Dancing in the 70's 80's and 90's
https://web.archive.org/web/20230126130 ... s-and-90-s
lilac666:
I have been dancing for a little over a year now so I have no idea what strip clubs used to be like back in the day. I have read some stuff and kind of have an idea about how strip clubs have evolved. Does anyone know about the evloution of stripping from the champange hustle of the late seventies, to the intro to lap dancing in the late eightes or the texas style couch dances of the ninties? Does anyone have any stories or knowlege about the day in the life of a dancer in those era's? How did they make their money? What were their style of clothes? What was it like? Mabey Melonie can help me with this she is very knowlegeable! I am just very curious about how diffrent it has changed over these three decades because alot has changed.
Bridgette:
I started dancing in 1995 at what used to be Maiden Voyage in New Orleans. Very fitting I thought since it was my first time Anyway, they were EXTREMELY picky about the girls they hired, and trained us on everything from proper eitquette to dancer do's and don'ts to costumes and accessories, grooming and how to sell. The club was absolutely beautiful and well-run. We were not allowed to get on the floor at anytime while dancing on stage or off, we were not allowed to touch ourselves in any intimate areas, no pole work, NO customer-dancer contact. Girls wore everything from elaborate costumes to full-on prom or pageant dresses. Hair and makeup guys did everyone up like models, housemoms washed clothes and towels, fixed torn hems, etc. We had real catered food for dancers. By New Orleans law all table dances have to be done on 18" high pedestals at all times - still that way. When we got a dance, we raised a hand to signal a bouncer to bring a pedestal and place it in front of the guy, and they always did so promptly and extended their hands to help us step up, like ladies.
We were treated like gold and money was great and easy to make. Security and staff were well-trained, professional, and wonderful to work with. In those days anyone I worked with would have been appalled at 95% of the stuff that occurs regularly in clubs now. Ex: I had a customer spending truckloads of cash one day, giving me $100s for every song I danced and buying a couple dances from most of the other girls too...one girl decided to try and get his attention away from me and slid down on the pedestal during her dance and began touching her crotch on top of the thong...a bouncer saw, pointed it out to the manager, was told to get rid of her, and immediately took her off the pedestal and sent her packing. Nothing even remotely close to that would happen now.
Dances were easy to sell, just walk up, smile and ask. Guys spent money MUCH more freely, without all the mileage expectations and without hounding to meet after hours or to date. I never heard of a girl leaving work after a shift with less than what she carried in or broke because business was slow or there were too many girls. I truly loved the job and woke up everyday excited to go to work. I was happy to tell anyone where I worked because it was seen as a nice place with nice girls. Heck, when I opened a bank account I even told the banker where I worked, and she just smiled without a weird expression or questions or anything.
Of course alot has changed since then! Clubs like that don't exist anymore, save for maybe a handful in the world! Customers expect more and more and more and more and more for the buck, and expect to spend alot fewer bucks to boot. There is no dancer training - you are basically hired, told a few rules the manager wants you to know to make his job easier, and sent out to figure it out yourself. There are few if any costume requirements or expectations, and there is no more catered food for dancers, or bouncers who help you up onto the pedestals. Maiden Voyage went downhill right along with all the other clubs and was bought by Larry Flint and turned into a Hustler club a couple years ago. It's a craphole now. Dances get harder and harder to sell, managers who don't hit on all the dancers and scream and yell and curse everybody out every night are considere great. Dancers are treated like so much meat, to be devoured as quickly as possible and thrown out with yesterday's garbage. It is truly rare to find a club where a girl can make decent money without too much hassle, mileage and bs from managers and staff. The most common price of a dance is $20, and it's been that way at least since I started dancing, and guys complain all the time about how high the price is or how it 'keeps going up' - when in most clubs it's been the same for years, no cost-of-living raises for us! Overall, I'd say earnings potential for the same dancer, same age, look and experience level, has fallen by at least half. Of course there's still better money to be made for most dancers than what most of us could earn in straight jobs in the same amount of time, so it's not too bad!
All the older girls I know and work with get nostalgic once in a while and we'll sit around on a slow night talking about the good ol' days when it was so much easier and nicer. And let me tell you, the lower earning potential I see now versus years ago is not due to my being older - I actually do better now than I did then because of experience, and the more experienced girls back then were absolutely making a fortune - it's just harder to make the money now. In cities where there used to be one or two 'nice' clubs, there are now a dozen or more. Clubs don't regulate the number of girls on a shift, the more girls they can get willing to pay the tipouts, the better. There's so much competition now, the pie has been divided so many ways, it's hard to get a big enough slice to feed yourself sometimes. Now it's commonplace for ANY of us to leave work empty-handed or with less than what we carried in because business is that bad sometimes. We learn to expect a crappy day or week now and then. I have danced in well over 30 clubs since my initiation and things are pretty much the same all over, with few exceptions.
That is how I've seen things change in the last 8 years. It's been fun, is still fun, good money, good experience, and I wouldn't trade it for the world, depsite the speedbumps!
