After nearly working for a decade in strip clubs I can honestly say that I have not been able to understand all the lessons, challenges, and experiences that I have been thrown into. Some make sense, others don’t at all, or maybe they don’t make sense yet. Once more, I can say the club as its own microcosm reflect life and possibly the entire universe. Some things appear to be guided by higher powers, other things seem to fall into the category “shit just happens.” And yet, while it gets easier to live and dance — because you get tougher, develop a higher tolerance for bullshit and pain, and learn to take things less and less personal or serious — it doesn’t get more fulfilling nor things flow more effortlessly. Maybe, because you think deeper as you mature, or maybe because it’s my nature to over-think the experiences I cannot make sense of. I wouldn’t say that experience is always a benefit … it is a give and take. You get smarter and safer — or at least you trick yourself into believing it — yet, you let go of your innocence, you lose the adventurous side that made things so exciting, and you lose hope that something big will happen that will positively make your life more worthy. Yet, in the end, it seems nothing significant has really changed or happened, nothing at least on the outside, because you keep dancing and you keep living. As a dancer, stripper, exotic dancer, sexworker you always live life on the edge of complete pessimism and absolut optimism. You have to. The pessimism keeps you safe, and the optimizm makes you survive and look at the most disappointing human encounters as an important lesson you just cannot understand but hope you’ll understand before you die.
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