stripper Archives - Page 3 of 6 - HeartBrokenStilettos

When I’m ashamed being Hungarian

I said enough bad things about women with other nationality, it’s time to write about my own nation’s girls. Just because I got fired from the Brussels club because of them. I’m fully aware it can not be a stereotype because in every nation you can find horrible or extremely nice girls, but this club in Brussels have the selection of the most vulgar, terrible (Hungarian) dancers I’ve ever worked with! If I said anything bad about Romanians or Russians in this blog, they were innocent angels compare to them. Literally, I got shocked by the way they behaved. For sure there are certain situations when I’m not proud to be Hungarian.

But let’s start at the beginning. When I arrived, it was OK, the girls were nice, the apartment was not crowded. But those girls already complained that when they arrived it was such a mess and they had to clean everything. One of them even told me she can’t imagine what kind of girls were there before them, who left the apartment so dirty. They collected maybe 6 or 7 bags of rubbish from a 3 bedroom flat. I saw it with my own eyes. One week later I was lucky(?) enough to find out.

The 3 girls arrived. The typical dancers that you see on the street and you know exactly what is their job. The common Hungarian swear “bazd meg” is a lullaby from their mouth. The “gecis fasz” was their every second word. (If you’d like to know what does it mean, use Google, I won’t translate it here.) And there was a huge difference in the work style as well if we can call it to work what they do. They had just a big party, no rules, no responsibilities. They got drunk, made a lesbian show on stage, all for free. That’s still OK. But one of them was drinking the pure vodka from the bottle in the changing room, then a customer bought her one (only one!) bottle of champagne, and she got so drunk and fell from the stage. Customers could do anything with her, she was even kissing with anybody on the floor. She was so drunk that fell asleep on a customer’s shoulder. Another night she went to the toilet and the customer followed her. I don’t want to know what she’s offering in private but it must be a good reason why she was popular amongst the customers. I heard myself when she told her friend “You will hate me now but I did more in the private.” And that was a rumour that one friend of the boss had sex with her upstairs. I won’t be surprised if it’s not only a rumour.. (or not only one friend)

The other one was even drunker. When they got home she was vomiting under the kitchen table and the top of that she peed herself. Such a classy woman! She just told us the previous day that she’s a princess of the club! And the next day at 11am she was drinking again. Not to mention the drugs they take, I swear some of the Hungarian girls could have a job in any pharmacy because they exactly know what to take to feel better. And the boss prefers these girls over the “normal ones”, he fired 3 of us on the same week. Because we don’t work well. I have nothing to be sad about, if it’s a required behaviour in this club, I don’t want to work there either. And if it’s good for him getting angry every morning because there is a fight between the girls or they are so loud and he can’t concentrate on the payments, he deserves it. I don’t feel sorry for him. But I have a feeling that his girlfriend (the manager) stands behind all who can’t stand the girls who have some class. Obviously, those vulgar girls never will be a competition for her and she wants to keep her status quo in the club by getting rid of the well-behaved ones. But this is only my opinion. I just find it strange that they said I don’t work well when I made pretty much the same amount of money with clean work than those crazy ones. And I never made any trouble to them.

But for me, the most shocking was when the boss hired 3 cleaners to clean the apartment. He brought them and he couldn’t even look into my eyes when I opened the door for them. (I was already fired but could stay in the apartment 2 more days, whatever.) Later one of the cleaners said something to the girls about why they can’t clean up after themselves and one of them wanted to beat her with some wooden stick she found in the living room. She was complaining to me when she came to my room to clean. The poor woman has to clean up all the disgusting mess of what they made and she almost was beaten! Seriously, where the hell did the agency find those girls???

Dollar? No dollar? Scheiße egal!

(I would translate it as f***it, doesn’t matter.)

I like the system when the club has its own house dollars for tipping the dancers. It’s like Monopoly money, fun and can give a solid income on a busy night. In Germany most of the clubs have them. When I finish my 2 songs stage performance, I go topless to each customers asking for dollars and they put it in my string. End of the night each dollar count €0.5 to my budget, which is not a lot but if the night was busy it’s easy to collect 50-100 dollars, sometimes even more. We share the tips with the club, so the club keeps the other €0.5. It’s fair enough, in some clubs I’m not allowed to keep the tips at all. I like when the club makes the customers buy the dollars. Let’s say the entrance fee is €10 but they get 10 dollars. Like it was in Luxembourg. In that case, even if they don’t pay anything to the girls, each customer give tips at least. And they rarely take it home keeping it as a souvenir.

My job is to go to everybody. If they don’t have dollars, try to sell them.
“Sorry, I don’t have dollars.”

“No problem, I can take euros, pounds, sterling silver or credit card!” and I press my boobs showing there is a possibility to swipe the card. Usually, it makes them smile and they buy some dollars.

I remember a long time ago I worked in Salzburg where the club had 2 floors. The stage was downstairs and a small bar upstairs. The rules were very strict, I had to go each time to the bar to see if anybody there and ask for dollars before I enter the changing room. It was exhausting, up and down on the stairs all night. Sometimes it was funny when there were no people, we made jokes with the barmen waving some salviette they wanted to put in my panties. Other night when I worked in Nice, I had a customer who showered the stage during my dance with 100 dollars, papers were everywhere and I had to be careful where to step because it can be slippery. In Brussels, the club didn’t have the dollars, but after the stage show, I still had to go to customers asking for tips. The smallest note is €5 and I could keep all the tips so it was also good. Once a guy was so drunk and he tossed a €50 note in my string. That’s really an easy money to make in a few seconds just to go there and ask if he’d like to tip. Some places I don’t make this tour after the dance, but collecting the dollars is part of the stage show. For example in Antwerp, I hated it, because there is a huge gap between the stage and the customers and every time someone wanted to give me a dollar I had to climb over this gap. It can be dangerous if you’ve had a few drinks! Some guys love to put the dollar in their mouth and ask the girls to take it with her tits. Or mouth to mouth. I always wonder if they are aware of where these dollars were before.. maybe in another guy’s mouth or even worse, in his pants touching his sweaty body. It’s fun but I really don’t like to take it with my lips. Not to mention that you can get some serious bacterial infection.

But the truth is, you come to the club, you have a few beers and 10-20 dollars, even you don’t buy drinks or private dances and you don’t spend a fortune but you still have good points and the girls don’t look at you like you are an idiot saying between themselves “at least he has dollars!” But not everyone’s giving it easily. Here in Osnabrück, I’ve been asked: “Was machst du?” (what do you do?) and the guy showed me a dollar with a huge grin on his face as he has the victory flag in his hand or at least he’s holding a €200 note… Hm, let me think… your dollar means €0.5 to me. What should I do for it? Or the other one who asked me straight away to sit in his lap for a dollar. “The lapdance is over there in the private. Here is no touching.” And he was a bit upset. One dollar won’t make me rich, keep it if you wish! There are others that want to give me with no conditions! But the rudest situation when I went to the table and the guy without even looking at me he tossed a €2 coin to me. “And what should I do with that? Buy some dollars!” and I turned and left. When I make my round, I’m not begging for money. It’s part of the entertaining, part of the fun. Giving coins is rude and humiliating although I know some girls would take it without thinking.

And just an idea at the end: if you really want to tip your favourite dancer with real money, fold it in a little piece (it doesn’t require origami skills) and put it in the front of her string. Not even the most honest dancer would give it to the club and share it after counting the dollars alone in the changing room.

Stripper’s burn out

Yesterday one of the customers told his friend as he passed by:

“You can say anything, I think it’s a fucking hard job.” I really wanted to stop him and talk about it, but he was already about to leave. He is right. We’re constantly interacting with people using our private zone. Not like a waitress who takes the order, serves the customer and leaves the table. We let any drunk, ignorant, drugged person enter our comfort zone, so easy to collect all the negative energies, emotional rubbish from them. We have to deal with rejection, more than one time a night, and we have to participate in mind games. Easily lead into burn out, alcohol or/and drug abuse.

If you don’t make money, men are your enemies because they don’t pay. If you make money, your colleagues are your enemies because of jealousy. And the management also can give you hard time. Usually, when the club is not so busy – like here now–, they drive the girls crazy to sending them to customers. “You have to go to every client! You came here to work, not just to sit!” Which is true, but let me decide who I want to work with. I often don’t see the point to go over the table if I already know the guy won’t pay. But still, they want me to go the guy in the corner who almost sleeping because he’s so drunk or the one who didn’t buy a single dollar to give out to the girls. Pointless.

I tried to find out why I was so stressed and not so successful at work lately, but mainly I blamed others. (Of course, it’s always the easiest way!) Doesn’t matter how hard I tried, the end was always disappointment and failure. If something didn’t happen as I wished, I called the guy an idiot and left him. But lately I took the time to stop, I investigate my emotions, get rid of the old, useless things and habits and go ahead with a lighter heart. Now I just smile when a girl shut the door in the changing room with anger saying “These are fucking idiots!”

You know everything is okay when you sit and smile, then go on stage, shake your booty a bit and men start queueing to have a chance to talk to you or take you to the private. I know I’m okay and balanced when guys come to me at work. I don’t need to lift up my pretty bum from the chair, they come to me asking if I want a drink or a dance. (Hm, let me think about it.) They come to me because I’m smiley and easy to approach. I like when work is that smooth and I enjoy myself. I don’t need to pretend I like people, I really do and I enjoy talking to them. I’m radiant. But it took almost 3 months emotional cleansing. When nothing happened on the surface but a lot inside. You know the feeling when you just want to hide from people. Low energy. Lost motivations. Like stepping in the mud. The more steps you make, the deeper you get. In the mud, I was searching for helping hands but forget about my own. Some could help and lift me up a few inches and hold me there temporary, some just pushed me even deeper.

Enough! Let’s see what is under the water! I let myself to swirl into the deep emotions and I went through all the stages of anger, blame, despair, self-pity. But as a result, I came out as a stronger person. And now I enjoy the fruits of my work on myself as others can do. Last week I went shopping and realised men stop and staring at me. One guy literally stopped and turned as I passed by. No, he didn’t check up my behind, he looked my face. I was wearing the same radiant smile as at work. With these feedbacks, I know I’m okay. But maybe this time it took so long. Maybe this is a sign that I better stop doing this job, I have nothing left to learn from it. I must grow. Life is much more than wake up in the morning, go to work and pay the bills (maybe because of this way of thinking I never had lots of money although all my bills are paid.)

In this sensitive period, I had someone who pointed out my negative side, someone who pushed me down in the final. I believe everything happens for a reason and every person who enters our life has a message for us. This person disappeared from my life without knowing that he gave me an amazing gift. He held a mirror for me that I had to look into and face with my own self-destruction. But his job is done. Message delivered. The rest is up to me what I’m going to do with it. There is still much work, but the first step is to realise which part of your life you need to work on. At least I stopped destroying the things around me. Now I’m more centred and can focus on building up.

Laura’s research into lapdance experienses 3.

“Do you see your work as a type of acting? (like an actress going onto a stage and performing a certain identity, pretending to be a different person)”

“Why do you chose to use a different name to your actual name? Is your stage name may be part of a different part of your identity that you act?”

Most of the burlesque classes start with the lesson of how to build up your persona. In strip clubs, there is no such a class, but it all starts with choosing your dancer name. I used to work using the short form of my real name, but in non-English speaker countries, it doesn’t sound sexy at all. Girls choose a dancer name to hide their real identity. Before you ask yourself, no, it’s not my real name. And I’m not named after Lindsay Lohan. I’m less trouble than she is. 🙂 But it has been told I look like the Victoria’s Secret model Lindsay Ellingson (I used to be blonde that time) and I’m proud of having that name. When one of my managers told me I will be called Lindsay, I immediately felt confident with this name, and since then I use it everywhere I go. It’s easy because not so common. If I choose a name like Maria, I could be asked in every club to change it because there is a Maria already there. When they make our weekly rota or the payments documents, they use only the dancer name. Can you imagine it if is more than one Lindsay there? Or when the DJ call the next girl to the stage in the mike? They don’t even like when there are lots of similar names like Nelly, Kelly, Sally, Terry for the same reason.

But with Lindsay, I always have lots of fun as no one can write it down properly. When I see a Lizi or Lindi on the rota I smile and I know it’s me. In some countries, I can’t use it. In Japanese, it’s difficult to pronounce as they don’t have the letter “L” and they would call me Rindsay. So Mama-san gave me a name and I was Chanel. Not sure if it was better than Rindsay.

“Hello, I’m Chanel.”

“Hi Chanel, I’m Cartier.” or “Hello, I’m Hugo. Hugo Boss.”

I hated it!

But some girls having fun to change their names in every club. My friend Giselle used maybe 4 or 5 names during our work period together. And then I had to be cautious about which name should I call her in the recent club or front of the recent customer. She didn’t make it easy for me.

Talking about the persona or a different personality when I work, I don’t know. For me, there is not such a big difference. But maybe I’m just too honest and I don’t want to wear a mask at work. For me actually is the opposite. During this job, I learned a lot about myself and I became more ME than to develop a persona and play a role. I feel very lucky that I’m not one of the girls who are able to work only under the influence of drugs or alcohol. That changes the personality a lot. Sometimes I wonder about girls that they so quiet in the apartment and at work, they are totally behaving like superstars. Sometimes I make a joke that maybe I need to take the same drug to feel more confident and be more effective at work. but it’s only a matter of time when the effect is gone – together with their self-confidence.

So for me after several years spent in this business, there is a very thin line between my work personality and my real one. I don’t want to act at work and play a persona which is not me just to make more money and please the customer. (Here I’m not talking about being smiley and bubbly and funny. I can be that naturally without acting. And I also know every customer is different so I need to adopt different behaviour to work with them. I just don’t have a role at work to play.) It works like a filter. If they want a girl with certain behaviour, they don’t choose me and I can happily work with the customer who appreciates my personality without wearing a mask. But at the same time, my work has affected my personality and thanks for all those years of experiences and situations, I became a stronger person in my private life.

Is there Life after stripping?

Well, I really hope so as I’m not planning to shake my tities in my fifties. I’ve already heard a few comments like “you are too old for this”. But who decides when a stripper must quit from this lifestyle? It depends on her and only on her. I’ve seen older women – I mean much older than me – still beautiful, smiling and entertaining all night. And they still enjoy! That’s her whole life! One of my boss and owner of a strip club told me these girls need attention constantly. It’s their drugs. Without the stage, the spotlights and being in a centre of attention they are lost. I agree with him although I never had this addiction. As I spend more time in this industry, I enjoy less being on the stage and more intelligent conversations with different people.

I also heard from customers that at that age I should concentrate on my carrier in a normal day job and cooking Sunday roast to my husband and kids. This is only a stereotype. Actually, I’m very happy that I don’t have kids. For me travelling the world and teasing men it’s not expectable if you have a baby at home. I’ve seen lots of girls crying because they are away from their babies. In South Africa, I worked with a Brazilian girl who was still breastfeeding, and the baby was in Brazil. For me, this is a big NO! And I always answer to these guys, I don’t want a baby. They look at me surprisingly. But it’s true. I don’t want only a baby. I want a family. The whole package. Husband, kids, home, garden, a dog, a cat and a goldfish. I know you smile, but I still won’t be happy as a single mum with a crying baby doing night shifts.

Lots of girls are waiting for their Prince Charming to ride up in his white BMW, rescue them from the club and ensure them a secure lifestyle. (Mine got lost somewhere on his way!) They want to be taken away from this job and working for a living. They want to live in a big house with a housekeeper and a driver. But we know from fairy tales that sooner or later there will be a witch or the mean stepmother (a new lover or the ex-wife). Some of my friends found true love during working in nightclubs and I’m happy for them. They settled down in foreign countries, getting engaged or having babies. Most of all, they are happy. Ah, I know where is my Prince Charming! He has such a big heart, he sold his beautiful white horse to buy me a ring! Now he’s riding a donkey and poor animal is just so slow.

Seriously talking, after six years of being a lady of the night, I decided to step out to the daylight. I started this blog almost a year ago. I never thought but I really enjoy writing it. And checking the statistics I’m surprised that so many people follow and send me emails with lots of questions and saying “What a refreshing and interesting blog! I think a stripper who studies Japanese and know psychology should be deserving of every guy’s interest.” Last week I got an email from a university student and she asked me if I would help her writing her dissertation about lap-dance experience. I’m happy to help and also that not only men read my blog.

But my final goal is – to be honest – to write a book. I have the whole concept in my head but it takes time. So now I try to work less at night and focus on writing daytime. At least it keeps me busy and entertained until my Prince Charming arrives on his donkey.