S IS FOR STRIPPER

S IS FOR STRIPPER

Or E is for exotic dancer.  Or A is for adult entertainer.  Or O is for Oh hell, who cares?

I hit the jackpot.

Actually, let me be a bit more specific.  I hit the jackpot as in one dollar scratchoff, not Powerball.  THAT would have been a blog entry.  Sadly, this is not... that.

We talked.

What I learned:

No, no, before we get started, let's take a pause here.  These girls are not in the sex business.  They're in the lying business.  Everything they do from clock in to clock out is bullshit.  It's like they work in a restaurant where you pay them to show you the food and then take it away.  So the only stuff I'm reporting to you is what seemed to me to hold logical water.

Portland has a larger number of strippers per capita than any city in America.  And yes, Las Vegas is a city, and yes, we can tits-and-ass them under the table.

Although no one has done a scientific survey, this particular young lady is convinced Portland has more tattooed strippers than any city in America, PERIOD.  She was among them. 

Strippers are not all from bad homes or child slavers.  Some are actually... the C word.

Capitalists.

This young woman, for example, goes to business school in the daytime and dances at night.  And... the coolest thing she told me... she asks her ringsiders what they do for a living, and, if it involves business, she gets their cards.  Tells them she'll be calling when she graduates.  

Now you may be thinking to yourself, if I'm in a strip club, and someone asks me my FIRST INITIAL, I'm gonna lie.  No way in Hades I'm giving out my card.

Well, about a hundred of your closest associates disagree, at least to hear her tell it.  That's how many cards she's gotten since she started dancing seven months ago.  And she showed me maybe a dozen, in her purse from the last couple of nights.

On the other end of the spectrum, of course, are the Lost Girls.  That's what she called them, with (my) apologies to JM Barrie.  Confused, desperate, stopping for awhile in the latest of dead end jobs.  But she claimed they aren't the majority, and that each of them she's known has told her about better jobs she's had... and much worse.

And another girl she identified as a 21st century hippie, living in her car and making money to buy food and dope.  Next stop... who knows?

And yes, the money is great.  She wouldn't be specific, but she says she makes three times what she did in her last straight job.

And she doesn't have sex with the customers.

I see that knowing wink.  But I believe her, maybe less because I'm a gullible schmuck and more because she explained herself.  Interestingly enough, she compared it to Vegas, and why the casinos never cheat you.  They're making too much money legally to jeopardize that cash cow.  Same with the clubs, she says.  She's worked three establishments, and at each, the management has told her if she's caught turning tricks, she's fired.  The City frowns on that... and they've pulled clubs' licenses.

Sadly, the ride came to an end all too soon.  She offered me a comp door charge.  I passed.  But tomorrow night... who knows?

Onward through the fog...