After all the rigga-ma-roll about Jenna’s book, and people asking me questions about it, I finally sat down and read it yesterday. Yes, that’s right; I read it in one day. For those who don’t know me, I rarely ever read anything besides books on business, marketing, stocks, history or computer software. I don’t think I have even picked up a fictional book, with the exception of Harry Potter, since the time I was nine or ten. Back then I would go through two or three books in a day. Some people really love fictional books, but I don’t. If I am going to read something it better give me a better understanding about the world, or computers. Jenna’s book certainly fits into the “world” category. Before I even started on the book I had requests to borrow it, so the book has already been passed on to another friend of mine in the adult industry.
The biggest question people have been asking was if Jenna was telling the truth about what she made working one night at the Crazy Horse Too in Vegas. I can’t say for sure that she is being honest, but I have reason to believe she was being honest. I think you will find that what she claims is very much possible.
She says in the book that she was making $2,000 to $4,000 per night, in Las Vegas at the Crazy Horse Too working around 12 hour shifts. She would have been 17 at the time (underage to be dancing) and around 1991. The industry really took a hit first when businesses no longer allowed expense account write-offs for people having “meetings” at strip clubs, which was in the mid nineties, and hurt the industry more than any one single event. Compound this with the stock market falling after 9/11. Between both of these events dancers really started complaining that the money wasn’t as good. It seems to me like these events effected clubs in some cities worse than others, and smaller towns with more conservative views took a bigger hit because people were even less likely to spend money on adult entertainment. Jenna though was working in Sin City, and before 9/11 and all of the business account write-offs were banned.
During my time in dancing I found that the smaller city I originally started in didn’t even begin to compare to larger cities. When I moved to San Francisco and was hired I was told that lap dances were $20. Prior to this I had no experience with lap dances because my previous club didn’t do lap dances. I didn’t think $20 seemed like a lot though, and I was really young so I asked the hiring manager about this.
“It’s sort of like selling a hamburger, the more they pay, the more they get.” the hiring manager informed me, and then continued “You want Ketchup and mustard? It’s extra. You want pickles or cheese? It’s gonna cost ya.”
I didn’t exactly get the full meaning of that until weeks later. The other girls in the club were banking and I was barely making anything because stage shows in San Francisco don’t really pay anything. Before long though I was listening to what they would tell the men.
” $20 for a clothed lap dance, and $40 for nude.” the dancer’s would tell the customers.
Why stop there though? I could do so much better. I went home that night and worked out a new system for prices at the different clubs I was working at, which ranged from pasty clubs to nude. The pricing broke down to $20 for a non-contact fully clothed lap dance, which was more like a table dance because I stood a good distance away in one of the private dance areas. The next level was $40 for a clothed low-contact dance. The prices kept going up, all within the legal bounds because I never have nor will I do “extras”. The last few price categories were over $100 per song. At the time it seemed like maybe the customers wouldn’t go for it, but I was wrong!
I could sell one or two $100+ dances almost every hour, and sometimes more, along with many dances that were around $60 to $80 per song in a single hour. The outcome was that even though San Francisco didn’t really have stage money, I made fantastic money once I learned how to get it! I could easily average $250 per hour, Sunday day shift… which I rarely ever worked. Friday and Saturday nights were even better. Yes, I’m giving you all what I made on a Sunday, because a Sunday shift was probably the shift I hated the most money-wise. Soon the other girls wanted to know how I was making my money, and I had simply expanded on what they were already doing.
Jenna had been taught by her friend Vanessa to use a very similar system. They were not direct to the customers up front though with what the person needed to pay for the top level dance offered. They would start out not touching at all with the first dance, and as the money increased for the dances, so did the attention that Jenna and Vanessa would give to the customer. The crowds in Vegas spend money easier and faster than many other cities in the U.S., people come to Vegas knowing they are going to spend their money, and they just don’t seem as tight with it in that town.
So let’s do the math:
$4,000 / 12 hour shift = $333.33 per hour
$333.333/hr vs my $250/hr is only a 25% difference.
These numbers are from about 10 years apart. I would say that 25% difference is easily made up because of the items I have listed below. I have put a percentage next to each one of how much of a difference I think it made in effecting what Jenna earned. These are NOT BASED ON ANYTHING – they are simply numbers and my own opinion. I think you will see though that even a small percentage of a difference for each area makes a huge outcome.
.. 1.) Jenna, at 17, was still young and the men thought she was hot fresh meat. = 3% increase
. 2.) She had a mentor to show her the ropes to make money faster. = 3% increase
.. 3.) She was dancing in Vegas when Vegas was still one of the best cities. = 4% increase
.. 4) The business write-offs were still kosher with companies. = 7% increase
.. 5) 9/11 had not yet happened, so the stock market was still up. = 5% increase
.. 6) The internet not begun to boom, so more people went to clubs. = 3% increase
That is a 25% difference in earnings, and on some I really think I’m under-quoting what a difference it would make to her earning potential.
I can’t seem to dig up any annual reports going back further than 2001 for the adult club chains I’m familiar with. Nor do the historical stock websites seem to list back to 1991, so I’ve done the next best thing to compare the 25% for dancers to the loss the clubs had. Let’s look at the following stock information, because stock prices often rise and fall with the general market.
Rick’s Cabaret International Inc. (RICK) on January 2, 1996 closed at 3.94 per share. On January 2, 2001 the stock closed at 2.11 per share. That represents a decrease of about 54%!
It seems to me that a 25% decrease in the general dancers’ earnings would then be very reasonable decrease for a 10 year period with so many changes, compared to the 54% that Rick’s lost. My guess would even be that as the dancers’ earnings began going down, the clubs that didn’t track what dancers earned probably lost more money than necessary. I would venture to guess that many of the “less than honest” dancers probably under reported what they earned, in an attempt to continue making the same amount of money. I think that is beyond possible now though, and many who were not honest about their earnings probably left the industry between the mid nineties and 2002, leaving a new generation of dancers to find their own way in the adult nightclub industry.
So my answer is yes, It is very possible that Jenna did earn between $2,000 to $4,000 per night.
