I hear it all the time from both men and women.  “Stripping is easy.  All you gotta do is be halfway decent looking, take off your clothes and shake and grind on a guy and you make bank. How hard can it be?”

Being a stripper is much harder than you can imagine unless you’ve actually been a stripper.  I’ve never been a stripper, but I have been in and around the strip club business for many years.  I have many friends who are strippers and I’ve even dated strippers.  So this post on the hardships of being a stripper comes not only from research, but from first hand knowledge.

Granted the hardships and job hazards listed below are not entirely unexpected when you choose to be stripper. And yes, strippers choose to be strippers and many do make a lot of money.  But the point here is:

Adult Entertainers don’t get enough credit for how hard they work because. Stripping Ain’t Easy.

READY TO GO SEE VEGAS BEST STRIPPERS HARD AT WORK

STRIPPING AIN’T EASY…HERE’S WHY IT IS HARDER THAN YOU THINK

STRIPPING IS HARD ON YOUR BODY

Imagine a workout routine where you do squats and wall sits for 6-8 hours straight.  Between sets of squats and wall sits you have to dance and shake and climb a pole.  Now, imagine you are doing all this in 8 inch stripper heels.  That is a strippers daily work routine.

Every dancer I know over the age of 30 has arthritic knees.  The ones I’ve dated have knee and ankle pain regularly. Their joints pop and crackle when they get out of bed and when they walk much.  All that dancing  and shaking in heels takes a toll on a woman’s body.

Stripping also takes insane amounts of physical strength.  Remember gym class when most people couldn’t climb the rope.  Dancers not only climb the pole several times a night; they hang upside down on it; they do horizontal moves where they hold their body weight parallel to the ground.  Dancers who are good on the pole, are actually professional quality athletes and acrobats.  Many strippers go to the gym 5-7 days a week to keep up the sheer strength and stamina required to work this job.

THE STRIP CLUB IS A HARD WORK ENVIRONMENT

Drinking at work sounds cool to many people.  But most of us wouldn’t survive if our office was a smoke-filled booze filled strip club.  Dancers are expected to drink on the job, but if they get drunk the club will send them home and if it becomes a regular thing, fire them.  Most dancers have a code word for the cocktail waitress or bar tender to order a non-alcoholic drink.  Yet, a Leeds University study discovered 100% of dancers had drank at work in the past 60 days.  Drinking on the job every day can and often does create drinking problems.  And we haven’t even mentioned the drugs that make their way into the clubs.

PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED ON THE JOB

Virtually every dancer I’ve ever met has had a customer attempt or succeed at getting an unwelcome finger in her vagina or anus–University research says this number is 61%; I think it is higher.  And that is not part of the job description…when uninvited from an overzealous customer it is assault.

• 82% of strippers have been punched on the job;
• 56% report that someone has followed them home from the club;
• 67% have had a customer follow her to her car against her wishes.  Think about that…some creepy guy who just saw you naked follows you to your car when you get off work.
• 83% report some other type of stalking activity;
• Surprisingly, women are more likely to stalk a stripper than men.

STRIPPING IS A MENTALLY HARD JOB

Imagine that your job is to dress in skimpy clothing and walk around in high heels all night.  You are expected to dance and grind on men with bad breath and body odor.  You are expected to grind your ass on guys who have keys and other painful objects in their pockets.  Success in this environment takes constant mental focus and attitude…simply being good-looking and shaking your tits won’t cut it.  You have to be mentally tough to stay focused and pretend to enjoy these customers.

There’s also the danger of associating your beauty with your self-worth.  The dancers I’ve known well and dated have really struggled with this.  A bad night doesn’t mean she suddenly became ugly.  Earning $5,000 in a night doesn’t mean you’re the hottest woman on the planet.  Your value as a person has nothing to do with your physical beauty. But when you work as a stripper it is hard to remember these things.

Stripping is a performance job.  Many dancers and other performers–even professionals who’ve been entertaining for many years get performance anxiety.  Strippers are no different.

And you can’t have an “off day”.  Those of us who aren’t heart surgeons or secret service agents can afford to have a bad day at work occasionally.  But not strippers.  Not feeling 100% today?  Your dog died?  Other problems?  Well you better put on your happy face and perform anyway.  Because…

IT’S A SALES JOB…STRAIGHT COMMISSION

Strippers don’t get paid for showing up or by the hour.  They get paid for having the social skills, acting skills, flirting skills and positive mental attitude to sell customers lap dances and VIP rooms.

Plus, dancers actually have to pay the club for the privilege of working that night.  Which means if you have a bad or off day, not only will you not make any money, you might even lose money after paying your house fee. And as an independent contractor, you don’t have any health coverage or other benefits.

IT’S A CUSTOMER SERVICE JOB

Anyone who has ever had to deal with customers has at least one horror story of a rude customer.  Imagine your rude customer taking off his pants and expecting you to service him and then refusing to pay you because you didn’t do so. Every customer service job requires dealing with entitled pricks, but for strippers, the entitled pricks are literally dicks.  Some customers think because they paid to see her naked they should get to have full access to her body.

PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU DO FOR WORK, JUDGE YOU, LABEL YOU AND STEREOTYPE YOU

Most of us have no problem telling people what we do for a living.  Most jobs don’t come with stereotypes that harm your dating life and embarrass your family. Not that simple for strippers because of the stereotypes: “they’re all drug addicted skanks, prostitutes and single moms.”  Yes, there are some strippers who are drug addicts. Yes there are some strippers who also double as prostitutes.  But, at least in Las Vegas, this is the exception and not the rule.

Vegas strip clubs are filled with young ladies who have college degrees and simply choose to make more money as a stripper.  Vegas strip clubs are filled with PhD students, real estate agents earning extra money in a down economy, school teachers making ends meet because they are underpaid for teaching, fashion models, professional tatoo artists, and yes single moms who chose to be strippers because their deadbeat ex husbands don’t pay child support.

There are some dancers who fit the stereotype, but most Vegas strippers have a savings plan and an exit strategy for their professional career after dancing. Many have a day job as well so they can put something on a resume.

STRIPPERS NEED AN EXIT STRATEGY

Despite the fact that some dancers in Vegas work into their 50s and even 60s most dancers have to plan for a career after stripping.  And putting that you were a stripper for the last 15 years on your resume probably won’t impress future employers either.  This hardship doesn’t exist in most jobs. Most careers allow you to continue earning until your mid 60s or later.  Not so for strippers. Most strippers in Vegas save money and have a plan for starting their own business after stripping.

DESPITE THESE HARDSHIPS VEGAS STRIPPERS STILL LOVE THEIR JOBS

Studies have shown that strippers rate their job satisfaction 7 out of 10–a higher job satisfaction than almost any other industry.  8 out of every 9 dancers says they would recommend stripping to a friend who asked. Many dancers I know are happy well-adjusted people and research also shows strippers have better relationships with their families than the rest of us…so there goes the “strippers have daddy issues” B.S.

Part of the reason strippers love their job is money and we’ll post about that on June 3rd.  In research studies about why women became strippers other reasons are discussed 4 times as often as financial reasons.

So next time you are tempted to think stripping is easy or you hear someone spreading this myth, remind them of the facts above.  It isn’t easy to be a stripper.  It isn’t as simple as many think.  Most people have no idea how hard these professional entertainers work.

IF YOU’RE READY TO GO SHOW SOME APPRECIATION FOR HOW HARD VEGAS STRIPPERS WORK...CALL US.