Do Strippers Go To Heaven?

By Ivy Rose on February 12, 2014 in Other

Picture: Carol Doda

The term ‘catching-up’ with a friend has now become a daunting and dreaded protocol that I have to endure, rather than enjoy. It is not that I don’t like my friends. It’s just that so much time has passed with relatively too little going on in their lives that they inevitably come to the question, “So where are you working now?” to which I give an awry smirk, a vague wave of the hand, an awkward laugh, and then finally just sigh and say, “I’m a stripper.”

Shifting the adorable infant parasite to the other hip, my sympathetic friend tries to mask her horror with pleased surprise while I tell her about strippergrams, x-rated shows, topless waitressing and lap dances. I can see her thought process open up to the idea when I start talking about the money. Of course, this is one of my more progressive, alternative friends, so she has already thought about this particular career path.

She tries to tell me she would lack the confidence as she whips out a breast and allows the parasite to suckle from one nipple while grabbing at the other nipple beneath her shirt. She tries to apologise for her breasts then laughs because I’ve surely seen plenty. I have, though usually with a middle-aged man attempting to do what her 14 month-old is doing.

She represents a very tiny proportion of society, the proportion that accepts that the world is made up of black and white and every shade in between. The rest of the world will openly tell me that they don’t agree with what I do. My own brother has accused me of being a hooker. My other brother said he always knew I would be trouble. My ex-boyfriend called me a ‘gutless c**t’ and an ‘empty shell of the person I once was’ due to my obsession with money.

I won’t lie. I like money. Actually, I love money. Once I had it I started to understand just how pleasing it was to sit at home and count it, arranging the little plastic windows in the same corner to satisfy my underlying OCD.

I love my job too, and I particularly love how easy it is to make money doing my job. That is not to say that my job is easy. It requires skill, psychoanalytical awareness of human interaction and a significantly thick skin in order to progress in the world of nude entertainment. For example, knowing how to politely remove an inappropriately placed hand without pissing off the owner of said hand is a delicate power play that uses a quick flutter of eyelashes, a sweet smile and a firm word or two. Knowing how to do so and still encourage a tip is a fine art unto itself.

What never ceases to amaze me is the way a man can become emotionally involved with a dancer and suddenly admit that he is uncomfortable with her profession and unable to love her because of the shame of being seen with her. In case we have all forgotten, it is men who have made stripping such a lucrative business, yet when a woman takes advantage of the industry she is judged. It is assumed that since I can be so heartless as to mystify men into emptying their wallets I am completely incapable of being heartbroken. Then, when a dancer suffers the heartbreak and goes back to the glamour and spotlight, becoming more committed to the work, the ambitious drive to make money is considered a demonic quality rather than the admirable quest for financial independence.

As I get into my car saying goodbye to my progressive friend and her parasite child, she leans into the window, “Now you musn’t tell our friend Lisa about what you do. She may refuse to know you.”

Lisa is one of those God-fearing churchy types. She took me to Hillsong once, probably in an attempt to lead me away from my obsession with yoga (she may have thought it was a cult).

“Would she cry?” I asked.

“No. She would most likely just pray for you, but she might never sit next to you again.”

So even my alternative hippy friend who can openly breastfeed in public admits that Lisa may not approve of my stripping career because God certainly would not. As I drive away, my first thought is that God probably doesn’t give a f**k about the strippers of the world when there are so many people dying of starvation. Apparently, in this world, the God of the people (as in the God that was created by the people) does give a f**k, and in that f**k of infinite wisdom, He does not approve of strippers. Armed with biblical certainty, men would stand at the pearly gates and beat back the heathen exotic dancers. I imagine these are the same men who demanded free entry at the door to the strip club in their own short lives.

Well f**k it, I thought, I’m proud of what I do. I’m damn proud of my backwards-roly-poly-into-splits move and my thigh-high patent leather black boots. I love that I know every word to Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ because it is the nude song. I am proud of how much money I bring home, how often I train to keep my butt in good shape and how hard I can study because I’m not slaving away over a bar for hours on end.

And if all of that means I don’t get to go to Heaven then I don’t want to go to Heaven.

Fact is, I wouldn’t know anyone there, anyway.