Archive for May, 2010

A lot of people ask me how I got into this business. I’m off on a feature dance engagement at the moment, so a lot of people have asked me this question this week, in particular. It’s not an easy answer, because there are a variety of reasons I entered the industry. But with the intent of not rambling through yet another blog post and forgetting my original point, I was a very happily employed exotic dancer at an upscale gentleman’s club in San Francisco.

For those of you who do not frequent strip clubs of all types and varieties for the purpose of studying the difference in dancing style, which I’m assuming and hoping is everyone, dancers at upscale topless clubs don’t really need to know how to do pole tricks. That is not to say that there aren’t plenty of them who not only do know how to perform them, but nightly pull off death defying stunts. In my case though, I did just fine without them so I never bothered to learn much beyond spinning in circles from a standing position.

In my experience, pole tricks are a bit more necessary if you’re working at a full-nude club, and as a feature dancer I primarily perform at full-nude clubs. (Makes sense to me, why would you pay to go see a porn star in person at a venue where you can’t even see her pussy)? So, I have fully themed shows, music, free giveaways and nightly make a complete mess of myself and the stage with lotion, ice, candles and pretty much anything else I can find to pour on myself and rub around. I also frequently (as in, pretty much every single time) make out with women sitting at the tip rail… just because I can. You would do the same. Still, I have been seriously intending to learn to climb that goddamn pole once and for all.

Last night, thanks to a dancer named Jordan at Deja Vu in Saginaw, MI, I finally learned how to do it. I climbed straight to the top of the pole, proudly slid myself as sexily as I could at four in the morning back down and realized I need to do some push-ups. Then I woke up today with some interesting bruises on the insides of my knees and proudly texted my best friend because this still isn’t the type of personal accomplishment I think my mother would appreciate a call home about.