What's your real name and why should I care?

One question that consistently irritates dancers is ”what’s your real name?” I constantly see assorted twitter feeds gripes about customers asking what their real name is. One dancer even made 'What's your real name'  her twitter handle (https://twitter.com/nakedinatx). I think that when you are in the industry it becomes so common that it seems perfectly normal.  But if you’re not in the industry it’s really weird. While I can’t speak for the entire customer community, I think I can explain the interest.

Outside of the strip club world, where else do you deal with people face to face that won’t tell you their name? Pretty much nowhere else does this occur. Everywhere else people will at least give you their first name. Not only will a dancer not give you her real name, she’ll give you a really odd name.  Where else will somebody sit down next and introduce themselves “Hi, my name is Skittles”, or Calico, or Peanut, or Viagra, or Sinful. Really, I’m supposed to just pass a name like that off as an everyday occurrence? In the stripper world this is no big deal, but outside the club, it’s really odd.

When some dancer sits down and introduces herself with I always want to answer back “wow, your parents sure had a sense of humor”.  I know there are very good reasons for using a stage name, but how would you react if the person fixing your car introduced them as Gizmo, and wouldn’t give you their real name. You are completing a cash transaction with somebody that won’t tell you who they are.  Except for drug dealers (exotic pharmacist?) who else does this? Would you buy something from a person who refused to identify themselves? Strip club customers are asked to.

I’ve made light of the stage name concept in other posts. I used to be really fascinated by dancers versus their real names. I even kept a list of names to see if I could find a pattern between the two (I couldn’t). However, Facebook has kind of removed that mystery. I have a ridiculously small number of friends. Most people’s pets have more Facebook friends than I do. I really don’t care actually. But Facebook seems to care. It helpfully posts ‘people you may know’ every time I log in.  Most of the time it’s a dancer. Once you become friends with one dancer you are one or two steps away from a hundred other dancers. It’s sort of six degrees of Kevin Bacon Facebook stripper style. I’ve learned a ton of dancer’s real names from Facebook. The name novelty has worn off.

Seriously I don’t think most dancers realize how easy it is to locate them on Facebook once you have one dancer friend.  Not only that they don’t setup their privacy features at all. If you’re a dancer setup your Facebook privacy, it will save you a lot of grief in the future.

Is it a big deal that a dancer won’t tell you her real name? No, it isn’t.  But it is really unique to the industry. I know musicians and actors use fake names, but I don’t typically meet them in person when I buy their product.  Other sex workers use fake names too, but I don’t interact with them. It may be annoying as hell, but I think dancers will be asked that question as long as there are strip clubs.

Two Dollar Socialism

The club I go to started giving out two dollar bills for change. So now you have to tip two dollars per song. I can’t really bitch too much. When went to my first strip club in the 80’s it was one per song. Thirty years later it’s still one per song at most clubs. I can’t think of anything else that has stayed the same price for so longs. From an economics point of view dancers made a lot more money back in the 80’s off stage. That 1980 dollar bought a lot more.

I have to admit I was a little irritated the first time the bartender counted back my change in twos. I was being indirectly told to start tipping two dollars per set. Nobody likes being told they have to spend more.  The switch to two dollar bills does change the strip club a little for experience for me.  

The biggest change is that I don’t drink as much. I go through my tip money a lot faster now.  I don’ t spend any more money than before. I suppose this is good for the dancers and bad for the owner. I also don’t spend as much time at the club. At the end of the day it’s probably better for me.

Another change is that the two dollars tip has evened out the amount I tip to each girl. Typically I’ll tip one or two dollars per song depending if I know the dancer or not. Then tip the dancer I went into to see much more. If I have $20 in tip money and there are five girls on rotation I’ll tip the four girls I don’t know three buck total for their set for a total of $12. I’ll then tip my favorite $8 for her set. Now each girl gets exactly four bucks. 

I think there might a bit of a blow back from the customers beyond having to tip more. The only place in Portland you get $2 bills are at strip clubs. If you pay for stuff with a stack of ones you might be a stripper. If you pay for stuff with a stack of two dollar bills you’re are definitely a stripper and, more importantly for customers, you were at a strip club the day before. Two dollar bills will probably replace glitter as the leading cause of guys getting busted for going to a strip club. Just for the record Bank of America ATMs and 

Albertson’s self serve machines will take two dollar bills.

If the customers organized the two dollar bill tip thing is something they could get rid of. Simply at the end of the night get change for a twenty then walk out. There are only so many two dollar bills in circulation. If you get enough customers a walking out the door with change they’ll deplete the supply of two dollar bills in the club.

A regular guy

I spend a lot of time following dancer blogs and twitter feeds. I’m always curious about what dancers think of their customers (me). After reading a post about making a regular when I began wondering what attracts me to certain dancers and becoming their regular customer. So here are the things that will hook me or send me running for the exit.

80% of success is just showing up

Probably the biggest thing for me is just simply being at the club when I am. I lived by a regular schedule. Because of work and other commitments I have to at certain places at certain times. You give me a time and day and I can tell you where I will probably be. Consequently I pretty much show up at the club at the same time on the same days. Unfortunately keeping a regular schedule is anathema to a lot of dancers. One of the major perks of a dancer’s job is the supremely flexible schedule. I understand this, so it goes a long way with me when a dancer can be there when I am.

There is also a more pragmatic reason for being there when I’m there. If I don’t spend money on you, I’ll spend it on somebody else. I’m there to relax and have fun and you have a lot more fun at a strip club if you spend money. I’m only going to work so hard to pay somebody my money.

A graceful exit

Most dancers I know are always happy to see you and greet you with a big hug. They’re interested in everything you say. Dancers always tell you they love to do dances. Then they bolt like they are on fire the instant they get their money. Nothing says “thank god that’s over” like taking the money and running. I appreciate that they are there to make money, not make friends, but minimize the mercenary mentality. Just follow through with the illusion that you like me a little further. Hanging out for an extra a few minutes and wishing me good night will go a lot further than just then a dance and dash.

Sometimes life sucks, get over it

Everybody has bad days and it’s nice to be able to complain about it. I swear some dancers are permanently pissed off. The club sucks, the management sucks, the other dancers suck, life sucks. The girl is a black hole for happy. A positive upbeat person is always so much better to be around. If I want to be depressed I can watch the 5 o’clock news. It’s a lot cheaper.

You’re not that awesome and I’m not that stupid

There is a difference between being a prospect and a customer. A prospect hasn’t completely decided on buying, they’re still may change their mind. A customer has already made the decision to buy, so you don’t have to do as much. Sadly a lot of dancers take this approach. When you first meet them they are happy, polite, and prompt. After a few weeks they are apathetic, surly, and going to do things at their own god damn pace. I’m still paying for the privilege of your presence. Just because I’ve committed to spend money on you doesn’t mean you can quit working.

Don’t disappear into the dressing room for twenty minutes and tell me you just changed your outfit. You’re a stripper, getting in and out of clothes in a blink of an eye is part of the job. You went in back, smoked a cigarette, made a phone call, talked to the girl next to you about eye-liner, and checked your text messages. Then come you out and ask me “was I gone long?”. Stupid with big boobs is still stupid. Check your Mickey Mouse watch, if Mickey’s hands have gone from scratching his head to scratching is balls you’ve been gone to long, and if he’s scratching his ass I’ve probably left the building. If you’ve ever gone to buy shoes and had the jerk sales person disappear into the back room for seemly an hour you know exactly how I feel about you. The only difference is that in a strip club there are a dozen other girls waiting to replace you. In case you haven’t noticed this is a major peeve of mine.

Regulars are more work and potentially more problems. But it’s also as close as a dancer is going to get to guaranteed money, and if you get a good regular it’s easy money. I'm not asking that much. 

The Friendster

I often find myself in position of being a “friendster” to most of the dancers I know. I’m both a friend and a customer at the same time. While this is generally a good thing to me, it does have some odd things about it. For technically curious friendster.com was actually one of the first semi-successful social networking sites, proceeding both myspace and Facebook. It also failed fairly quickly and is currently a kind of weird gaming network site out of Kuala Lumpur.

The best thing about a being a friendster is the fact the dancer trusts you. You don’t have to worry about the dancer ordering dinner and $20 drink every time the waitress walks up. For the most part it’s much less stressful for the dancer. She doesn’t have to worry about being on guard as much. I don’t think any dancer completely relaxes at work. I never completely relax at my job. I definitely have the most fun with dancers I’ve built up credibility with.

There are some down sides to this situation. There are times when I turn down an invitation from a dancer, I feel like I’m blowing off a friend. To some degree I am, but I’m also turning down a business transaction. Some dancers will take advantage of this and play on my emotions. They are having a bad day/week/month and they really need me to come in to make things go better. I used to bite on this and turn into the strip club Sit Galahad and head off to save a dancer from a bad night. I don’t do this any more. I’m paying for the privilege of her company. It can get really expensive and irritating quickly.

Like most long term business relationships, it’s a mixture of both friendship and money. My job is like this as well. I have customers I like and enjoy dealing with regardless of the professional issues. There are also customers I find utterly revolting or inane but I have to paint on smile and pretend to enjoy their conversation when I’d rather drive a spike into skull.

I know it’s in the dancer’s best interest to pretend she likes me. I wonder if she is secretly rolling her eyes at my jokes, or mentally plotting different ways kill me as a way to get through the conversation. Most dancers are much better at feigning interest than I am at figuring it out so I’ll just stay fat, dumb, and happy.

As enlighten as I’d like to think I am being friends with dancers outside the club is still a little awkward at times. One time I fixed a computer monitor for a dancer’s parents. I figured I was just going to drop it off at her place on my way home from work. Instead I ended driving over to her parent’s house and hooked up the monitor for them. It was really odd meeting her parents. Her parents knew she stripped. While they weren’t thrilled with her job they were supportive of her. They also knew I was one her customers from the club.

If they were uncomfortable with me they never showed it. I could never shake the fact that I used to pay their daughter to take her clothes off. The entire time there they warm and gracious to me the entire time I was there. They just treated me like I was one of the family. Some strippers come from screwed up families, but not all of them. I don’t think I’ve met nicer down to earth people than her parents

Most of my friendships with dancers outside the club never last. I suppose this isn’t any different than job. There have been people I’ve worked with over the years that I’ve become good friends with, yet over time we lose track of each other. When you work with somebody the job becomes a common point of interest. When they go somewhere else you lose that. Not immediately at first, but after a while things change some much that they no longer interested.

With the dancer the common point of interest is the club. When she quits working at the club you lose the point of interest. The social awkwardness of strip clubs makes things that much more difficult. A lot of dancers want to break completely from the stripper world. They don’t want to explain they know me from when they worked as a stripper. There is a social bias against the strip club world. Life is hard enough without having to contend with that as well. 

Hitting the Gym

The next time I’m heading to a strip club I’m going to tell them that I’m “Going to the gym”. From a purely pedantic point of view it’s an accurate statement. The etymological source of the word gym is the Greek word “gymnos” (γυμνός). Gymnos means naked in ancient Greek. The Greek term “gymnazo “ (γυμνάζω) which means “to train naked” is derived from gymnos. The Greeks felt that athletics are best done naked. Gymnazo eventually got Latinized into gymnasium by the Romans.

Gymnasium made it into the English language eventually, though the naked part got dropped and gymnasium just meant a place far athletic training. Still the only place I know of where people train naked (or train to be naked) is a strip club. Maybe somebody should name a club the Gymnazo. It can’t be any worse than Pitiful Princess. So, see you at the gym.

Expose yourself

I had forgotten about this advertising campaign. That's former Portland mayor Bud Clark promoting the local art scene. No wonder there are so many strip clubs here.

The Prize Patrol

And here is Naomi with her winnings from the stripper skills contest.

Her keys to success

• Using a computer monitor instead of a smart phone
• Comparing the stack on the screen to her tips at the end of a shift
• Sobering up before guessing.

Stay tuned for more contests