It was a very hot act involving candelabras, dripping wax flicked onto bare breasts, wrist restraints dropped from the ceiling, and Phantom of the Opera masks. Lavender claimed she didn’t mean to ignite LeiliAna’s fake hair: “She was flinging it all around, I couldn’t help it. Those cheap extensions are very flammable, you know!”
One day during winter break David stopped me and said he wanted to talk to me. He had heard about my writing and thought I could use his insider information. “You see,” he informed me soberly, “I actually lived with one of you for several years.”
Interesting terminology for us strippers.
He went on. He appreciated my line of work. He “bought” his female companions from a pool of my co-workers. By the night or the year, his female friends were on his payroll. It was generally understood that the current floor model was LeiliAna. He wouldn’t confirm. But he did say that he was so comfortable and pleased with the clean economic exchange that he swore, “I will only go with girls like that. Regular women — they don’t understand or enjoy sex. They don’t have the passion and joy that strippers do. But,” he continued, laying his dogma out in its full glory, “every stripper — every one — pays a price for being well adjusted sexually. There is something wrong with each and every one of you.” He was confident of his philosophy, and his method was exact: he and whoever he chose enjoyed a mutually agreed-upon, measurable, purchasable relationship. His currency for her commodity.
Is that what they used to call a “marriage” ?
It was their choice, and he looked the picture of wedded bliss. (I had noticed that LeiliAna did have a newer-looking Porsche.) My boundaries didn’t allow this in my private affairs. Business was one thing, my personal life another. The balance sheet methods of David didn’t seem like living to me.
My exploits outside the confines of the Foxy Lady were quite limited. I was too shy to pull the tricks I did so well in the fantasy atmosphere. I did try a bikini contest once. I felt uncomfortable, like a caged animal. I had no audience to communicate with. There were no ground rules (what was my role?). I much preferred the safe, sterilized atmosphere of the club. I was surprised to discover that I was not a complete exhibitionist. Stripping was different, baser and purer. There’s a radio advertisement for a best-butt contest at a bar in Boston. It’s good business, sells drinks and packs the bar. The women are willing. Everyone has a hoot. Where is the harm? Only in our heads.
My optimism was far from blind. Society was unfair. Society had hurt me. Yet I still hoped and planned for improvement, for a day when a woman isn’t punished for her sexuality, as when Brown’s lawyers used my Pap smears and gynecological exams against me.
So life wasn’t fair. I knew that. Making more money as a stripper than a professor or teacher makes isn’t fair, either. Some concessions I could make, but I wasn’t ready to give up. My candor — not keeping my stripping a secret on campus — had ostracized me. Many people could not get pass that first impression of, “See the blonde? She’s the stripper.” That hurt, too. At times I even worried, will all the men I want be scared of me?
In one of my brave moments that last year at school I accepted Erich’s invitation to the Halloween party at the crew house on campus. He was “single” now, and although I was committed to Tony, I looked forward to spending a little time with him. I showed up around eight, parked on the lawn, and emerged as the Kinky Cop.
I know, I know — What about my boundary rule? It was Halloween, and besides, rules are made to be broken.
The students went nuts (most ran away shouting, “We’re busted! The cops are here, the cops are here!”). I stood in front of the house, pointed my .22 into the sky and yelled, “I’m looking for Erich!!”
Erich peeked his head out the upstairs window. “Whoa, Heidi!” he called happily and scaled down the side of the house.
Yes, the party was already rolling.
He approached me, exclaiming, “You look mahh-velous, girl! I thought you were shy.” He was teasing, knowing better than most the difference between the real me and the perceived me. “When you come out you really come out!”
My Halloween “costume” was really impressive. Only Erich and a few others knew where it came from. Tonight I was just another Brownie, partying with student friends. Erich, as always, thought I was a real hoot, especially when I cuffed him and escorted him back into the house, my billy club securely against his head.
“Who is that?” I heard from all sides. I couldn’t see well because of the dark glasses but after a few minutes of hamming I removed them. Erich introduced me to my classmates, most of whom I had never met before. Then, steaming under the layers, I slipped half the outfit (jacket, belt, hat) off so I could dance comfortably.
Dance, not strip.
The party was a beer-soaking, head-pounding sort of jumble where fifty kids smash themselves in one room until the beer-saturated floor begins to buckle under the weight. I made an early exit — I was meeting Tony for a late date — pleased I had overcome my shyness to have a couple of hours of regular collegiate fun. Erich was walking me to the car, still on the lawn, when a drunken boy from another frat house began yelling and pointing at me. “That girl! That girl! She’s in my English class — she works at the Foxy Lady! She works at the Foxy Lady!” he blubbered loudly, as if he had discovered a prize in his cereal.
The night had been perfect…
Erich stiffened, then turned to me. “Do you want me to take care of him?”
“No, I’ll take care of this,” I said resolutely. We stood still for a moment, listening to the ruckus behind us. Then, composed, I squeezed Erich’s hand and turned around. The kid quieted down, eyeing me nervously. I walked up to him calmly and extended my hand, cuffs jangling. “Hello, my name’s Heidi. I don’t recognize you. What’s your name?”
Speechless, he shook my hand, his buddies snickering behind him.
The cat was still holding his tongue, so I wished him a good night and returned to Erich, who was laughing. Raised abroad, he was puzzled and intrigued by American inhibitions and fear of sexuality. Like Tony, he wasn’t intimidated by my strong sense of self, sexuality and all.
Some men thought they could purchase me, and my attributes. Timothy, a wealthy young businessman, offered me cars, houses, jewelry, and cash. “No strings,” he insisted.
Sure, “no strings.”
I observed that Timothy’s innate insecurity led him to grease relationships with material objects. In my real life he disgusted me, but when the same thing happened with customers at the Foxy Lady it wasn’t as offensive. There I was a material girl in a material setting. Some girls even sold friendships to customers. Bob the Weasel, one of my regulars, hinted periodically that he was available for exploitation. His offer (“five hundred a date, only platonic”) did stick in the back of my mind. The lines were blurry. Another man offered me the chance to work at the “hot” investment firm he had established, partly because I was qualified, partly because I was attractive.
Even his wife liked me.
They were real, if potentially messy, opportunities. I wasn’t sure where to draw the line. Every month or so, Angelo repeated his offer to buy me: “Just for a few years. Name your price.” It turned into a running joke as we became closer friends.
The lines were blurry for the men, too. When they were confronted with the loss of a product they usually buy, it must have felt like a loss of power. Their money was worthless. The currency had suddenly devalued. Who wouldn’t feel confused and angry? Stripping fiddles around with the rules. At the club you can “buy” me (that is, unless you’re a grabby, offensive jerk), but run into me at the grocery store, like Manny, a customer, did once, and your money is no good. You’re not a patron anymore, you’re a stranger. If the man behaves decently, I’ll say hello and chat for a moment, but if he reverts to Foxy Lady mode I will turn off. Click. Unfortunately Manny didn’t understand. Excited as a schoolboy, he stopped me in the produce section.
�
�Hi, remember me?”
“Yes, hello, Manny. How are you?”
No big deal.
But he thought it was a big deal. “So, uh, you’ll go to dinner with me now, right? Now that we’ve met outside the club.” He honestly believed I was going to say yes. I’m such a tease — at work.
I had never led him to believe I would go to dinner with him. I had, however, informed him that I didn’t go out with customers as a rule. He thought that now that he wasn’t a customer, just a stranger, I’d hang out with him. I felt sorry for him.
But not sorry enough.
I apologized and excused myself. I’m not sure if he ever understood.
Another victim?
Does that make me male? Because I define myself using the language at my disposal, adding my own accent? The world is open to interpretation. Andrea Dworkin sees high heels as “a slavish conformity to male-dictated fashion, a crippling of the female.” Dianne Brill, babe extraordinaire and self-propelled rocket of womanhood, sees high heels as “locomotives of love.” Historically the exclusive look of the royal and wealthy, heels represent a dichotomy; power and strength opposing fragility and rich delicateness. We all have the power to define ourselves and our world, taking power and creating power.
No one is giving it away.
Madonna. She redefines herself as easily as she changes the public’s perception of simple objects (she made crosses cool for a generation of Americans). The heroine Sara Connor in the Terminator movies, after pumping up to protect her son and herself, recreated arm muscles as sexy curves. Working intelligently and responsibly within the system, our supposedly male-created society, I believed I could contribute to the remaking and improvement of the system. I chose to take or make the tools I needed. Susan B. Anthony said long ago that “woman must have a purse of her own,” because while economically dependent, “there is no freedom for women.” More recently, Naomi Wolf in Fire with Fire summed it up, “The status quo is not subtle. The only language it understands is that of money, votes, and public embarrassment.”
Sounds good but… is Mom really going to care? She won’t hear anything after the word “stripper.”
But my mother is the one I should thank for my guts. She raised me to believe in my strength and ability.
I” don’t think she’ll see it quite this way.
I must have been inadequately socialized.
Probably a good thing.
I’ve had a strong personality since I was a kid. I excelled in sports, long-distance running, track, and tennis; I loved to roam the woods alone; at school I was the top student; and in drama I always won the lead. Socially I was either the leader or involved only on the fringes. I was everyone’s friend, but no one’s sidekick. I didn’t need to be a part of any clique. I strove to connect with myself, not others.
Jean Baker Miller, a psychologist who wrote about the female psyche, would doubtless classify me as unnatural, as a male. She maintains that women are depressed because of society’s deforming ways; she equates loss of connections with loss of self. I can’t agree. Neither could Lucretia Mott, a nineteenth-century Quaker minister and suffragist, who believed in the importance of the female quest for self, for an inner sense of truth. She believed this was necessary before any real relationship with another was possible. My mother instilled in me what Gloria Steinem calls “both/and thinking” rather than either/or thinking. This psychology of plenty and quest for self led me to illuminating adventures, stripping included.
The feelings I experienced onstage were evidence of what Camille Paglia identified as “woman’s cosmic power.” Glorified or repressed, I knew it existed, as sure as hormones and adrenaline. As sure as a special man can set a hundred butterflies free in your chest. My work was and is a celebration of woman as the dominant sex. Why limit these expressions to the bedroom with my lover? Role-playing, fantasy, fun — there is a safe market for this! My strutting sexual exhibitionism was and is more than cheapness and triviality. It could be perceived, using Paglia’s words, “as the full, florid expression of the whore’s ancient rule over men.” (My emphasis.) I refused to be relegated to a martyrdom of political correctness. I am not a saint, nor am I a whore. I am a woman.
I experienced these same feelings in other situations. Sharing the news of a savvy business move I had orchestrated with Tony created intense feelings of worthiness, worthiness that came from my sense of accomplishment, of power. I realized that what Naomi Wolf said about power was to me absolutely accurate: “Women on some level recognize their own use of power for what it is at best: acutely pleasant, profoundly feminine, and magnetically erotic.” I wasn’t fooled by the pretension of the strip club power play; there was no challenge there. I preferred a challenge. I did, however, enjoy the pseudo-power it gave me.
The customers enjoyed it, too.
It was a dangerous but controllable part of my sexuality I believe that accepting responsibility for our sexuality (after admitting that we do have a sexuality) would lead to a safer, sexier world. A smaller playing field with complicated rules and referees planted everywhere would only weaken and repress humanity. I believe in an arena of grand proportions where the incredible may occur, not because a law dictates it, but because the human heart and mind create it.
Being unprepared for reality makes places like the Foxy Lady treacherous, for the strippers and the customers. Already blurred lines become more blurred. Men become addicted or full of loathing they don’t understand. The Wandering Henry — so called for his distinctive, constant shuffle — was present every day. He abandoned his ailing wife and family for the stimuli of the club. Other men, like Pucker — yes, he puckered all the time — continually set themselves up for rejection. Falling in love with untouchable images, with names like Pagan, Rockin’ Robin, and Shimmery.
For the women, performing a job that was already a tightrope act could be destructive, or worse. There were casualties like Lily, whose vacillations between mania and depression were only intensified by the head games and drug habits she picked up working and playing the late-night bar scene. I wasn’t sure about Queenie. She subjected her body to a dozen invasive procedures, trying to keep up with her addiction to the money and the ego trip available only at the club. It was her life, and she wouldn’t change it for the world.
Each woman decided for herself how far she’d go, whether it was selling her time outside of work, selling her sexual favors, or filling her breasts with bulky plastic bags. As equals, women deserve the right to be bad, mistaken, stupid, mediocre, and great — and women should accept responsibility for all these things. Being right or wrong is not the point, growing and learning is. And having the right to draw your own lines.
How far will I go?
Freedom, I decided, was the simple right to believe what I chose. I remained humble, aware of the idea that might have prompted George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) to write, in 1859, “Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a man’s critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character.”
12
Lust for Bust …
He can’t see your high IQ, sparkling wit, and warmth from across the room.
— Dianne Brill, Boobs, Boys and High Heels
I could see these breasts from across the club floor; twin ballistic missiles jutting viciously from Sparrow’s chest. She had undergone surgery months ago and had returned to work enhanced to a perky, if stiff, C-cup. But today, they were easily grander than a C. If I wasn’t speechless, I’d have said she was a D-plus. Her breast job had been more than typically uplifting, it was adjustable, variable, inflatable; it was the amazing pump!
And I thought the sneakers with the pump were silly.
As absurd as they were, the breasts brought in more bucks. Breasts didn’t have to be beautiful, just big. Among the Foxy Ladies, it was general knowledge that big equaled
an automatic promotion, a giant step up the stripper status ladder.
I had to think about it. If stripping isn’t wrong for me, and I strip for money, and breasts bring more money, shouldn’t I stock up
stack up
on the tools of the trade? A couple of thousand bucks for a couple hundred cc’s of silicone or saline that’ll bring me a hundred or more each night.
Hmm … over the course of a year …
Any business person knew the answer, except that this investment went beyond business. It cut a slice right through the fantasy and implanted itself inside my body.
Establish boundaries, Heidi.
It was a definite overstep. I couldn’t do it. Only a few years ago in California I had already experienced a lumpectomy. It had been painful, a hard dose of reality that left an imprint forever. After surgery, recovering and cancer-free, I was thrilled and appreciative simply to have two breasts. To desire more struck me as unthinkable, greedy, excessive. Besides, I did well with my natural chest — at work and otherwise. I liked them. In fact, I’d grown to believe my breasts were wonderful and beautiful.
Ivy League Stripper Page 28