TakeItOff

by Taylor Cole

  The feeling of doing a great show is like a drug and can be just as addictive. All you want to do is try a little bit harder, dance a little bit smoother, and get a couple more screams from the crowd. It’s been fifteen years and the feeling is exactly the same. I still get excited on Saturday night when I’m about to walk out onstage. You step out and the roar from the girls is music to your ears. Every time I’m doing the Ariel silks show, and I spin up to the ceiling and end in the iron cross pose, I look into the spotlight, and I can see only the white glare from it. I feel its warmth on my face. I hear the cheers and think to myself, “I wish I could stay here forever.”

  Being a good male dancer has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. It’s challenging physically and even more so mentally. But it has also been the most fun thing to conquer. It’s hard for someone who hasn’t been in the business to understand. It may seem cheesy or meaningless. But for a young, shy boy from a small town, it’s like scoring the winning touchdown during the Super Bowl. There were many times I thought I wasn’t good enough and should quit. But I kept chugging along because that’s how much I wanted it. And now, after all these years, I’m so glad I did. It’s been such a great experience. I got to see the world, make a lot of great friends, hang out with famous people and do things that would never have been possible if it weren’t for being a male dancer.

  Dancing has been a nonstop adventure from day one. It’s taken me places I never thought it would. It’s had its ups and downs like anything else, but for me it has definitely been a positive experience. Now that I’m in the later part of my career, it is time to look to the horizon and see what else is in store for me. Luckily I was smart with my money. I built my house myself, which is a tradition for all the men in my family. So it and all my vehicles and land were paid for in cash. My construction company is doing well and I have a few more irons in the fire. That will hopefully carry me to my next chapter in life worry-free. As for the future, all I want is happiness. In the end what else could I ask for? The moral? Don’t just dream your dreams—live them! No matter what they are! Anything is possible with a positive attitude and a strong motivation.

  Chapter Two: Life Cycle of a Male Stripper

  When you start out in the biz, you are considered a rookie for the first year. Being a rookie is not fun. There is a constant flow of rookies, and probably only one out of every twenty lasts more than two years. Most don’t make it a couple months. You really have to pay your dues when trying to break in.

  Going up first on the list (which is a horrible spot!) is one way to pay your dues. Another is to endure the scorn, ridicule and practical jokes heaped upon you by the veteran dancers and regular clientele.

  Each guy who tries to break in has a different experience. If the veterans think he is an idiot, they will run him out by making it too uncomfortable for him to keep working there. If the rookie seems to have potential and is respectful, he doesn’t have to feel the same wrath.

  One if the most important steps is to get your acts together and figure out what exactly your image is. Some guys can be slow and sexy onstage. Others are high-octane performers who get the crowd pumped. Some have strong acts and rely heavily on them. Some guys have horrible dance skills but make up for it with great stage presence. It takes all kinds.

  We’ve seen guys go from not hot, to hot, to not hot again. Every guy peaks at a different stage. If you take care of yourself, it will usually happen in your late twenties or early thirties. Thirty is probably the best age for a male stripper because you’re old enough for the older ladies but still young enough for the young ones, so women of all ages are now tipping you.

  It’s definitely an up-and-down lifestyle. Here are the stages.

  Level 1: Amateur Night

  A guy hears about the club and wants to give stripping a shot. It’s a huge reality check. Very rarely does someone look cool his first time out. Usually, he’ll do something stupid and the crowd will laugh at him.

  The best thing to do early on is as little as possible. Many a rookie gets caught up trying to impress the crowd or outdo other guys and will do something he never attempted before, such as a back flip or sliding across the stage on his knees after taking his pants off. Seeing someone land on his head or skin his bare knees on the hardwood stage will make women cringe. It’s totally hilarious though, and the veterans and newly hired rookies love to watch.

  A lot of local fraternities make their pledges compete in the amateur night as part of their initiation. Not many things are funnier than watching an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old boy, fresh out of high school, getting in front of a bunch of girls and stripping.

  Level 2: Got the Job, Now What?

  Rookies have no idea what to do once they get the job. They do everything from going onstage with their underwear on backward to making up a stupid act that humiliates them, such as dressing like a puppy dog and drinking milk from a bowl or wearing roller skates onstage. That and the constant pranks the veterans play on rookies make this a very traumatic stage. Most give it up right there.

  When a guy is new, the first thing he does is watch the other guys and eventually he will find a guy to emulate. “Stealing his moves” is what we call it. Usually, this is a guy who is similar in looks and build. It also pisses off the dancer whose moves are stolen because these are usually his trademark moves such as a spin, a flip or a hip-hop move.

  Style is something you learn and hone. A guy never knows what his style is until he dances for a few weeks. He may want to move slowly onstage and be sexy, but he might be more of a fast-paced dancer. The different styles are slow and sexy, cowboy, rocker, hip-hop, GQ’d, dancer, tumbler, “can’t dance a lick but knows how to strut really well and the girls love him”, and I’m sure there are a few more.

  Most of the time, a veteran will take a rookie under his wing and help him out, giving him ideas about what type of image to portray, teaching him some acts and giving him diet and gym tips. In the first year, you are trying to get your look and image down, from getting the right thong color to the right costumes and music. This is the time frame where you discover if you can dance or you learn to dance. Many rookies have two left feet, but a lot of them can pick it up to a certain level.

  If you have no chance of ever picking up rhythm, stage presence is all you have left, other than a good act. Some acts don’t require dancing at all. Logging many hours onstage is the only way to hone your skills.

  Every guy comes in with a different set of skills. Some can dance but aren’t good-looking. Some are good-looking but cannot dance. Not being able to dance is common. All that matters is that you are able to learn. You can tell some guys have no chance of making it. They don’t have a clue, and they never last. Other than looks and dancing ability, the mental aspect is actually a bit more important. It’s hard to feel sexy all the time at work, so once you have made it and have been working for a bit, the newness has worn off and it becomes work.

  Level 3: Passing the One-Month Mark

  Someone has taken you under his wing and gives you a hand-me-down act and lets you wear his old tear-away pants. You still aren’t making any money and you don’t think you ever will. But you keep trying, hoping you will be half as good as those guys who get to work on Saturday night. Some guys start in the clubs as waiters, so when they start to dance, they already have some clientele. This is the best way to enter the biz if you are not already a stud who can dance because it doesn’t take you quite as long to start making money.

  Level 4: Starting to Make Money

  After about six months, you start making money, but most of what you make, you spend on costumes and props. A couple of the regulars start to tip you and get you through the slow nights, while on the weekends, you still only go onstage at the very beginning and the very end—or if you are lucky like Channing Tatum, you become a model/actor and star in Magic Mike! You are starting to find other ways to make money as well: strip-o-grams, roadshows and maybe even moonlighting in the
gay bars.

  Level 5: Getting in the Groove

  You have two good acts, and you go onstage at good times. You have a couple of regular customers and start dating hot girls. The veterans are treating you better and inviting you to go on more roadshows and strip-o-grams. You love the job and can’t wait to go in every day, especially Saturday nights because there will be beautiful women giving you money. You’ll be making lots of it because Saturdays are the money nights, and you know there will be a party after work with a bunch of hot chicks.

  Level 6: Becoming a Stud

  Girls come in regularly to give you all their extra cash. You have a sweet apartment, a wad of money and a fast car. No worries in the world. People recognize you when you go out and you get the VIP treatment at all the hot clubs. Trips to Cancun or Las Vegas with hot chicks are the norm. At this point, you can go onstage and know you will rock the house!

  Level 7: Being Top Dog

  You go onstage at prime time every night. You’re making more money than people with college degrees. Girls are paying all your bills and buying you motorcycles, cars and boats. Every other club has heard about you. Most guys will never attain this level. The ones who do—well, it’s like a drug. They want to stay in that moment, to always have those feelings of excitement, acceptance and self-assurance.

  Level 8: Starting to Slide

  Everything that goes up must come down. You would think this would be a better level, but you would be wrong. This is the level where you start your descent and notice the younger guys catching up. Age is less a factor here than years of experience. The longer you dance, the higher the burnout rate. If you retired at the end of level 7, you could consider yourself retiring in your prime. That’s the best way to go out! Now, at level 8, if you retire, it’s still okay, you’re just not retiring in your prime.

  Dancers who dance more than about ten years have to reinvent themselves. Sometimes you don’t have to change your look that dramatically, but a change of act will usually help refresh the dancer’s attitude and help him make more money.

  Level 9: Over the Hill

  If you are still working and have arrived at this level, it’s not a good thing! You should’ve retired by now and moved to Level 10, but there are always some guys who just won’t quit. Due to your lengthy career in stripping, you find that you don’t have a lot of other job skills and it’s hard to find another job making as much money for as little work as you do stripping. Hanging out with the old club regulars who remember you from your heyday is how you pay your bills now. You justify it in your head, telling yourself that they are your “friends” or she is a “really nice person”, but deep down you know you have made some bad choices in life. You may get a side job for some extra cash doing something you hate. You tell everyone how good you were as a male dancer for twenty-five years. No one really believes you and they think you’re weird, so they find a way to get rid of you. You go back to the club where your stuff is still in your locker, and you give dancing another shot.

  Level 10: Life after Dancing

  If you were smart and saved your acorns during the summer, you will have a nice winter. However, if you partied too hard and totally bummed out your whole career, you’re in trouble!

  The smart guys start businesses with the money they made, and life is good for them. They comprise about five percent of male dancers.

  It’s sad, but about seventy-five percent of older strippers are not in great financial shape and are living month to month. The rest either married a rich girl or just adapted to the real world, finished their degrees and found success.

  Justin Whitfield

  Taylor Cole

  Chapter Three: Backstage with the Guys

  The guys we work with are, for the most part, some of the coolest people on earth, and they come from a huge diversity of backgrounds and a wide range of nationalities. We worked with guys who came to the United States from all over the world, including Canada, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, New Zealand, Iran, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Germany, Mexico and Africa.

  One of the reasons for the diversity of club dancers is that the club owner hires any guy who can make him money. In other words, you can get a job stripping in a club even if all you have is potential. We have worked with guys as young as high school age to one guy in his eighties. Disco Frankie was known as the world’s oldest male stripper and he was dancing at shows almost until his death. We’ve worked with dancers as short as five-feet-two and as tall as six-feet-eight, weighing from one hundred and twenty pounds to more than three hundred pounds. From insecure to overly confident, from monogamous to pure slut, dumb to smart, we have worked with all types. The only common factor among them was the desire. You have to want to be a male stripper in order to be successful. If you don’t want it, you will not make money.

  The Gay Question

  The most common question we get asked by far is whether we are gay. In all our years, we’ve never worked with a single gay dancer, at least not that we know of. It doesn’t make sense for a gay guy to work at a club that caters to women when he could easily work at a gay bar and make a lot more money—as well as have more fun.

  Think about it. Men have a higher disposable income than women and spend way more money in the sex business. A gay guy would bank at a gay bar but not at a straight bar. So why would he settle for less money? You can see why a straight man would do it—because we get off on all that female attention. In fact, some straight men would probably do it for free!

  Jealousy and Fights

  Jealousy is not very common. The guys are all about themselves when it comes to making money, but there is a silence code. This silence code is what keeps the guys from talking trash about one another at the club. Most dancers are respectful and try to support one another by helping each other out with group acts. The dancers who stray from the silence code or who stir up trouble eventually get pushed out or kicked out.

  With so much testosterone in the building, you would imagine that there would be lots of fights at male dance clubs. Over the years, we had probably two to three fights per year. These happen for many different reasons. Most arguments end with yelling, but a few come to blows. Alcohol is usually involved. Sometimes a prank gone bad or someone getting sick of the hazing will spark tempers. Many times, a new guy will come in, and his insecurities or lack of social skills will make him try to establish dominance. This is a very bad idea nine out of ten times.

  Many people get the impression dancers are sissies or timid. This is typically a myth. Many of the guys practice boxing, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), jiu jitsu and other full-contact sports. Some are even professional fighters. The aggressive new guy will learn a hard lesson very fast if he gets out of line.

  Almost every club has an enforcer. This is the guy whom the other guys look to handle dancers getting out of control. The funny thing is these are generally the nicest guys who don’t like to fight, but because they may have a skill or strength, they usually have to check someone who is not being part of the team.

  Stripper Dads

  Most of our friends who are dancers and have kids are upfront with their kids about their work. However, one friend managed to keep it a secret from his son until he was fifteen. This friend was taking a call for a strip-o-gram and had to pull up the website for the club he danced at. When his son sat down in front of the computer and saw a picture of his shirtless dad advertising a male strip club, his jaw dropped and he was speechless. The friend knew he could no longer hide his secret and so he came clean.

  Oddly, when we ask guys with sons if they would let them become dancers, nine out of ten say they would prefer that their sons not dance. They say they don’t hate the job, but they all want what’s best for their kids. Which leaves the question, “If the life and job are so great, why not?” The main reason they give is that they do it so their kids won’t have to. There is the one out of ten dancers who is different. We’ve seen those dads encourage their sons to l
earn how to dance and sing. These are usually the dads who want to be famous.

  Types of Strippers

  Strippers come in all sizes, shapes, colors and temperaments. But there are some classic archetypes each club seems to have at one time or another. Here are a few.

  The Horny-All-the-Time Guy: Ever hear the story of the rooster and the farmer? Well, there’s this rooster on the farm that keeps screwing the animals to death. One day, the farmer is in the fields and hears a loud, “Mooo!” The farmer runs to the cow and sees the rooster on top screwing the cow. The farmer says, “Damn rooster! You’re gonna screw yourself to death!” Next day, same thing, except the rooster is screwing the dog. Then the cat. The farmer finds himself repeating the same warning over and over, “Damn rooster! You’re gonna screw yourself to death!” One day the farmer is on his way to the barn when he sees the rooster lying on its back, not moving and its tongue hanging out. Farmer says, “I told you, you damn rooster! You were gonna screw yourself to death!”

  Just then, the rooster opens one eye, looks at the farmer and says, “Shhhhhhhh! Buzzard!” The horny-all-the-time guy is much like the rooster in this joke. He will sleep with any woman who will have him. He just loves women! He will go from hottie to nottie. You have your drug addicts, and his drug is sex.

  Big Cowboy: Ever heard of the stereotype if he has big hands, he has a big penis? Well, this guy would disprove all of those rumors. He was a boxer with huge hands. He would walk up to a new guy and demand to see his cock. When the guy would refuse, he’d ask again but meaner. Then he would say, “Your cock is teeeeeeeenie!” The funny part was that he had the smallest penis in the dressing room. How did I know? He would pull it out to show that he didn’t care. I swear he was on a mission to find a penis smaller than his. The amazing thing was that he got more tail than anyone there at the time. That was just one big cowboy, though. Usually, the cowboy is one of the top dogs on stage and a gentle giant…unless you piss him off!