Films like The Full Monty, Striptease, Magic Mike and Showgirls make stripping seem like a sex-positive, fun way to make a chunk of change, self-actualize, maybe meet your true love, and learn to appreciate the songwriting of Randy Newman. However, according to one former NYC stripper who did a Reddit AMA today, it's more depressing than anything else.
The former stripper, who worked on and off for a decade, described the job as "kinda like your parents house....it's great to visit but you don't want to stay too long." He said he got out of the business due to being sent on one too many "blind calls," a term he invented to describe a situation when an agency doesn't have a picture on file, but sends you to a job anyway, sometimes to the disappointment of the customer. He described his epiphany:
I had a "i'm getting too old for this shit" moment in the summer of 2010 when I got kicked out of woman's house because I wasn't "hispanic looking enough"....apparently she wanted someone who looked "Dominican".....I can't make this stuff up...
i had to change outside in the fucking street when I got kicked out...fortunately the street had no street lights
Throughout the thread, the former stripper keeps trying to come up with lurid, jolly anecdotes, but instead lapses into sad reveries. When asked whether he had any enjoyable gigs that "make you want to return to the industry," he responded:
no.....not the one actually- there was one and the only thing I remember about it was the fact that i LITERALLY brought home the money I made in a Walmart bag I felt like Scrooge McDuck with a fake tan and a Adam Lambert haircut that night other than that I, in retrospect, the fact that I ever stripped as long as I did....I realized that all those weekends I lost I could have been on LEGIT dates with girls that I could have cultivated deep relationships with
He said his various gigs as "very Groundhogs day like." He notes that a lot of women are uncomfortable having fully-naked men in their homes, even when they're strippers. He claims that stripping destroyed his dating life. He believes working as a stripper "will further accentuate that lower self esteem in the long run...Fact is you are not developing self respect or esteem...you are exploiting a facade...you are exploiting something that isn't true."
Check out the full thread here if you want to be turned off of stripping forever more. As for his worst experiences: "nipple biting incident in Glens Falls NY and having my cock pulled like fucking turkish taffee in Brooklyn by some drunk pig....."
