The Ugly Side of the Sex Industry

This will be the final post on New Orleans.

If you missed hearing about the trip because you were busy over the holidays, here are the other posts that are specifically about the trip and our sexy adventures there.
Greetings From New Orleans
Drunk
Take Two
Out-stripping a Stripper

Sexyhusband and I had been so very dissapointed by the Bourbon Street strip clubs that we decided to check out some of the clubs off the strip.  It was also recommended by a reader that they might be a better pick.  So on New Years Eve, before we ended up at a place called the Rock N Bowl (perhaps the most fun and random experience of the whole trip---it's truth in advertising--20ish lanes of bowling, a bar and a stage/dance area all on the second floor of a strip mall--and the bowling continues right through the concert) we decided to try the off Bourbon clubs.

Two were still closed around 6/7pm.  Granted, the early hour was going to affect our experience, but especially with the huge crowds in for the Sugar Bowl, I was shocked that of the three clubs that were open, two didn't have girls onstage.  The final club was the most depressing strip club experience of my life.

The woman dancing in the third club was a cautionary tale in vivid living color.  She was older than the average stripper-maybe she was in her 30's but looked 40.  She was obviously drunk or high, and the way she clung to the pole as she shifted from kneeling to standing was painful to watch.  Her hair had grown out to the point where the line of demarcation between bleached blonde and natural dark was just another marker of what kind of life she must lead.  Even the few ones that she had tucked over the strap of her bikini string hung listlessly as if they, too, had been dragged down a bad road and were waiting for life to come and finish shredding them. 

There was something tragic about her.  I wondered how she'd ended up there.  Had she, in her prime, been one of the 19 year olds I've had fun flirting with?  Had she done pole tricks and banked real lettuce in her 20's?  When did she start overindulging in whatever she was on?  Was there someone abusive in her life?  What course of events had led her to this dingy club on the fringe of the French Quarter, where she knelt on a sticky bar and fingered herself through a flimsy, pilly bikini bottom?

I ended up tipping her out of pity, and then dragged Sexyhusband out of the club.

It's easy for me to roll my eyes at those people who rail against the sex industry and say it abuses women, chewing them up and spitting them out into the gutter.  I, after all, know providers who chose and enjoy what they do.  I've met strippers who are banking college money (for real, and not just as a line).  I know women who gleefully embrace work in the sex industry and see it as empowering instead of the opposite. Until December 31, 2007, I had never encountered the stereotype, and I hadn't realized how sheltered I was.

As sad as it was, I'm glad that I saw her.  It's important to have an honest and genuine understanding of what the sex industry can do to you.  She's the reason I want to tell those young girls who are minting every night down the street to not blow their cash on purses and shoes and hair extensions and to save it so that when they want to get out they can.  This was a woman who was not going to get out until she was forced out, and I wonder what will happen to her then.

I still don't agree with my philosophical opponents.  I do still believe that the industry can be empowering.  I will concede, however, that it isn't true for every woman.

Comments

[Amanda Brooks]

For all you know, she was a housewife that had just gotten divorced and was trying to make money however she could since she doesn't have a resume and New Orleans isn't exactly a job hotspot right now.

You may've seen her on something, or she may've been utterly depressed. (Depressed people tend not to care about their appearance.) Maybe stripping for 20 years without getting a book deal out of it really got to her. Maybe she is a lifelong addict and stripping is the only job that keeps her from being homeless. Maybe she has an abusive husband and she escapes the only way she knows how.

Unless you really sat down and talked to her, you have no idea what her life story is or why she is where she is.

XX

PS: I've known quite a number of strippers in their 40s (and edging on 50), and a lot of escorts in their 50s. Some of them used their age as an asset. It is possible, you know.

[Deliciously Naughty]

Amanda

You make some excellent points. I don't actually know her story. However...

1-New Orleans isn't hard to get a job in right now. Most places are begging for employees. It's a hard place to make rent, though.

2-It didn't bother me that she was older. I brought it up that she looked many years older than she most likely was. Most of the pro's who I know who are older can pass for younger.

[Marny Wilson]

I think she's just stuck in the profession she chose. Think about it if you're making $25-50 per hours as a pizza delivery guy and you decide I don't want to do pizza delivery anymore I'm chainging my career. You're gonna find yourself making $7.00 per hour at your next job because you're entry level with no experience.

Now before you decide to leave you bought a house and a new car knowing you make $25-50 per hour and the $7.00 per hour job won't pay for the house and the car. STUCK!