Do I Look Like a Stripper?
Reflections on being asked if I was a stripper at a gallery party to benefit Equity Strippers Noho Union.
“Are you dancing tonight?” the man asked. He wore metal-rim glasses and a heavy gold chain around his neck that was definitely there for ironic purposes. We happened to be standing next to each other while strippers from the Equity Strippers Noho performed acrobatics on the pole.
This was an L.A.-based gallery show (at Last Projects) to support their cause. The strippers recently won their fight to unionize at the Star Gardens Topless Bar in North Hollywood. If you haven’t heard of their struggle, they’ve been campaigning for a year to unionize to ensure safer working conditions at their club and protection from sexual harassment and wage theft.
And this man wanted to know if I was one of them.
I laughed. I was stunned by his question. Me? Huh? No, I wasn’t dancing tonight. I wasn’t a stripper.
“I’ve never stripped before,” I explained, mentioning that I did work as a dominatrix in the past. “But not anymore,” I said. “Besides look at me.”
I was dressed in jeans, loafers, and a blouse. The blouse covered my shoulders and arms. No skin revealed. I wore my hair natural and didn’t have on any makeup. I peered at him through my own pair of metal-rim spectacles.
I didn’t think I looked like a stripper, so why was this guy asking me if I was?
Before I go on, please don’t think I’m anti-stripper. I’m not. I don’t judge anyone for doing that job. Having worked as a domme and done other forms of adult work on and off for years, I completely understand a woman’s desire to do this type of work. I get its benefits.
I also fully understand there’s a human behind the facade. So much of adult work is a performance. And so I am extremely aware of the power of clothing and appearance when it comes to this performance. I’ve manipulated my appearance for years to make money. In fact, I still do.
But I’m also retired from adult work, this time for good. And I’m really leaning into what I see as my “real personality.” That’s one of the reasons I had intentionally dressed the way I had for this event: to draw a line between what I consider the “real me” and my past dominatrix persona.
This has been a long time coming. I didn’t always feel confident to be my authentic self. She’s not cool—she’s introverted, awkward in social settings, deep-thinking, all in her head.
My authentic self allowed me to excel in school. But it also meant I’ve often felt alienated socially, always on the outside of the “in-group.”
I felt alienated in my own family. My mother was crowned a beauty queen in college. She was the type of woman who wore red lipstick to garden. She had a depth to her, but there was also something incredibly superficial about her. She was obsessed with status and class.
I rebelled against this. And yet, a part of me still felt like I had failed her. I just wasn’t homecoming queen material, which was what I always felt she wanted in a daughter. I was dark and brooding, uncomfortable in social situations. I was weird.
As an adaptive measure—to fit in better as a younger person—I studied the popular girls, their extroversion, and their clothing. I adopted many of their behaviors.
This is ironically what led me to the adult industry. Becoming a dominatrix was about a desire to escape from my anxiety and social awkwardness. It was a desire to become more beautiful, stronger, and ultimately, to belong.
By inhabiting this persona, I came out of my shell. But I also came to feel oppressed by it.
The performance… It was so tiring keeping up the act. I got sick of burying the real me. If I used my domme gig to come out of my shell, it meant I had to shelve so much of my real personality. If it was liberating, I also felt trapped by it.
But I did clearly understand the liberating part of doing adult work. As I watched these strippers at this gallery show perform their pole acrobatics, I could sense their liberation. I could feel their excitement at being the center of attention. And I was decidedly not.
I was back on the sidelines, but okay with that. But bizarrely, this guy had asked me if I was also a dancer.
Sure, I was surprised by his question—but then he surprised me.
“I thought everybody here tonight was here to dance,” he said, adding: “There isn’t necessarily a stripper uniform, is there?”
He’s right. Strippers assume all forms. I’ve seen Barbie-doll strippers and women who do nothing to enhance their appearance. I’ve seen disabled strippers, trans strippers. Thin strippers and fat. It’s true: you don’t have to have a certain look to strip or do any other type of adult work for that matter.
And so, even as a middle-aged mom in jeans, glasses, loafers, and no makeup, I could’ve been a dancer. I could’ve still been there to do tricks on the pole. I’m glad he reminded me of this, as this is ultimately one of the purposes of this newsletter: to humanize adult workers by telling my own story as an domme—the real story.
I’ll take a moment to say I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this newsletter going. I’ve been busy with other writing, a move, and I got married.
But I hope to start sending out newsletters with more frequency. Thanks for your patience. And thanks for reading.