Decent employment is hard to come by, especially living in a place like NYC. There might be so many employers, yet as a service industry worker, getting a job as a bartender is actually highly competitive. I wrote a piece about gentrification in Brooklyn's neighborhoods as it correlates to the service industry, and I shared an experience I had in a gentrified bar, working for a racist bar owner….it didn't get better after that. I ended up moving on to another bar, in just as much of a gentrified area, and dealt with patriarchy, misogyny, disrespect, and straight up hate from my co-workers and management. It got to a point, where I wondered if I could ever get another bar gig, in a positive atmosphere, where the people I worked with weren't intimidated by my extroverted personality, and no-nonsense attitude when it comes to respect. While I have to admit, that Fontaine and authority don't mix, I'm not a tyrant and I'm great at my job, I'm a team player, and take pride in what I do. I begin to really go over in my mind, and was 100% honest with myself about why the service industry was not working out for me suddenly, when it had been my mode of survival for all of my adult life.
After going several months without a job, and unemployment running out, the anxiety of not making any money to be able to pay my bills and invest in my dreams was weighing on me. It's not like I hadn't tried to find work. I'd go on interview after interview, smiling my brightest smile, giving the best answers one could give on an interview. I'd hear a lot of, "you're a great candidate, " or "you have a lot of experience," and I most definitely always heard, "either way we'll let you know" only to never to hear from them ever again. It was like the universe did not want me to get a job. Two times within less than two-week span, I went to scheduled job interviews, only to find both places closed, the windows down, the lights off, no one there. I couldn't believe it. l became extremely frustrated and deeply depressed. It got to the point, where I started looking into freelance jobs. I sent out writing samples, submitted myself for freelance modeling gigs, tried to throw my own parties at my Brooklyn speakeasy, nothing was coming through. I even decided to become a full-time entrepreneur. I stopped looking for work and started focusing on building my second business. During that time, I got so much momentum going with creating my lifestyle brand, yet no financial gain came from that labor. I knew it would come in the future, but with bills piling up, and barely having enough money for rent and food every month, I snapped.
I became interested in "adult" employment. At first I looked into becoming an escort. I naïvely thought that I would be doing just that, escorting – which I thought meant some rich white dude having me on their arm as eye candy, taking me out to dinner, having a sexy companion and someone to talk to. After doing my research, I obviously didn't know what I was talking about and was living in la-la land. I knew that I hadn't fallen that low, and was not about to have sex for money, so that ruled out being a sugar baby too. Selling my used underwear looked like something to do, but, the payout wasn't enough, and I didn't want to deal with direct transactions from dirty panty buying weirdos. So, my attention turned to stripping. I don't have to sleep with anybody or sell dirty g-strings. All I have to do is beat my face, shake my butt, learn some tricks, pick my money up from the floor, stuff it my thong, and take my behind home. I really thought it was that simple. Strippers are so glorified in our society. Especially in Black culture. We see them in music videos, in movies, we hear it in music, we see them blow up on Instagram, we see them on Worldstar making stacks of money. We see them with celebrities. Strippers even become celebrities. We got Amber Rose, Blac Chyna, Cardi B…I'm sure the list goes on. The problem with me was that I don't have a Nicki Minaj body, nor do I have the arsenal for a place like Magic City, but the one thing that I knew for sure, was that I can sure perform and be sexy. I didn't plan on becoming a stripper superstar, and I didn't plan on doing it for a very long time, but I was running out of options. I needed money to pay rent, bills, buy food, and invest in my entrepreneurial endeavors. I went on YouTube and I did all the research that I could do. I decided to start out as a bikini dancer.
I headed over to Queens, killed my audition, and was offered the job on the spot. Granted it was the day after Easter Sunday, it was dead as hell, but I made a grand total of $67. Obviously, that ain't nothing to brag about for my debut night as a bikini dancer, but it was $67 more than I had before I got there. I felt free up there on the pole. I felt liberated, and I felt powerful. I actually was enjoying myself. I didn't mind that there weren't many customers, because I was practicing my stripper technique. Of course not all of the girls were very nice, but I told myself that I wasn't here to make friends, I was here to make money. On my next day, it was dead again, which was upsetting, but there were more men to entertain, and I really got to understand the mentality of the men who go to strip clubs. I used to believe that it was only the women being degraded, and exploited in this industry, but I realized that I was exploiting these men. They will never, ever get a chance to be intimate with me, they will never know my real name, I'll never care about their lives outside of the club. I exist to them as a sexual object, and they exist to me as a paycheck. It was really fulfilling to be a Black feminist, and use what comes naturally to me, to control these men. Who really has the power? At the same time I was conflicted. I felt low. I couldn't believe that at the age of 29, that I had found myself on a pole shaking my butt for money; but as the money was thrown, that low feeling started going away. It's like a drug. I started thinking that maybe I could go and play in the big leagues, and make more money, if I just went and actually stripped. I didn't make much more money than I did the first day, but I had a new perspective. I realized that most of these dancers, unless they know a lot of tricks, they really do the bare minimum. One girl had booty for days, and she literally just stood there and jiggled. No back motion, no leg kicks, no hip rolls, no pole tricks. Just jiggle. I easily outperformed this girl. You might as well have called me a back up dancer for Beyoncé, just as a stripper. I was giving these men a show that they probably are not used to. I didn't have booty for days, so I had to perform. With my background as a trained dancer and actress, with every song that came on, I became that energy. If Rihanna came on, I turned into an island girl, whining and rolling my waist line. If some kind of Reggaeton song came on, I turned into a Puerto Rican girl. I became whatever the music and the energy called for, and the two or three thirsty guys I was dancing for loved every minute of it. It was like ratchet Broadway for me, just in Astoria Queens.
My last day there was a disaster. It was supposed to be a busy day, with an actual DJ, and a whole lot more men to be exploited. I was ready. My lace front was glued down tight, my face beat for the gods, my stripper bag was fully packed. I had my money bag, my spray deodorant and perfume, my baby wipes, my makeup and setting spray, and my stripper shoes. I was fully prepared. Little did I know that I would be utterly disappointed. Between having one dude trying to get me to his hotel room, not tipping much of anything, and an empty house that I thought was supposed to be packed; I was not feeling this bikini bar anymore. There were way more girls, and they each had their regular clientele. I shook any and everything that shakes on my body, and I was not getting any attention. I literally would shake my behind in front of a man, 2 feet away, and it was like I was invisible. I wasn't being tipped, and that low feeling a begin into creep back in. Here are these girls, with their regulars, who have probably been watching them, and only them, for years, with huge stacks of money, buckets filling up to the brim, in a dead go-go bar. At one point, when it was my time to go up, I was barely dancing. There was no reason; nobody was paying me any mind. My ego took a huge beating. In my mind I realized, that you have to give everything time, but I also had the foresight that I would not be making much money here anytime soon. To make matters worse, I couldn't even buy a drink because the club charged you full price, and I was not spending my hard earned coins on a flimsy drink. The only way for you to get a free one, was to persuade the customers to buy you drinks. If I couldn't persuade them to look at my butt shaking, I doubted that I could persuade them to buy me an over priced, watered down drink. I had noticed that some of the women were successful in getting drinks and tips, by allowing the men to be extremely touchy feely with them, and I wasn't going down that route either. I cut my shift short and walked out. After five hours spent, I left with $53. That's less than my audition day after Easter Sunday! I was pissed. I decided to try out for real strip clubs. I thought to myself, why not! The only difference between the bikini bar and a real strip club was that my boobs would be out. Big deal! I figured that I could make more money dancing for CEO's and wealthy white business men, that would appreciate my physique more, as a slender woman, with Black girl curves. I had imagined in my head that I would be the only "real black girl" in a room full of Eastern European strippers, who could dance like Beyoncé. So, I went for it!
On my first day looking for jobs, nobody was looking for dancers. I felt like I was repeating my bartending job search. I'd walk into places, and see a bunch of white girls, with no rhythm, all breast, and no butt. A complete night and day from the bikini bar. I definitely thought that I had the upper hand in some of these places except nobody was looking for new dancers. I finally ended up at one club, where I got to audition. I walked in, and first of all the place smelled like hot butt and everything in between. It was dead, and all I saw were a bunch of Mexican men, who looked like they were enjoying their lunch breaks at the gentlemen's club. One of the men started motioning for me to come to him. I ignored both him, and the stench to the best of my ability, and went downstairs to the dressing room to change. In the dressing room there was a European house mother, and two other strippers. One of the girls was eating lunch and when asked by the other stripper how she did, the girl just shook her head in utter disgust. I knew that wasn't a good sign, but I was already here. I put on my sexy dress, with my thong underneath and my shoes on. I walked upstairs and was told to go into the topless room, and that I would be next up as a guest performer. For the audition, the first song was to be danced with the dress on, and the second song was to be danced without. They called the girls to the stage like we were at a damn auction, or horse race. I walked into the topless room, that was set up like a theater. The stage was tiny, and the poles were basically pressed up against the glass panels. There was no way that I was going to be able to do any tricks that I had learned in Queens. I sat down and waited for my stage name to be called. Around me, there were about five Eastern European women, giving men Kama Sutra-esque acrobatic lap dances. They were all dry humping each other, and they all might as well have been participating in one big orgy. I watched as these sad women rubbed their crotches up against these pathetic men as they had their hands in all kinds of intimate places. I saw nipples being rubbed, and erections developing. All I could say to myself was that I had just walked into a damn brothel. That low feeling came creeping back, just as they called my stage name. Though I should've walked out, I got up on the stage, in front of an occupied audience and about five Mexicans, and one Mr. Rodgers looking white man. Where were the white CEOs? Where were the 6 figure business men? I was in the city! I don't know what kind of joke was going on.
I got up on stage and struggled to find the beat to some techno song that they had playing. What kind of Gentleman's club plays techno music?! How can you dance to this, I thought. I could barely motion myself around the pole as I was pressed up against the wall. I awkwardly tried to be sexy as I utilized the tiny bit of space that I had. The second song came on, a- pop mashup of a Broadway song. The look of confusion that must've came on my face was more of a show than my dancing. I started trying to take off my dress, but somehow I had tied the strings too tight, and it started pulling on the bottom of my lace front. I was now trying to get my dress off, without ripping my wig off at the same time. It was an utter and complete disaster. At this point, I realized that I had stopped dancing because I was still trying to get my dress off, whilst holding down my wig, so I started swiveling a little bit to the bizarre song, as I turned around to try to make eye contact with anybody in the audience. At this point I was just embarrassed, and ready to cry. The manager, who obviously was trying to hold back laughter, came up to me, and told me that I can come down. She asked me if I had ever done this before, and I told her not really. I was asked when I was able to start, and told when to come back. Obviously, I would never step foot back into that nasty, sorry excuse of a Gentleman's club.
Discouraged, I went and sat at a bar. A white guy came in, sat down next to me and offered to buy me a drink. Of course I accepted, I was broke, and who doesn't want a free drink. We started talking, and I told him about my whole ordeal. He offered to walk me to my next audition, at a place that I knew was the top of the line. On the way, he stopped me, he took my hand, put something in it and closed my fingers back tightly. He looked at me in the eye, and said "you are too beautiful, smart, and talented to be doing this." I looked down in my hand and I saw a fresh $100 bill. We got to the place, and he asked, "you don't want to go there do you"? I shook my head no, and we went to the diner next door for one more drink. He was on a business trip. He told me all about his family, his children and his wife. He never once tried to get me into his hotel room and he never once was inappropriate. I told him that he was a wonderful person, a great father and a good husband. After our last drink, he walked me outside gave me $40 bucks and hailed me a cab. He wished me a great night good luck, and told me to get home safe. If that wasn't divine intervention, then I don't know what else is. Everything had worked out in direct opposition to me putting myself in that atmosphere. Completely lost, and back at square one, my stripping days were over. It was clear that the universe, had other things in mind for me. I'm currently still building my brand, which has definitely gained some momentum after having unexpected write-ups by AfroPunk, and Atlanta Black Star about my project. I ended up working with a fast food start up for about a month and a half, and now I've signed up with Postmates in hopes of making some cash delivering food. This whole experience has taught me to believe, and trust in the journey. The vibration of this industry is absolutely not in alignment mine, but I guess, to each his own. We all go through things for profound reasons. We may not understand why in the moment, but as we travel through life, the significance of these experiences are revealed. So while I might not be the next big stripper superstar, the universe has something in store for me much greater and more meaningful for my purpose.
