Unheard Voices
Strip-dancing: The human being inside the body
Click on Archives: September, 2005 to see the contents of this month’s paper.
By Geoff Bederson
When I first met Fawn I was struck by her sensitivity, seriousness, and humility. I’ve always been isolated from numerous sectors of the human population. Fawn was a bridge for me to one of these sectors, a key to a world that I had little access to. We often talked about her life in the clubs—the exotic, erotic life of an unpretentious, terribly honest, and soulful human being.
How did you get started dancing? How has it helped you to lead the lifestyle that you want?
I was in my fourth year of college, working two jobs. I was tired and broke, and needed more money. In 1996 I went to Taiwan on a three month contract. I went to Mexico City on my second contract, and since then I’ve been Canada, Japan, and all over the U.S. I’ve been to Guam a number of times.
In this country I can make as much money, if not more, than when I started ten or eleven years ago, probably because I’m better at dancing. I just don’t work as often, because I don’t like the job as much. You can make $1,000 a night. I average $400 - $500 a day. At the Bush company I don’t think I ever made less than $500.
For a long time I enjoyed the freedom stripping gave me. Even now I like being able to work for six months, and take six months off to hang out with my family, or whatever. It has allowed me to travel.
Abroad, the money situation has changed. Japan is the worst, because more women, from places like Eastern Europe, are able to leave their country now.
Who comes to the shows, and what do they get out of it?
Every strip bar is different. For some it is drinking. Some guys go because they have drinking problems. Some go to the seedier bars to turn a trick.
Some men are looking for companionship. At places like the Crazy Horse, there is a small local clientele. Everyone knows everyone, and the same guys are in there everyday. At some places the guys want to get to know the girls, to make dates and get a girlfriend. I don’t work at those clubs very often. You usually make less money there.
In the Bush Company you’re going to give one to two dances per customer, because they’re not very close lap dances. But there are hundreds of customers, so you can make a lot of money. At places like the Crazy Horse, you’re going to dance for three or four customers a night, but you will make at least a hundred dollars from each one of them, because the dances are closer, there is more contact, and you’re keeping them interested for a longer period of time. It depends on the club. All venues are different, and each attracts a different clientele.
I don’t feel sorry for the men like I used to. As a matter of fact, looking back on it, it was never a strength of mine to take pity on them, or to feel like I was doing someone some good, because then I was being taken advantage of.
What’s you’re opinion on other girls?
I’ve met a lot of really amazing ladies in the strip clubs as I’ve traveled, a lot of really bright, amazing people. All of them are different, and they all have different reasons for doing it. Someone may have three little kids, and they’re on welfare, and they need to make ends meet. Some of them are in their last year of college, and they’re trying to finish school. Some of them are just addicted to attention and money. Everyone makes up their own story that will keep them there.
I don’t know if there’s any story left for me. It used to be that I was some kind of Venus, Mother God, who was helping and healing people. Now I think that’s crap, but that’s the story I picked. Other females are going to make up their own stories to suit their psychological needs so that they can keep working. So they can keep whatever juice they’re getting out of it.
You used to talk about the lonely people who go to the strip clubs, and about how you strived to establish a human relationship with some of those people.
I used to tell myself that, yes. I don’t feel that way anymore. I think that I was fooling myself, to think that I was doing anybody any good. I used to try to justify what I was doing. I felt that I was honoring something, and this justified some sort of self-degradation.
I remember somehow trying to justify what I was doing by making believe that I was doing something important. But I wasn’t doing anything important. I’m not juicing this thing anymore. If I keep juicing it it’s going to keep me doing this forever, which I may do anyway.
It seems that you brought sensitivity to what you did. It’s an amazing way that you chose to do that: to bring an authentic life to something that’s so inauthentic.
And I still do - but I don’t use that as an excuse for it anymore. I’m just trying to be who I am, and to come through in an authentic way in every aspect of my life. It’s a pretty false way to do that. Maybe it’s not what you do, but it’s how you do the things that you do.
I never lied to anybody. If I complimented someone, if I stroked them in whatever way, I chose real things, things that I really saw in them. I never tried to hustle anyone. Sometimes it still shocks me, what you can get out of people by manipulating them. I wasn’t trying to get something from them. I was trying to make a trade. I wanted both of us to come out on top, or at least even.
Being intimate is an aspect of humanity, and being affectionate is a natural part of life. It’s really strange for me, because I’ve spent so many years doing that. It’s a little bit of overkill. So my perception of everything is skewed. Ninety percent of the last ten years I’ve had to spend thinking about representing some sort of sexual image. I’ve exposed myself to too much of that side of people. Sexuality is a part, but it’s not everything.
Why did you used to feel sorry for the men?
They were lonely, and they were sad, and they needed someone, and I was going to fill the void, and I was saving relationships. They were going to commit suicide, and I was going to save them. You can’t be Mother Theresa in a strip club, wearing a g-string.
At some point I built myself up, and I even felt that I was doing a big favor to talk with those guys. I felt that I was so great because look at me, and look at those lonely suckers. You go through different phases of building yourself up in whatever ways you can, to justify being a slot machine for these Johns who come into these clubs.
What do you think about temptations or dangers of the stripping lifestyle?
The temptations come from not defining yourself before you start doing compromising acts. It takes awhile to develop a strong sense of yourself. If you go into that business, eventually the job will probably make you feel pretty bad about yourself.
I didn’t have a good idea who I was, or what my boundaries were, until I crossed them. That’s a bad way to realize your boundaries, by betraying yourself.
I don’t want it to sound like drugs are a necessity. That’s just been my experience. I know a lot of girls that never do drugs. Prostitution can happen. But I know a girl that worked at a bank that was a prostitute. I don’t think prostitution or drugs have to do with the fact that it’s a strip club. I don’t connect that at all.
Are there are some girls that are forced by their situation into stripping? Are there some that are innocent victims?
No, I don’t think so at all. If you don’t have the right mindset, it doesn’t matter what you may be going through, you’re not going to be able strip for it. But someone who is prone to stripping would strip even if they had a lot of money.
For a lot of young girls, it looks glamorous. It’s like being a rock star. But once you get into it, you have a whole new set of problems.
And it’s not about being pretty. I think it’s about girls who don’t feel very pretty. Maybe they are pretty, but they don’t feel pretty. They like the attention. You’re finally hearing that you’re worth something. You hear that you’re beautiful a hundred or two hundred times a day. It’s an inordinate amount of affirmation, but it’s not coming from yourself. It’s a false place.
The municipality wants to close down Fantasies, the strip club for teenage girls. What do you think about that?
Eighteen is really young to be making the money you can make as a stripper. It gives you a lot of freedom that I don’t think an eighteen year old is ready for. I don’t think you’re developed enough as person to make the best choices, when you start coming home with $500 or $800 a day, or even a couple of hundred.
I think allowing strip clubs is fine. I don’t think we need to be oppressing people, and telling men and women that they can’t do stuff. I want to live in a culture where there are strip clubs.
Sex is kind of a strange thing. Entertainment is a strange thing. I don’t want them to disappear. It would have been nice for me if people didn’t look at me as being bad for stripping. I don’t want to change the strip clubs - I’d like to change the world around strip clubs.
