The idea of starting a new forum for the industry has been spinning in my head for a long time… years rather than days, weeks or months. However, what it really comes down to is needing the help of my peers & admirers of these peers. I need to know what YOU really want. We’ve seen forums come & go, a good forum though can have a run of over ten years though, & therefore requires both planning, organization & foresight. I am only one person, but together we can make a great community where many can thrive rather than simply survive. I’m including the following survey to get the ball rolling for the forum to head in the right direction.

Everything from this survey will be confidential, so feel free to express what your really want or don’t want.

I will be tabulating the answers to these on Tuesday, May 17th at 9pm MDT… so be sure to take the survey before then! After that your answers will still be considered, but they may not make as much of a difference in choosing the domain name. If you have a suggestion for a domain name you can also e-mail it to me directly, or leave it at the bottom of the survey.

If you are part of any of the current industry forums, take the new forum survey now

“How do I give a lap dance to an obese customer?”  – Curious Stripper

With my background in photography this question reminds me of people who ask “How do I photograph ____ people?” (fill in the blank with: African, African American, Black, Asian, Native American, yada yada yada) The question leaves me perplexed because I want to answer “Just like you photograph anyone else!” Many people know that I photographed weddings for numerous years. Guess what? Most brides & grooms wear black & white! This concerns many new photographers who debate how to handle a really bright subject next to a really dark subject. The simple answer to photographing people with darker skin is that you photograph them the same as anyone else, you came simply needs to be set to photograph at the correct exposure!

The secret to solving most problems is to figure out the details of what causes the problem. You could run around in circles trying to change 50 different things, but sitting down & thinking it through is often more effective. For example, what normally concerns a photographer when photographing a person with darker skin is that they think they need more light. The photographer will set his flash to output more light, & the photo produced will show a glaring  spot on the person’s skin. The glare is actually the highlighted (brighter) area of the subject, but because there is oil the light bounces back into the camera – causing the glare effect. On someone who produces a lot of oil (regardless of ethnicity) the first step is diluting the oil, either by soaking it up with something like rice paper, or applying powder. From that point in order for the camera to capture relatively the same amount of light the photographer sees on the subject, the correct exposure needs to be set, which can be determined by an electronic light meter device. The starting point for the proper exposure will be the same for any object of two different colors, because the same amount of light would hit them both. Again, its not about how you capture the photo with the camera settings… its about how you resolve the problem in the set-up!

You might be wondering what I am getting at here? My point is to think about what constitutes the problem of giving an obese customer a lap dance. The difference between a table dance & a lap dance is that during a lap dance, the dancer is expected to sit down to dance on the customer’s lap for part of the song. Very few people are so obese that their belly protrudes over their entire lap. That means a dancer could give an obese customer a lap dance just as easily as a slender customer… if only one change was made. Dance is something that can be done with movement using any part of the body, as witnessed by many wonderful performers who dance in wheelchairs. In the lap dance an entertainer could sit on the customer’s legs & simply dance using her arms, torso, & legs. Numerous dancers forget that they have all of these options to work with.

Lap dancing is a very customer service oriented industry though, & the happier the customer is with a service, the more likely they are to purchase again.  Times have changed what a woman can do physically though before a person quickly takes a sexual interest in her… & showing an ankle from beneath a floor length skirt won’t  cut it. Neither will simple teasing techniques used in the adult entertainment clubs within previous decades. Some strippers  now believe that the best way to entice someone is to arouse not the brain, but their primal instincts through their physical being… or more specifically their genitals. Other dancers simply can’t actually dance yet for the length of a song because they don’t have a large enough repertoire of moves. Both of these types of dancers can end up relying on the ability to create physical arousal in customers to make extra money beyond the first lap dance.

Strippers use three primary hip movements entice customer while in the customer’s lap. Many dancers perform “grinding”, which consists of moving the hips in a circular motion. Along with grinding is “bumping” which simply references the hips of the dancer being tilted forward, & then back with a quick thrusting motion. Some dancers will also employ an up & down “bouncing” motion by bending at both knees. When sitting in a male customer’s lap, where his pubic region is in contact either with the dancer’s behind or pubic region, these grinding/bumping/bouncing moves create friction & sometimes cause physical arousal in the customer… all while the customer is clothed though of course. If you aren’t sure yet what I’m referring to, the term “dry humping” will probably bring back some useful memories. You don’t need to say anything. I know most adults would probably be ashamed to admit they ever did anything which now reminds them of how an unneutered chihuhua might greet a guest at the door. While grinding may not be sex, plenty of people are happy to have even a dry version of a favourite activity… particularly from someone with a desirable body & good personality! Don’t think this is just something for the poor souls of the world who don’t get to enjoy sex either, no my good friends, some people simply can not get enough of sex & anything which relates to it.

After just once dance with an obese customer many entertainers learn that the belly pudge (sometimes overhang) acts as a barrier, restricting the entertainer from attaining friction in the pubic region. Unfortunately, especially for new dancers, many female strippers have very few moves in their lap dance repertoire, & not being able to use moves they do know can make them uneasy. This may cause them to lose out on money by not approaching customers who would buy dances. Therefore really the question they should be asking is:

“How do I move a customer’s stomach so that I have full access to their lap?”

A few dancers may suggest incorporating “belly play” into the dance, which is common among the obese gainer fetish community. Belly play can be done by a gainer or by another person to the gainer, such as a dancer. It consists of using the hands & body to play with the fat: lifting it, dropping it, creating folds from it & making waves of it. Imagine that you are kneading dough to make bread, & you have the basic idea of belly play. If you are 100% positive that your customer is a gainer the use the belly play to your advantage! However, many customers may not wish to have their weight pointed out to them.

The single best thing an entertainer can do is to change the customer’s posture to allow the entertain more access to the lap. When an obese person is standing, gravity from the earth is pulling down on everything, especially anything that hangs such as fatty tissues. When a person sits down their spine compresses, thus causing the rib cage to lower & generally forces things in the stomach region forward. All of these cause the stomach to protrude more than normal. Generally in an obese person gravity can no longer pull the tummy & protruding tissues down from a single point, so instead this area may rest on the top of the thighs. When this happens gravity is pulling down equally at multiple points, causing a sort of avalanche effect on the tissue where everything pulls forward & down, resulting in even less room for the entertainer, & blocking access to more of the lap. Depending on how obese a person is, very little of the lap could be blocked, or a lot could be blocked. In order for the entertainer to have access to more of the lap the posture of the customer is changed in order for gravity to pull the excess tissue down from multiple points, but with more of the points being higher up closer to the chest. To do this the customer simply needs to lean back!

To see this in motion take a look at this gentleman’s video on YouTube (warning: topless man).

When you are dancing for an obese person try to select the widest chair possible, since it will give you more space to work in without putting your own body into strange angles.

In order to get the customer to lean back:

1. Place your hands either on the top or side of the customers thighs.

2. While giving the customer a gentle pat on the thigh say something to the effect of  “Do me a favor & scoot forward on the chair a bit”, while sliding your hands closer to the customers knees. This effectively gives the customer both an audio & physical signal to move forward on their seat, which is less likely to be missed or require repeating.

Hint: for best effect you want your customer’s head & torso to be at an obtuse angle from their thighs, generally between about 130° & 180° (sitting up straight is a 90° angle & lying down on the back is a 180° angle). The larger your customer is, the closer they will need to be to an angle similar to laying down, which means they’ll need to move forward closer to the edge of their seat.

3. If possible place a pillow behind the customer’s back to help take up space. A pillow is not necessary, but for this method to be the most effective the customer’s neck & spine must remain relatively straight. The pillow will help keep customers from curling their shoulders forward & slouching or arching their spine.

4. Place the palm of your hand on the center of the customer’s chest, give a coy smile & say “Great, now we can really have fun”!, while gently pushing the customer back into the leaning position.

Voila! You now have full access to your customer’s lap, & are ready to start your dance.

If you find that you regularly have obese customers, encourage your club management to consider purchasing  sturdy seating with the furniture backs set at an angle. Most clubs generally have to replace their furniture every five to ten years due to dancers placing shoe heels on the furniture that create holes, along with regular wear & tear of  daily use.  The more you remind management that this is important to the customers, the more likely management is to remember to order something appropriate. Plus, most clubs would really only ever need one or two chairs for obese customers. Modern Line is a company that sells direct to many adult entertainment nightclubs & gentlemen clubs. Here are a few options for the type of furniture to look for:

Leisure Lounger by Modern Line -  Chair ottoman by Modern Line - Loveseat by Modern Line -    Extra Wide

Lounge Chair by Brylane -    Copper Single by Zuo Modern -    Simple Sofa by LoveSac

Rocker Frame & PillowSac by LoveSac

(Alternatively you could also purchase the “Base a la Carte” instead of the rocker frame, & place the PillowSac on top. I’m a personal fan of the LoveSac products since my ex-boyfriend kept one in my home for years & it was very comfortable!)

For clubs who want their dancers to be able to give good lap dances to all customers, management should look for seating that features:

- A built in reclined back

- Relatively flat & solid sitting surface

- No or very little surface for the lower legs to rest, allowing dancers to perform between customers knees

Do not purchase tantra chairs (NSFW link), since these raise the position of the knees, & basically will put the customer close to the 90° angle position, & the dancer will have a hard time accessing both the lap & the space to dance between the knees.

I hope this will be helpful to some of you out there. Happy lap dancing!

I am writing this blog in response to a message I received from another stripper:

“I saw your comment about Deja Vu and want to know if you have an opinion on why you think they dropped their prices so dramatically?”

This is a question in response to the rumor that the Deja Vu clubs of San Francisco no longer allow their dancers to up-sell. For all intensive purposes the Deja Vu clubs of San Francisco now have fixed/set prices & dancers caught up-selling will have their contracts ended… essentially meaning they will be fired.

When I first started dancing the club where I worked didn’t have lap dances… for that matter I don’t believe any club in the city did. It was months before I even knew that we offered table dances, because no one ever gave them. I didn’t even know what a table dance was until a customer requested one! I told him that I wasn’t sure & needed to check with the manager. The manager said table dances were allowed & were $25 each. The customer was brought to a corner of the club, & a bouncer brought over a table that went up to my hips, which was placed between the customer & myself. I was to dance in front of this table, & there was no touching between the dancer & the customer.

Then I moved to San Francisco to attend college. San Francisco is known as a “high mileage” city, meaning there is a lot of contact between the dancers & customers… sometimes too much. I had already planned to dance when I got to the city, but is was by accident that my timing turned out just perfect. As I was cruising east on Broadway in my car while getting to know the city I ended up smack dab in the middle of the city’s strip club district – painted in bright colors & bedazzled with lights that weren’t yet on in the early afternoon hours. As I continued on to my right I saw a line of girls, all waiting with anticipation, & noticed that it was the Centerfold’s club. Lucky for me I had my dance bag in the back of my car. I parked, walked up with my bag to the gentlemen at the front of the line manning the door & asked for an audition. The entire line of girls were those waiting for an audition & I joined them at the back of the line.

Once inside we were brought downstairs as the female hiring manager began the hiring process. First she went over the rules. I began filling out paperwork & she double questioned me about auditioning because I still had an out of state ID. San Francisco is known to be probably the least friendly city for traveling dancers, & she would hire none of them! I assured her that my move was permanent & that I had moved to attend college, which seemed to satisfy her. The girls were taken upstairs to audition, & one by one we went on stage. I was the last to go since I arrived last. What I saw was a lot more interaction between the dancers & the customers. When my turn came I turned on a smile, stepped on stage, & playfully teased the audience. The audition was done before I could fully process it, & I had been hired! The Deja Vu Centerfolds hiring manager hired for all of the Deja Vu clubs back then, including Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club which was managed by Deja Vu. I received a schedule of different clubs along Broadway that I was to work, including the Hustler Club.

Before leaving the hiring manager’s office though I received one of the most important speeches I would ever receive in my career, although I didn’t know it at the time.

“We sell lap dances at our clubs.” She said offhandedly while facing away, then turned & looked me straight in the eye “selling lap dances is like selling hamburgers. They want want ketchup? Charge them extra! They want mustard? Charge them extra! All they get with the order is the hamburger.” With that she walked me out the door of the office & sent me on my way.

I broke down & cried in the dressing room after just a night. The clubs were rough, the girls were mean, & I thought I’d made the worst decision of my life… but I hadn’t. I was spoiled rotten, & used to a club where I earned everything on stage. I easily earned $500 – $800 a night at the low end club I used to work where no one ever really sold the table dances that were available, & I could easily come off my stage set with $50. Now I was in clubs where the dancers were getting maybe $3 or $4 on an average stage set. I was barely earning anything! Even selling these lap dances that I wasn’t used to I could barely break $100. I think I went home everyday for the first month & cried myself to sleep. I just didn’t get “it” yet…

The clubs had great potential. Every evening that I worked they were packed. One club that became my favourite was so small that the customers were literally standing all over packed in shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines in a tiny tin can! The dancers would walk up & down squeezing their ways through the rows of customers asking “Wanna dance?”. Finally one night I joined the “pack”… & that’s when it happened. I heard a dancer negotiating the price of her dance, further more every number I heard was ABOVE the price posted on all the signs around the club which read something to the effect of “$20 minimum per dance”. The sign didn’t specify what type of dance. That was the moment that I got “it”… suddenly the hamburger speech made sense!

Before I knew it I had joined the ranks of the top earners. I was charging upwards of $150 for a single clean dance, meaning there were no sexual favours or most of the things you hear of high contact/mileage clubs. I wasn’t in the back giving handjobs, blowjobs or having intercourse. What I was doing though was charging $20 for what was essentially a clothed table dance & increasing the amount charged for the type of dance (table vs. lapdance = ketchup) & how much clothing I kept on (fully dressed/pasties/topless/nude = mustard). I had discovered the power of having something to negotiate (up-selling), & suddenly I was able to clear numbers in the four digits in a single night!

The economy had already taken some hard hits before I moved to San Francisco & there were more to come, so let’s talk about how that effects dancing. Three things really effected my dancing career early on. First,  after a federal court ruling businessmen could no longer use their business credit cards & spending accounts in the club, because these trips to the clubs were no longer tax deductible as a “business & entertainment expense”. That meant businessmen no longer took their male clients to the club to entertain or impress them. Second, when 9/11 happened tons of people were put out of work & the stock market crashed… so essentially there was less money to be spent. Third, the dot-com burst put many people out of work, and a lot of prime customers (lonely with money) stopped visiting the clubs. Dancers complained after each & every one of these events that their income went down, & I will agree that it did… especially when the federal court ruling on the business expense write-offs happened! Now we are encountering new challenges though.

First we have the fact that strip aerobics & pole dancing classes are seen in most major fitness centers. I’m not going to knock this, I teach the classes myself. What club entertainers need to understand though is that customers don’t come to the clubs just to watch us dance… they come to be entertained! If all they wanted was to watch a sexy girl from afar then most could go to a local burlesque show where the dancers don’t come off the stage, talk, & interact with the customers. The customers expect you to do more than just dance… that’s why probably 90%+ of clubs have our titles listed as entertainers not dancers! Pull out the full costumes, work on your choreography & stage presence, then go talk & interact with the customers.

Second, women out at general night are clubs showing more skin than ever & practically making out with men & women right on the dance floor. In Denver on numerous occasions I have seen full on penetrating sex in the night clubs! Times have changed & regardless of what my opinion is or what your opinion is this sort of thing is happening. Those women are pleasing… but we specialize in strip-teasing. Yes, there are still people out there who enjoy the tease, so much in fact that they are willing to pay for it! So if you are in the business keep on making your money. While it may mean less customers in the clubs there are still good customers to be found.

Finally, we have our current recession. Honestly I think out of all the things that I have seen take it’s toll on the stripping industry this one has probably effected it the least. While money has slowly decreased for most over the years the fact is that this industry still earns well in comparison to most. Honestly I have seen major effects in my earnings that I can say relate directly to the economy. I can’t say that is true about the clubs though. Generally speaking there are more customers in the club than what I have a chance to talk to due to time constraints. I would guess on average I probably speak to 10% to 15% of the customers. I do know that the number of customers coming through the doors of most clubs are now lower than before the recession. The clubs are making less money on entry fees & drink sales. The only way this really could effect me though is that the clubs are trying to make-up for it by raising the house fees they charge dancers, & taking a larger percentage of the minimum posted dance price (generally $5 out of $20 or $25). Through the recession I have opted to work at more independent clubs which typically have lower house fees & take little or nothing from my individual dance earnings, which means I have probably felt the effects of the recession less than most dancers.

However, some clubs such as Deja Vu are trying other tactics on top of increasing their house fees & taking a larger split of the individually collected dance fees. I strongly believe that the reason the Deja Vu clubs of San Francisco have capped their dance prices (meaning dancers can no longer up-sell) is for reputation control. Deja Vu owns or operates approximately eight clubs in San Francisco, & they want all of their clubs to continue earning money at their given amount or more. In order to do that they need the same amount of people coming in the door, which won’t happen if their reputation becomes damaged. I believe Deja Vu is trying to tell its dancers that their habit of up-selling is now working against the clubs, which is ironic since their managers once taught us how to up-sell, one might say it came back to bite them. If the customers think the entertainment is too expensive they won’t return. If the customers feel like the dancers are taking advantage of them they won’t return. Not only will they not return, but they will tell their friends not to go to the establishment either. Deja Vu is probably trying to create an environment in their clubs that keep the customers coming back… and not feeling ripped off – regardless of if they actually were ripped off or not. It’s all about customer perception & money in the stockholders pockets.

How should the entertainers respond? Unless an entertainer is billed by the club as an employee than they are an independent contractor. Being an independent contractor means legally the entertainer sets their own rates. Some clubs are starting to put a blurb in their independent contractor contracts requiring a dancer to give the club written notice if he/she plans to adjust the dance rates, or even requiring the dancer to agree in the contract to perform at a stated rate for private dances. This is basically what Deja Vu is doing, forcing entertainers to perform at a stated rate. The first thing you need to know is that just because something is in a contract does not mean it is legal. The second thing you need to know is when it’s worth it to get a lawyer. I’m not going to make any full judgment calls here, but I do think this is a sink or swim situation. You can either sign the new contract & hope others will make so much less that they drop out of the industry leaving you more money to be made while still knowing your earning potential will never be the same. Or you can band together as a group with entertainers from all the San Francisco Deja Vu clubs & approach a lawyer about a potential class action lawsuit.

I will say that I am sadly disappointed in my beloved San Francisco Deja Vu chain. While other entertainers raked their national name over the coals with their high dance cuts & house fees, I always stood up for them on forums & in public because of the major potential to make money through up-selling. If they take that away they are joining the ranks of clubs who are forcing this industry out of business because the entertainers will no longer be able to afford to work. Whose fault do I think that really is? While there is the sink or swim theory I think the reputations of the clubs have gone down, & that has more to do with decisions previously made by the clubs & management than it does with the entertainers.