Please, welcome to the stage, LUSCIOUS!

I'll have to say, sitting on the lovely couches in Studio C and spending the next hour and a half watching Live Nude Girls Unite! was a perfect way to spend my Wednesday morning. I absolutely LOVED the film. I thought the handy cam footage, comedy act, and animations all worked fantastically well to tell the story of an everyday strong woman fighting for equal work rights.

Here's a little back story before I watched the film. For quite awhile I've been fascinated by the stripper culture. Last year I even thought up a little summery for a script about a stripper. I have a little journal where I keep all my story ideas and I found the page where I wrote my idea.

An undergraduate student is living in her college town for the summer. It's the summer before her last year at school. It's her first time living away from home. Her mom is slightly paranoid and is freaking out that her baby isn't going to be nearby for the hot months.

Main character works at a coffee shop, but when checking out her finances she finds that living comfortably while paying for college will be darn near impossible. Especially since she wants to be an artist (a photographer).

While looking for a job in the paper she runs across a want ad for women to work at a strip club. She decides to go. Gets hired. UP late and up early for two jobs so is exhausted. Meets a love interest. Gets more money stripping than at any job she's ever had. Starts having stripper friends pose for her pictures.

That's all I had. It was just the bare bones of a story. There was a point in time where I considered it as a way to make money. Of course, this was all just thinking. I'm a pretty naive straight edge girl so who knows if I'd ever have the guts. I just thought about it because I have no problem with running around in my bra and panties. Would taking the rest off in public really be that hard?

Like I said earlier, despite my ramblings of sex and pleasure, I'm pretty innocent. I was one of those people that Bernadette Barton described. On the subject of stripping I am "informed only by cultural stereotypes, imagine much and know little about the lives of dancers." So how did I choose to educate myself on the stripper wonder-world? I read about it. I Read a memoir by Diablo Cody, the author of Jennifer's Body and Juno.

If you take a look at Amazon.com you can find Candy Girl in the book section. Yes, you can buy things besides books on this lovely site. There was an editorial review that I found amusing and that sums up the book pretty well

FROM Publishers Weekly

Why, you might ask, would a healthy, college-educated young woman start stripping for a living, when she could work in a nice, clean office? Cody, now an arts editor for Minneapolis's alternative weekly, had spent her whole life (all 24 years) "choking on normalcy, decency and Jif sandwiches with the crusts amputated." When she moved from Chicago to Minnesota to live with the new boyfriend she'd found on the "World Wide Waste of Time," she took a job at an ad agency—a setup with good "porn shui" (desk well angled for undetected online porn surfing) but not much else. Attracted by a local bar's amateur stripping contest, Cody soon moved from stage stripping to lap dancing, from tableside to bedside customer service and, finally, peep-show sex. Removing her clothes and dry-humping strangers in sex clubs had become her way of escaping premature respectability. Quite inexplicably, her boyfriend was completely cool with her new occupation, even joining her on occasional sex jaunts. When the inevitable burnout set in, Cody switched to phone sex, until that, too, got old, and the 9-to-5 straight world beckoned. Cody's so alarmingly entertaining, readers will wish the book were longer, though they'll be glad it ends before anything really ugly happens.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This book was incredibly fascinating! I just loved the way D. Cody put everything out there. She was blunt and honest, but her sense of humor made me read aloud uncountable juicy bits to my roommates. This was where I learned just how extreme the higher ups in strip clubs are. Even though clubs are legal, it seems like it is completely avoided by those who control the work force. Because of this, Strippers pay to strip, there are rooms where unmentionable and probably illegal things are done, and to top it off, the workers aren't treated very well.

Another thing I noticed was that even though stripping could sometimes be quite profitable, it was also REALLY expensive. The girls all pay to look good to make money. The cost of outfits, shoes, makeup, wigs, and other essential tools can take up quite a large bit of the cash that once filled your garter. Then again, Cody was able to buy a new car with her earnings.

While in a used bookstore in San Francisco I was perusing the sex section and found a memoir called Strip City. I had already enjoyed Candy Girl and was totally up for some new adventures.

Again, go to Amazon.com and scroll down to the reviews and you can find some pretty accurate descriptions of the plot.

FROM Publishers Weekly

Facing imminent marriage, Burana, a journalist who has written for the New York Times Book Review, the Village Voice and Spin, decides to make a yearlong "bachelorette odyssey" to revisit her former career as a stripper. She's exorcising some commitment panic, but also trying to reclaim some dignity for this devalued work. The sex trades may be the world's oldest professions, but where's their history, the "floozerati"? Burana wants to know. A self-proclaimed "sex-positive" feminist, she sees stripping as a choice, not just something women do because there's no other way to earn a buck. True, she herself first went to Peepland to make her rent money, but it also provided a "reprieve from rabid self-actualization" (e.g., studying and trying to get decent jobs). In her return to the "tiprail," she rediscovers the out-of-body high that sometimes graces strippers. But what does her fianc‚ make of all this? And will she be seduced back to this gloriously exhibitionist career? Thankfully, there's a "catcher in the rye": Burana's enormous talents as a writer she has a good ear, a fine wit and an instinct for storytelling reveal another option, one that's perhaps not so different from her former m‚tier. Stripping means "reclaiming [her] sexuality in the public arena" which is exactly what this book does, too. Burana exposes herself with pride, style and a great sense of humor. (Sept.)Forecast: Hot. No handselling to the Moral Majority, but this will prove seductive to urban hipsters, especially after the planned media blitz: a nine-city tour, "Welcome to Strip City" events in New York and L.A., a national TV satellite tour and first serial in Talk magazine. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This book was not as entertaining as Candy Girl, but I found it interesting because she was in multiple strip clubs. It was amazing how different each one was. Apparently, while driving through MT she dropped by a place to check out the strip culture. This was the grossest joint she had ever been in. Men would put money on various places on their body and lay on their backs on the state. The author was shocked because audience even touching the stage is normally a big no no.

Unfazed, the strippers proceeded to squat down and pick up the bills with their vaginas. There were a few graphic visuals when I read this, yet I'm still not sure exactly how they pull that off. Needless to say, this section scared me away from taking off more clothes than usual in my home-state.

A few years ago I was visiting family in Seattle and couldn't fall asleep when the clan went to bed. I flipped through the channels and found a movie that I had seen around for quite awhile... Striptease. I actually loved the film!

What's interesting about this film is that it puts stripping in a positive light. Demi is fighting for custody with her nasty husband. Said husband is extremely power and forces all businesses to refuse to hire her. Desperate, she starts to strip. This movie is more about a woman's power as a mother. My favorite character was the bodyguard. He was freaking adorable.

Back to the movie. I loved the film because it pulled together all this information that I had read about. The strippers in Nude Girls Unite were all facing the same problems I had read about in the stripper memoirs. I was SO EXCITED because they all joined together to do something about it.

Here is a list of major arguments in the reading that I may not be able to fully flesh out. Ha ha ha, flesh out. Perfect description for this particular topic. Anyway...

• The exploitation of workers by club owners (stage fees, prostitution)
• Racism in stripping
• The fight to become union
• Mom Vs. Daughter "Opposite sides of the sex war debates"
• Stripping as degrading or empowering
• Firing for union activism
• Fighting for equal work rights
• The industry claims they need to fire a worker who's been at the location for awhile. They say it's for variety. There's question to whether it's so they don't have to pay the stripper more.
• Why Strip?

Arguments with Original Analysis:

A.O. Scott wrote an article that hit on the subject of woman's opinions of stripping. "An issue that has divided feminists for years. Some women insist that erotic dancing and other sex work is inherently degrading. Others find it a liberating expression of free choice and sexual independence." I liked the last part of this paragraph "Ms Query" the main character of this film "after a while, just found it boring."

I don't know if I have any right to form an opinion on stripping because I personally have not been in a strip club. Here's what I think. I think that, like most things, stripping is a choice. The reasons to strip and how one strips aren't necessarily black and white. Bernadette Barton said that people "ignore the multilayered nature of human experience." She goes on to say that stripping is thought in the extremes of "either liberating or oppressive."

I feel that if a woman is proud of her body and confident enough in herself to strip, more power to her. She's strong enough in herself to express her sexuality and relish her power over those who like to sit and watch.

There are situations where this strength may not be possible. There was mention of strippers being pushed around by their employers. One reason why I figure I could never be a stripper is because I am kind of a pushover. Not necessarily with my life decisions or my opinions, but when there is a situation where I have to argue with someone higher up on the food chain that has to do with my employment, I'm not sure how I'd react.

I have a work ethic of doing 120% 24/7 and living up to all my boss's opinions so I have no idea what I'd do in that situation. I hope I'd grab life by the clit (that sounds kind of painful) and fight for my rights. I've never been in this situation, so who knows. Maybe it'd be a way to empower me more. It'd make me brave enough to fight against my superiors in order to make things right. That would be an act of feminism in my mind.

A quote that I loved was in the article written by Miss Mary Ann. She says "Some call it the fast food of the sex industry: we produce assembly line orgasms." This was in a paragraph discussion the fact that stripping is work. Mary Anne says "the job has always been defined in MY mind by the repetitive manual labor it demands." They all have shifts they have to show up to, they have work hours, they even have to punch in and out in order to get paid. Sounds like work to me.

The dancers are onstage for multiple hours, dancing and moving all body parts. That's tough! Not only are they standing (probably in heels), their bodies are in constant movement, and they have to work to convince those who are watching that they are both sexy AND enjoying themselves. At least receptionists can sit down!

Strippers are people too. Bernadette Barton found some pretty interesting statistics in her particular sample of observations. One woman had a masters degree, 59% had a bachelor's degree or had some college credits. These women also have lives out of stripping. "Eight women were single, four were married, and ten were in committed relationships. Eight had children and were the primary financial provider for those children." She also went on to describe the various ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientation. So here's what we learned, "Not all strippers are white, blond, dum dums."

I thought it was interesting to compare how much money people can make stripping. I know that there are usually bars around the shirtless ladies, and that might lubricate their wallets a little. In the Candy Girl Diablo Cody described her employment at a place where she was required to have a certain amount of guys buy her a drink. If she didn't fulfill this magical number, she was given a fee.

The great BB of Dancing on the Mobius Strip said "The women whom I interviewed made up to $200 to $300 on an average shift. At times, they might earn as much as $500 a day." That's the price of a semesters worth of textbooks! She then makes a good point by saying "It is difficult for a woman with less than a high school diploma to make this much money, and even a bachelor's degree does not guarantee this income."

Useful Questions/Discussion Topics

• Though legal, why aren't strip joints more monitored to ensure better work conditions?
• Why is stripping seen in such a negative light?
• Stripping is WORK. Why is it always advertised as "fun"?
• Stripping is a choice, not necessarily a last resort.
• Strippers are people too!
• Why is the mother, who is all about promoting prostitute rights, so against her daughter being a stripper.
• Why is stripping overall assumed as a female job?
• What would change in the Stripping world if all strippers became union?
• How does media effect our view of stripping?

New Terminology Research: I didn't know much about stripping earlier and I obviously did some research, but here are a few things I looked up when I revisited the stripping area of expertise.

What came up when I Googled "Strip Joints in Columbia, MO

• Rumors Cabaret on the business loop
• Female Male Exotic Dancers Birthday Bachelor Bachelorette Party Entertainment Longest title ever.
• Adult Toys & Video-Olde Un Theatre 101 E. Walnut Street
• Venus Adult Megastore 1010 Old 63 North
• Club Vogue 912 Business Loop 70 East
• Thirsty Turtle 916 Business Loop 70 East
• Peppers Night Club 4515 N. Highway 763

Vocab I needed to refresh. I used the DICTIONARY application on the lovely mac computer in the library.

Reductionist- "The practice of analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon. esp. a mental, social, or biological phenomenon, in terms of phenomena that are held to represent a similar or more fundamental level, esp. when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation."

Interesting...