seems, a shoe style called Chopine or Chapiney. These shoes ranged from 6 to 16 inches in height. I kind of have a hard time believing somebody wearing 16 inch heels in a world with cobble stone streets but who said fashion had to be safe or comfortable. In 1430 they were even outlawed in Venice. I can’t find a reason why, perhaps they were punching holes in the gondolas and sinking them. That’s bad for tourism. The invention of the high heel is sometimes is credited to Catherine of Medici. She was short in stature and betroth to the Duke of Orleans, eventual king of France. Necessity is the mother of invention, while she didn’t really invent them she did make them more acceptable to polite society.

The high heel still wasn’t accepted completely though. In 1670 British parliament forbade the wearing of heels, makeup or false hair. The wearer of high heels could be prosecuted for witchcraft. The dark ages for heels weren’t quite over yet. It would be the 1930’s before the heel would make it return. Again in the epicenter of high heel world Salvatore Farragamo began to design shoes in Italy. To me at least, its striking how modern looking the Farragamo shoes look.



While the high heel remained, the platform didn’t really take off until the 1970’s. This time both men and women were wearing platform shoes now. I was in high school in the late 70’s (I graduated in 1979) and I can remember the heels. Most guys only wore them to clubs at the time, it was pretty rare to see a guy walking in platforms.

Eventually the classic (or cliché’) stripper platform came into being. This transition is not too well documented. I haven’t been able to find any real history as to when they started to be marketed. I’ll keep researching.

The Hard sell

There’s a dancer that always hits me up with the hard sell every time I go into the club. I’ve never bought dances from her or shown any interest in her. I tip her on stage but that’s the extent of it. She’s always polite and interesting to talk to, except when drinks a little too much. She won’t however leave, until I ask her to or another customer comes in that’s a better sales prospect. The vast majority of time I’m usually waiting for another dancer that invited me in. It’s actually pretty rare that I just show up at the club. Between text message, twitter, and old fashion phone calls somebody is trying to contact me. This girl will rush the table and sit down uninvited.

So why is this a problem? When she is sitting at my table, other dancers won’t approach the table. I’ll tell her when she is sitting down, I’m waiting for another girl but that doesn’t stop her. I either end up chasing her off or the girl who I am waiting will force her way in. A lot a dancers won’t do this. They stick the etiquette that you don’t interrupt another dance at table. Or more likely if the girl is pushy with a customer, she’s probably a psycho dancer in the dressing room and not worth the drama.

At a certain point she goes from a scantily clad beautiful dancer to an annoying salesperson. I understand she is there to make money, but there comes a point it no longer is sale job but a contest of wills. I’m not buying that she is selling and she isn’t going to leave. The undesirable force meets the irritated object.

Where do you draw the line? Usually when you tell a dancer that you are waiting for somebody else, they’ll realize that there is no money to be made and move on. You get different levels of graceful exits. Most will politely leave, some will abruptly leave, and a few make a nasty comment then leave. This girl ignores the fact that I’m waiting for some one else and still sits down. At work there are people on three continents who will ignore my wishes in multiple languages. I really don’t want to pay for the privilege.

It also changes the way I perceive the dancer. They no longer are beautiful, scantily clad women. They are annoying salespeople. The fact that she’s on a stage means she is a dancer but a naked annoying salesperson. Worse yet they are a drunk annoying naked salesperson.

The worse thing to do is to give in to an ultra aggressive dancer. If you buy a dance after the high pressure sell you are really stuck. In her mind if you bought a dance once you are going to buy a dance again. At this point she’s gone from annoying to herpes. You are stuck with her forever. The only question is how bad it is going to be when she shows up and gets underneath your skin. The only cure is death. There are a few dancers that notice I cringe when they approached. I’ve never been a very good at hiding my feelings. They’ll even use that as a sale pitch, “You cringe when you see me. That’s not nice, you should buy some dances too make it up to me”. Barf.

This also affects the other girl’s money. After chasing a hard sell, I’m not always completely rational. I dancer might ask to sit down with, not realizing that the Guido the dancer just tried to break my arm. I end up glaring at like she just asked to have one of my kidneys. No kidneys, no dances damn it. A pushy salesperson is a pushy sales person, naked or not.

Podcasting

I’ve been really interested in podcasting. Without too much equipment or technical skill you can put together a show to be distributed over the internet. There isn’t a major selection of stripper oriented podcasts out there. What is there is pretty lame. They are either dancers griping about customers or the “ask a dancer” thing. I’d like to do a series of podcasts with a more practical approach. More of a how to get started and dancer basics, something that get more into the way things actually work. The podcast would be aimed much more at dancers rather than customers.

Here is my initial Episode list

1) Getting started. - The absolute basics of what it takes to start dancing. Clothes, transportation, clubs, etc. Very general in scope
2) Picking a club. - What to consider location, type of club. Where to research. What to look for.
3) The Audition. - What to expect. What to do, what not to do. What to wear. What to bring. Things to look for.
4) The first day. - What to bring, What to expect. Different shifts.
5) Persona. - What name to pick, what to wear.
6) Strip club operations. Bouncers, Waitresses, Bar Tenders, Managers
7) Difficult customers. What to look for, what to do.
8) Difficult co-workers. What to look for, what to do.
9) Children – Where to find a baby sitters, problems that other parents don’t have.
10) Traveling – Laws, Las Vegas, Guam
11) Switching clubs – Risks, When to change clubs


The basic format would sort of a short conversation style. I think if two dancers on a skype call and limited the time to 15 to 20 minutes it would be both useful and entertaining. If you’re interested in participating let me know at:

pdxstoney(at)gmail.com

It will probably be a couple months before I get the logistics worked out of producing and distributing a podcast. I’ve thought about doing it “live” from a club. The problem is that most clubs play the music load enough to shoot down lo flying aircraft. Not very good setup for recording.

Shout out

Check out the folks at DeviantNation and follow them at twitter.com/DeviantNation. Or you can go thier web site out www.deviantnation.com. They have one of my favorite dancers there Rocket! Or you can go to Rocket's site www.rocketisrad.com.

For you folks who aren't to offended I found a picture on the web that just cracked me up.

Career Counseling

When I grow up I want to be a fireman. Personally I wanted to be an airline pilot when I was way small. There are a couple careers dancers tend toward when they decide to hang up the heels. Fireman isn’t one of them, though I think it might be an option for some of them. Most dancers a physically fit, they are familiar with brass poles and they're expert in changing clothes quickly. However, I fear suddenly having to get up early in the morning and rush off to a fire might a deal killer for most. These are all anecdotal observations of mine, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a formal study.

The most common career is hair stylist or cosmetologist, something in the beauty industry. This seems like a pretty natural career for dancers. Dancers have to make themselves up for work everyday. Pretty much all aspects of the beauty industry get used. Hair, cosmetics, pedicure, manicure, and probably a dozen other things I know nothing about. Dancers have to spend far more primping for work than most professions. Not only that, the amount of money they make may depend on how good they look. If that was the situation for me I’d starve to death. I often wonder how much difference in the amount of makeup really effects the customers, but I can believe that a dancers self confidence has a direct impact on her money.

Dancers spend a lot of time evaluating themselves and other dancers as to how well they look. After a while I they probably build up the confidence that they know what looks right. I’ve noticed a lot of my dancer friends all have hair stylist they just love, except they never layer their hair the right way, or get the color right, and charge way too much. Except for that they just love their stylist. Somewhere in their career they probably decided, hey I can do that. There are some other similarities in scheduling. The odds are if they become a stylist they’ll have to rent a chair from a salon, which like stage fees. Except stage fees are a pay as you go kind of deal, the chair will require at least monthly payments if not a lease. Also you’ll need to be insured to be a stylist. Customers would be much more difficult. Women who go to hair salons are much more demanding than guys going to s strip club, but not as creepy.

Another career common pursued by dancers is licensed massage therapist. I don’t think they go into this because of familiarity with couch dances but because of the amount of time they spend talking and counseling customers. Dancers I suspect become much more body conscious than most folks. There is a tremendous amount of physicality with the job. Trying to move and look sexy on a stage, engaging in unarmed combat with a handsy customer requires the dancers to spend a lot more time evaluating what they and other people are doing physically.

Another common career is real estate agents. I’ve had two friends go into this field. The only correlation I can draw between these two careers is the relative independence. Real estate agents have a high degree of mobility in their jobs. They usually don’t spend much time being directly supervised. They are both primarily sales jobs.

Surrealistic Stripper moments
I just recently had one of those “did I just see that?” moments in a club recently. The D2 was being remodeled on a Sunday afternoon when I went in. With the dulcet tones a Makita drills humming in the background a dancer made her way through the drop clothes and got on stage. About half way through her first set a worker trundled out from behind a drop cloth, walk up the stage, pulled out a flashlight and started to work taking the measurements of the stairs. The dancer totally ignored the construction worker. Worse yet she was the “I’m so sexy poser” kind of dancer. To me, most dancers who try to look so serious and sexy just end up looking constipated. To her credit, she continued to dance completely oblivious to the worker. The worker busily took measurements for most of the song, never looking up. Then got up turned around and disappeared into the back.

G-Strings and Gams

This is a piece of unapologetic silliness. Sort of a what if Dr Suess wrote strip club ads. I’m not sure what inspired me to write this, probably brain damage. I was a little kid in the sixties. Back in the good old days when paint had lead in it, elevators had ash trays in them and seat belts were for wimps. More likely I was dropped as child, I did have three older brothers. I'm reaching a bit with the terms gams. I think the last time I heard this term for legs was in a Humphrey Bogart movie. It the only appropriate rhyming replacement I could think of for ham. I think I’ll keep my day job.


I am Gem

I am Gem
Gem I am

Do you like
G-Strings and gams?

Would you like them
With cold beer?
Would you like them
At the rack?
Yes our dancers have
Class and tact

Would you like them
around a pole?
Would you like them
At a table?
Yes, our servers are fast and able

Would you like them
With a drink?
Bar tenders serve you
With a wink

Would you like them
With a dance?
Would you like them
With smoke?
No you can’t
that rights revoked

Would you like them
At the rail?
Our girls are hot
and shall not fail

Would you like
Ours tops to slip?
Even more if you tip

Would you, Could you,
Like G-Strings and Gams

Yes I would, Gem I am
Yes I’d like G-Strings and Gams

Yes I’d like them with a beer
Yes I’d like them at the rack
Yes I’d like them around a pole
Yes I’d like them at a table
Served by tenders fast and able
Yes I’d like them with a drink
Served with smiles and a wink
Yes I’d like them with a dance
I don’t smoke, not a chance
Yes I’d like them at the rail
Yes I’d like tops that slip
Even better if I tip

Yes I like G-Strings and Gams
That’s a stupid question
Gem I am

A fool and her money are soon parted.

I now have an itinerant roommate for the moment. She is a former dancer that has fallen on difficult times. See the previous blog for more details. This is the second time I have had a dancer stay with me for an extended period of time while she got her life back together. This is also the last time. (Famous last words?)

I noticed the same characteristic in both girls. They are terrible money managers. It isn’t accurate or fair to infer that all dancers are this way, but there are aspects of the job that reinforce bad spending habits.

This first and most profound thing I noticed they operate on the idea there is always another payday tomorrow. All they have to go to work to get more money. They tend to treat the club as their personal ATM machine. Unfortunately to get money they have to work for six hours, get naked and deal with a bunch of drunken customers and the wallet is recharged.

This behavior became apparent in the way they shopped. Not the amount of time they spent shopping (which could be considerable) but they almost always spent every cent they had. They both prided themselves on being “good shoppers”, they would work very hard to get the most for their money, but they always spent every last cent they had on them. If they walked into a store with $60, the walked out with $59.99 worth of merchandise, whether they needed it or not. There was never a thought of saving a penny. If they needed more money, they just picked up another shift.

There many problems with money management scheme. The obvious is that there is no reason to save money. It assumes that she’ll be able to get a shift tomorrow (this is usually not a problem, but sometimes it can be), and that she’ll have a good night. The biggest hazard is it also assumes that nothing will ever happen that can’t be fixed with one or two night’s income. Life isn’t that fair, everybody is going to be hit with big unexpected expenses. This is where I see dancers usually have the biggest meltdowns. They have to make a bill, and they are having a terrible night.

This is when standards start to fall. Girls will do things they normally wouldn’t allow. They let hands go where to places that are usually off limits. They become more aggressive with customers and other dancers. It’s nothing specific to dancers. It just seems like they are in this situation more than most folks I know.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ve had to hawk stuff to make my tuition. I’ve watched folks at work lie to make a sale, to get that commission, to pay the mortgage. The difference is that this seems to be a constant problem with some dancers. Except for short term goals (cars, boob jobs, deposit on a place to live) they do not have any sort of plan to save money.

The flip side of this mentality is that when they have a really good night or weekend they will take time off and coast. The will live off the earnings until they run out and only go back to work when they have to. I know one dancer who will tell me with a completely straight face that she has “never had a vacation” that she has always worked since she was twelve years old and this will be her first time in years. That she deserves to take time off. I hear this at least two or three times a year. She takes more time off in a year than I have in the past decade. She just uses this argument as rationalization to take a vacation. If she can work out a way to have a bunch of time off, that is great. More power to her. But don’t tell me that you’ve never had a vacation.