I’ve said this before, but I want to remind myself and all my adult entertainment friends of something I was told by Carlos (he seems to be my exotic dance guru – and for good reason, too!): Remember that you are valuable beyond what your earn. Separate your self-worth from what you make. You are more than your money.

Working for tips is hard. You can’t plan. Some nights you’re on. Others, not so much. There’s only so much you can do to affect this: You can workout, be nice, and approach every person in the room and still not make good money. You can watch someone who isn’t very attractive, very nice, and/or impressive in some way or another sweep the bar. You simply cannot know.

The reason I’m saying this (and I’m surprised I haven’t blogged about it sooner) is because last night at the club was BAD. It was BAD BAD BAD. So many of my beautiful brothers were taking it personally. We all are vulnerable in this work, since our bodies and our egos are laid bare, but I’d like to remind all my friends that it is not them. It isn’t you, booboo! It’s a combination of factors that you cannot control! You are just as amazing on your off-nights as you are on your a-list nights.

Something you simply must remember is that there are times when you will do well and times when you won’t. Rather than looking at what you make each night, look at your longer goals and averages. Consider how everything tends to balance itself out in a week, or even a month. You have to let the cold water roll over your back. It’s easy to forget how amazing you are, but really: YOU ARE FUCKING FABULOUS.

In yet another example of how inaccurately I see myself, I was told by a patron last Saturday night that “I don’t like you big, muscley men. I like the skinny boiz.” Wow. I’m 5’7″ or 5’8″, and even with all the working out I’ve been doing I still weigh less than #150. But okay. Wasn’t expecting that one. My friend Carlos smiled and said, “Get used to it, papi – you’re getting hotter.”

What I’m learning to let go of is making all of that such a priority. I’m not writing this entry because he hurt my feelings, but because I was forced to take a pause. In the same night I was also told, “I like the big fellas, sorry.” Mhm. I think I fill a non-niche: The not-big-enough-to-be-manly-but-too-big-to-be-a-twink category. In other words, the neither/nor category that no one seems to want. LOL Oh well, I work with what I’ve got. You could do alot worse.

But in all fairness to me: I am beginning to achieve my personal goals on many levels. I feel I’m going to be one of those annoying people who keeps getting better with age. I’m fine with that: A refined Pinot Noir has more depth than a can of Red Bull or bottle of Diet Coke. Plus I’m beginning to really invest in appreciating that I have a whole lot more to me than my external “stuff.” So, on the one hand, yes, I do need to pay attention when someone says, “I don’t like a man with too many muscles,” but on the other I also feel obliged to quip, “I didn’t make him… for YOU!” (click the image with this article to see the joke I’m referencing)

Hello, just a very brief entry to let you all in on some good news:

BestGayBlogs.com is going to feature my site at some point! I don’t know when this will happen, but I’m very excited at the opportunity to reach out to new readers. I have also been receiving compliments from many of the sites I link to, as well as readers, about the quality of the content. I want to take a moment to acknowledge how much I appreciate having an audience.

We also have placed more ads recently – please remember to visit the supporters of this site.

Thanks for putting up with me!

My Gramma and I were yesterday discussing the salient distinctions between exotic dancers and strippers. One of the points of differentitation for me is desparation, as I stated in one of my first blog posts on this site. If there is desparation, standards get lowered (if they weren’t very high to begin with).

This conversation started after she told me about an incident in the paper about 40 years ago wherein a man and female prostitute were arrested on the street after arguing over her price. Evidently she wanted $200 (in 1970′s dollars), and he thought it too much. Gramma said she was discussing it over lunch one day later that week with her lady friends, and that she’d scandalized them all by saying, “Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine anything I could do that would be worth $200!” I thought it was funny, especially when she followed it up with, “But in all fairness to the lady, I didn’t see the gentleman in question.”

To illustrate my point about desparation, I told Gramma about the following conversation I had with Angel about a year ago. Before I begin, I should point out that Angel always came in with a particular goal in mind. “Well, I gotta make $287 tonight – speeding ticket.” Or another example: “Man, I gotta pull $416 tonight. They put tires on my truck and I said I’d pay ‘em tomorrow.” So… here we go:

“So, what’s your goal tonight, Angel?”
“$312.”
“Why that specific amount? Why not $300 or $325 or $363?”
“Gotta pay my electric bill.”
“Your electric bill?! How the hell do you have a $312 electric bill on a trailer?”
“I have alot of lamps.”
“That’s a LOT of lamps. Why don’t you get some energy efficient bulbs?”
“No, I have to have a particular type of lamp.”
“Do you have vision problems of some kind?”
“No, I was growing pot.”
“Oh… Well… That must have been a helluva lot of pot. Or are you just not very good at growing it?”
“Hell no, man! I grow pot better than anyone I know.”
“Then you must have been growing alof of it.”
“Yeah.”
“I presume you’re going to sell it.”
“Yeah.”
“So then what’s the problem? Why don’t you just sell the pot and pay your electric bill?”
“I smoked all of it.”

Of course that’s not really any more ridiculous than the straight dancers at Swinging Richards who get paid to be sexualized by gay men, in order to have the money to go to the titty bar down the street and give all their tips to the female dancers (who oftentimes turn right around and come to Swinging Richards to give those same dollars back to the same male dancers who’d just spent the money at the titty bar). Jesus. Just because you can breed doesn’t mean you should.

I get asked with some frequency how I became an exotic dancer. My story won’t necessarily sound like anyone else’s, because adult entertainers are some of the most varied people I’ve ever known. Everyone comes to it from different backgrounds and for different reasons. Some people are models or fitness trainers who want to capitalize better on their investment in their personal appearance, but others are “regular Joes” who simply need to make some extra cash. Some are sex workers who use the stage to meet clients. Others are working through issues about confidence. There are as many explanations as there are individuals.

I, however, am a professionally trained dancer. I am trained in modern, post-modern, multi-media, some ballet (but I’ve never cared for it), jazz, hip hop, Yoga, Indonesian, gymnastics, improvisation, spoken word, Contact Improvisation, and others. I love movement. I just love it. And because I absolutely cannot tolerate most office jobs, that means I have to find a way to make a living doing something else. Well, here’s a whole ton of training under my belt – why not use it to get paid? Theatre doesn’t pay at all for the most part. I still create Dance (note the capital “d”), but I do it for love, not money (good thing too in this economy). But I don’t want to do anything else right now, so Dance/dance is my love and my work. I became an exotic dancer, because I got sick of trying to find/hold “good” jobs.

I am also a personal fitness trainer (yay NASM!). I personally didn’t care for hunting down clients who would only come in for a month after New Year’s, so I gradually left that behind. I suggest NASM as a certifying organization – ACE is far too theoretical: When are you actually going to measure someone’s oxygen volume during a work out? Give me a break. NASM is far more practical, and far more interesting, in terms of being creative as a trainer who understand kinesiology. I digress…

I was also an educator. That has got to be the single most miserable profession I would never wish on an enemy. Education in this country is riddled with impractical theory, crippled by No Child Left Behind, and in tatters because of a general decline in curiosity. I have ZERO regrets about quitting that entire profession. Teachers are some of the most miserable, depressing people I’ve had to tolerate. Whenever they come into the club, the first topic out of their mouths is negativity about work. UGH! My life has way less drama now that I’m a stripper.

Anyway, in summary, I became an exotic dancer for three reasons: 1) I hate most “good” jobs, 2) I wanted to get some financial gain out of all the years of dedication to becoming a dancer, and 3) I enjoy entertaining and meeting people. It was an obvious choice for me. Other people will have something else to offer, but that’s my story.