Ramping

Ramping is currently a huge issue in Australian ambulance services. As health budgets are tightened and emergency departments get busier, ambulances are having to wait longer to hand over their patients. The flow on effect to the ambulance services has been devastating, but no one wants to admit it. Crews are now tied up at hospitals rather than available. Ambulances are having to travel longer distances to get to patients, because their local resources are ramped. Paramedics are getting busier, without down time, and sometimes without meal breaks. And as a result, patients are waiting longer for their ambulance, and are more likely to get tired, hungry, inexperienced crews. Unfortunately, another side effect of the crazy workload is that paramedics are burning out and moving to greener pastures. Everyone in my degree has been warned that the average time for graduates to stay in the service within my state is three to six years. Considering it takes four years to become a qualified paramedic here, it’s not surprising that students are talking about their backup plans before we even graduate. 

Here’s a surprise for you – strippers have ramping problems, too!
If you have read the rest of my blog, you will know that Australian strippers make their income from lap dances, and very little (if any) comes from ‘tips’. So we sell (‘hustle’) lap dances. Once we have a client for a lap dance, we take them to the lap dance room or area, but on busy nights, this may be full. Then we have to wait. The time we spend waiting is not time we are paid for. We can’t take that time out of the lap dance we have sold, and it’s time during which we can’t make money. We’re effectively in limbo until a room becomes available and we can complete the transaction. On quiet nights, this is never a problem. But on a busy night, I’ve lost up to 1/5^th of what I could have made to ramping. Ramping time is also risky. During this time, the client could change his mind, in which case all the time I have spent hustling and waiting is wasted. Or he could be drunk and become abusive or grabby towards other people in line, and get kicked out. 

So what can we do about ambulance ramping and response times? The simple answer is to open more hospital beds and provide more ambulances, but fixing things costs money that no one wants to spend. However the unions, professional bodies and some politicians apply constant pressure to make these things happen. As for strippers ramping? Well that’s not a public health issue, but a union would be helpful. I’ve heard a stripper union exists in Australia, but to date I’ve heard nothing about them, I can’t find them with a google search and if they were active, there are much more pressing things going on in the industry that they would have to give attention to first.

Showgirls, Paramedics and the Diva Complex

In Stripperland, showgirls are usually the girls at the top of their game. To be a showgirl, you have to be hot and have a good stage show. If you have won a title such as Miss Nude, Miss Centrefold or Miss Penthouse, you’re almost guaranteed to receive the perks of being a showgirl. These perks include clubs paying you to visit or do your shows, as they advertise your presence to help get customers through the door, and generally being treated like a star.
Unfortunately, being treated like a star, being at the top of the game and having a huge disposable income can get to some people, and thus divas are born.

Of course, not all showgirls have a diva complex. And not all strippers have to be a showgirl in order to develop a diva complex. And most strippers are really friendly and approachable. But being a showgirl is definitely a huge predisposing factor, kind of like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

At my home club (the club I work in most regularly), we have a new showgirl. Normally a showgirl can at least fake being classy, but this special lady who I affectionately refer to as Potty Mouth is one of the most loudmouthed bogans I’ve ever met.
New management brought her with them, in stark contrast to the huge refurbishment and ‘classier’ image they are attempting to create for the club.
Potty Mouth is friendly enough to the other dancers, however the other girls aren’t quite sure how to handle her. She appears to have no filter between her brain and her mouth, and spends an unseemly amount of time telling people she’s glad she’s now a showgirl, she’s not a stripper she’s a showgirl, and threatening the bar staff that if they don’t show more cleavage, management will fire them – and she knows, because she’s a showgirl!
Potty Mouth also can’t hustle and instead relies upon the shows that management reserve for her. Her idea of a seduction is to yell at someone “Don’t be a fuckin' pussy, grab my tits!” She has no title, no stage skills, and thinks she’s talented because she does more extreme shows than anyone else in the club. What she doesn’t advertise is that she does the more extreme shows because she’s the only registered sex worker in the club, and it would be illegal for the rest of us to allow clients to fuck us with a dildo on stage. I do feel for Potty Mouth, as while she’s clearly not the brightest girl in the club, she enjoys the work. The new management have put her in a really awkward situation that’s bound to blow up eventually.

My next favourite diva is Parrot.
Parrot doesn’t work in any of my clubs anymore, which is a welcome relief. Her special talent was annoying everyone in the club. Parrot is the only person I know of who has managed to piss of the door girl, the bar staff and security before setting foot in the change room. She’d yell and snap her fingers at anyone who wasn’t a client to bring her a drinks waitress, carry her bags, or do other things for her. She’d open her bag in the middle of the change room floor and spread her stuff so that no one could walk into/around the change room without stepping on it. She was rude. She was hot. She could hustle. She broke all the rules. And she got under Amazon’s skin.
Amazon is a huge, fit, tank of a woman with a temper. Parrot is a tiny, loud, fit girl with a drug problem. When their egos collided, something was bound to happen.
I was in a lap dance one night, when suddenly someone started screeching. It sounded like a parrot was being raped (hence the nick name Parrot). Amazon had finally snapped.
Amazon used Parrot's hair to pull her off a client mid lap dance and throw her across a room. It wasn’t much of a fight, as Parrot’s only defence seemed to be rupturing tympanic membranes. However it was an awkward few minutes while security arrived to pull the girls apart. Both were sent home, but only Amazon was allowed to return. Apparently assaulting another stripper was still less drama than everything Parrot had done. 

Divas always seem to have a friend or two ‘on their side’. Someone who tells them what they want to hear, and generally validates their point of view. This adds to the drama that surrounds them.
I was recently visiting a club with a friend. I’ve worked at this club a few times, and it’s usually pretty friendly, however I was disturbed to find that my things kept getting moved from the corner of a bench where I put them. One night, one of the showgirls came in (late) and explained that it was her spot. So rather than start a scene, we moved over as much as we could to let her in (there’s not exactly a lot of room). Apparently this wasn’t enough, so when she moved my friend's stuff in front of her, my friend pointed out that if she just asked it would be fine, but touching her stuff wasn’t cool (it’s a pretty big no-no even).
Cue drama.
My friend was then ‘helpfully’ advised by one of Showgirl's fangirls that Showgirl had been at the club for ages, does good shows and is friends with all the managers, so it’s best to stay out of her way. My friend responded that we all had to use the bench space, and if she just asked before throwing my friend's stuff around, it would be fine. I then had the first hand pleasure of watching the fangirl start the gossip. It was like an episode of Mean Girls – or so I assume, as I’ve never actually watched an episode of Mean Girls. Every dancer that walked in got the goss about ‘how the new girl kept trying to take Showgirl’s spot’. One of the dancers also pointed out that we all have to use the bench and moving each other's stuff without asking isn’t really cool. But that wasn’t enough to stop the DJ from hearing about it, and asking my friend what had happened later that night.
As tempting as it is to glitter bomb her locker (yes, she has a locker too – but that’s not enough) it’s not worth the drama. Being friendly, staying out of trouble and not being a drama queen is what keeps me welcome in so many clubs without being a showgirl. 

So, as fun as these stories are, how do they relate to paramedics?

I’m a student paramedic. Everytime I go on a placement, I’m the new girl, the noob, the one who hasn’t finished learning or earned any ‘respect’ in the job yet. So if there’s a diva around, it’s almost a sure thing that I’ll either get in their way or they’ll blow me off.
Anecdotally, IC paramedics seem to have a higher rate of divas than ALS. However flight paramedics seem to be the real showgirls of paramedic land, and I can see the similarities – they’re at the top of their game, in the public's eye, and a disproportionate number of them seem to be really, really good looking (thanks, Zoolander – your vernacular is astounding). I’m not saying that all flight paramedics have a diva complex, or that there’s not good reason for them to have it. What I am saying is that when you’re at the top of your game, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that being good at your job does not make you good to work with.

So I'm politely requesting that no matter what kind of paramedic or stripper you are, make sure you make some space for the newbie, and create a good reputation for yourself in the process.

DV victim? Nope! Just a stripper!

Pole dancing, stage work and lap dances are hard work. After I've taken a few weeks off, it takes a while to re-acclimatise to it.

In the meantime, this is the result.

I also have a giant scratch on my left buttock from an unsealed part of the stage, but that's not a photo suitable for this blog.

Awkward Invisibility

This post is pretty heavy, but I've been wanting to get it off my chest for a while. The next post will return to my normal light hearted look at things.


Earlier this year, I had the privilege of attending a conference. I consider my ability to afford such things while being a student one of the perks of stripping my way through university. The conference was wonderful, but one experience still hasn't left me.
The speaker, a highly qualified physician, was talking about some of his more interesting and unusual trauma cases. I'll admit that like many people with an interest in emergency medicine, I consider unusual trauma to be one of the sexiest topics there is.

We were shown a wonderfully graphic X-ray of a patient's injuries and the speaker explained to us that the patient was a sex worker, working on the streets, who had gained the injury during an altercation with her client over money.
The impressive injury, contrasted with the situation which had resulted in it, was clearly designed to be interesting and humorous to the audience. And the audience laughed. An awkward, amused, but not quite comfortable laugh. A laugh that made me cringe.

The talk went on to discuss treatment and how the patient made a full recovery, after which the sex worker apparently offered the physician a 'freebie' as a 'thank you'. Once again, the audience laughed awkwardly, and once again I inwardly cringed. At the end of the presentation, the MCs made further innuendos - not about anything else in the talk, but about the sex worker and her relationship with the physician.

So why does this make me cringe? I'm a stripper, not a sex worker.
I've found this really difficult to explain concisely, but I'm going to do my best.

Firstly, many people don't know the difference between a stripper and a sex worker and many more assume all/most strippers DO have sex for money. While this may be true in some places around the world, to date it has not been true anywhere I've worked. Second, I understand that 'not a sex worker' to 'sex worker' is a spectrum, and that by most people's standards, I'm closer to the sex worker end. I don't have sex for money, but I do get naked and intimate for money. Does a stripper who performs dildo shows count as a sex worker? What about someone who is part of a monogamous couple that does 'sex shows' for money? I'm not really sure, but I do know that I consider anyone in this spectrum to be in the same boat as I am in terms of legal and social discrimination.
But what does all this have to do with a group of educated people laughing awkwardly at a whore offering a doctor a freebie?

Well . . . here's the thing. If that patient were an accountant offering the physician a freebie, no one would have laughed. Or felt awkward. Or made jokes about it. Even the scenario of the accountant being assaulted by his client over a monetary dispute is far less likely to happen because accountants are respected members of society, allowed to advertise their services and practice their profession without moral crusaders protesting their existence.
The same can be said for any other profession that doesn't involve sex. Even professions considered to be questionable, such as law or used car sales wouldn't have been made fun of like that.

So what it comes down to is this: That awkward laugh told me that sex workers make the general public uncomfortable. I'm considered to be within the realm of sex work (even though I don't have sex with anyone), and therefore the normal societal rules of what is polite and appropriate are suspended. No wonder I didn't feel safe sitting in that crowd!

But this was not an isolated incident of feeling awkward and vulnerable because of the forced invisibility of my current profession. In fact, in my limited time on the road as a student paramedic, I've had a few of these moments.

-Arriving for placement to find my crew for the day playing with an app called What's Your Stripper Name? It was fun for giggles, until I realised that all the names involved words like Slutty, Easy and Pussy. I don't know any strippers who have stage names like that. Things got even more silently awkward for me when one of the paramedics gave her opinion that 'most strippers must have issues'. Fortunately, her partner used to live with one and explained that most strippers aren't trashy drug fiends, and I didn't have to out myself.

-An older paramedic using the words 'strippers' and 'prostitutes' interchangeably as he described a time before sex work was legalised, when he would collect people from houses with dozens of filthy mattresses on the floor.

-A fellow student paramedic talking about a girl she doesn't like and saying 'She dresses like a stripper!' This one was especially hard. My friend, sitting in front of me, said something derisive towards me and didn't even know it. Nor could I defend myself without outing myself.

-A lecturer spicing up his class with another interesting story about a sex worker. This was only a few weeks after the conference, and I was struck by the similarities. Again, the audience was intrigued, and the sex worker was used for comedic relief. There was awkward laughing from the audience, followed by innuendos from the lecturer.

Unfortunately, standing up for myself in public would also mean outing myself. Outing myself directly impacts my job prospects. This is ridiculous, but it is also the reality in which I currently live. So I stay invisible.
It's not only my job prospects that are affected by being a stripper, but also my safety. In the strip club, people pay me to suspend some of the normal rules of social interaction. Outside of the strip club, I am just another person and all the normal rules of what is appropriate and what counts as sexual harassment still apply. Yet somehow, this seems to be forgotten as soon as the title 'stripper' is added to my identity.

A hairdresser selling a product recently approached me in a mall. Her sales technique was quite aggressive and I explained that I wasn't interested, as I'm a stripper and I already have a hairdresser who does my hair at work (true in one of the clubs I work in). Her response to this was to look at my breasts and ask me 'So, are they real?'
I get that my breasts are related to my work, but would she have asked that if I had told her I'm a plastic surgeon? Somehow, I doubt it.

The other scenario I encounter far too regularly is men asking for a freebie when they find out. First, that's just rude. I don't expect a freebie from whatever my friends do, just because they do it.
Secondly, if I get upset at people asking, I get told that 'they're only joking'. This is really insidious, and to be frank, pisses me off. Because if I had said 'yes' it's pretty obvious they would not be joking. But instead of apologising for being rude, it suddenly becomes my fault for being too sensitive.

So watch what you say. Just because you can't see me doesn't mean I don't exist. It doesn't mean that your words don't hurt. And it doesn't help get rid of the lingering misogyny our historically male based profession still suffers from. It doesn't help our patients, and it doesn't help create a better society.

I know I dropped the feminist 'misogyny' word there, but I promise I'm not a man hating feminazi! Nor am I only aiming this at men. Ladies, every time you trash talk a woman for wearing fewer clothes or having more sexual partners, you're telling everyone that a woman's worth is tied to how much clothing they wear and how many sexual partners they've had. Unless you believe that a burqa clad virgin has greater worth than your average western woman (See how virtue in modesty is a logical fallacy?), you might want to re-think your language.

I'm not the only strippermedic, nor shall I be the last. If 'coming out' didn't have the huge repercussions it currently has, I suspect a lot of people would be surprised at how many people have found work on the sex worker spectrum.

"Fuck this, I'm going to be a stripper!"

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Secrets

Trigger warning: This blog is going to touch on domestic abuse, sexual assault and paedophilia. It also contains a lot of penis.

Whether I'm in my combat boots or stilettos, the nature of both jobs means that people tell me their secrets. I talk with people, I care for them, I'm involved in some of their most private moments, they confide their embarrassing secrets and/or their fantasies. Secrets are hard to write about respectfully, so here are some of the things I’ve been told (that I have reason to believe are true) written in a way that I don't believe will expose anyone's identity. Many of these things I've heard in multiple forms over the years. 

“I had prostate cancer 15 years ago and have been unable to get an erection since then. I’m on the waiting list to get a balloon prosthesis implanted, but I am too self conscious about it to have a relationship, so I come to the strippers instead.”

“I was molested as a child and now I’m terrible at relationships.”

“I have erectile dysfunction”

“I suffer from micropenis”

…Yes, I know, a lot of these are about dicks. It would seem that when there's something wrong with them, guys need to find a way to make themselves feel better. But sometimes, someone busts out with something not penis related that just floors you. I guess it's not surprising that people drag their friends to the strip club during a rough period in their life.

From a lovely older gentleman who was gifted a lap dance with me from a friend, asking me to cheer him up.

“My wife left me two weeks ago. I was staying with my best friend on [farm] and we were caught in the [nearby natural disaster] that happened last week. I almost died. They still haven’t recovered his body.”
He then started crying and the rest of the lap dance literally turned into a hug. I also went way over time, because the poor dude clearly needed it. He still had bruises and tape residue from the cannulas.

Sometimes, it can be heart breakingly sweet and sad. Like another lovely gentleman who was approaching his 60^th. His friends paid for him to have half an hour with me, as it was clear he was not going to get a dance of his own free will, despite his attraction to me. Throughout the dance, he kept asking me if it was actually OK to look at me ‘down there’. Assuring him it was, he kept staring at my vulva in disbelief as though it were Baby Jesus in raptor form. Eventually he told me it was beautiful and explained that he’d saved his virginity until he got married. His wife was shy and self conscious about her body, so he’d never seen a vulva in real life before, and hadn’t had sex since he turned 40. I seriously considered this lap dance a community service. 

As a student paramedic, I’ve already heard similarly messed up things on placement. It's hardly surprising and people expect it of this job.

From a domestic violence call out, a woman with minor injuries blurted out that this was a terrible week. Not only had she just broken up with her boyfriend, but a family member had sexually assaulted her daughter the week before. 

Asking about previous history:
“Yes. I had surgery last month to repair a rectal tear that happened when I was raped. I’m still taking [drugs].”

From an old man having a heart attack.
“My wife and I – we hate each other. She has cheated on me the entire time we have been married. But now we are old and we are used to each other, so there’s no point getting a divorce.”
This was followed with advice to always be faithful or break up. It's surprising how many times I've heard lines like this from the elderly, although my favourite to date was the gentleman who told us the only thing he's allergic to is his ex wives.

As a student paramedic, sometimes I treat the people who created the victims. I still have to be professional with them. Although as a stripper,  when a loudmouthed drunk starts telling me mid lap dance about his ex girlfriend who claims he raped her, but he totally didn't because she was "asking for it" when she came to his place, I do have the choice of telling him off. Unfortunately, that's bad business sense. Dilemma much?

With time, I'm going to hear more secrets. Some of them are going to be even more messed up, and not all of them are the secrets of victims. No matter what someone tells me, I have to maintain their standard of care.

Time wasters

One thing that both stripping and paramedicine have in common is time wasters.
Some of these people genuinely don't realise that they are wasting your time, whereas others actively do so. Every paramedic has their horror story of being dispatched code 1 to a heart attack or shortness of breath, only to find someone waiting calmly with their bags packed wanting to use you for a lift to their appointment or that part of town. Bonus points if they claimed chest pain or SOB to make sure you got there quickly, and d'bag status is obtained if they complain about how long you took. It's a drain on the system, but at least paramedics still get paid for this. At the end of the day, you can go home confident that you will be paid for your shift.

Stripper economics (strippernomics?) are a bit different. Not only do we not make an hourly rate, we have to pay the clubs in order to work there. Add to that the price of our upkeep (waxing), consumables like makeup and tan, equipment like heels and outfits and travel cost, and it can easily cost more than $100 per shift just to work. That's $100 we have spent to be there with no guarantee we will make anything. If we're good at our job and the club gets a reasonable amount of people through the door, then sometimes the money can be great. Other times, the clubs are dead, you're having a bad night and you might not make anything. Usually it's worth it. If you're good at the job, it can be very worth it. And stripping has other advantages, like autonomy and flexibility about when and where you work. As far as uni jobs go, it's fantastic!

Of course, there are the downsides too. And one of these is time wasters.
These are the guys who came to the club because they want to see boobs and have a beer, but think that because they paid a door charge, they are entitled to boobs. To put this into context, this is like someone thinking they are entitled to an ambulance because they pay their phone bill. Bonus points if they know the dancers don't get paid, tip the waitresses (who do get an hourly wage) and try to cop a feel. You win at d'baggery if you offer to take us home with you instead. These guys are always happy to talk to you and enjoy the company of your cleavage for as long as possible, but are absolutely against giving us money for enjoying the service we provide.

I completely understand that lap dances are not for everyone. I don't expect that everyone who walks into a club should get a lap dance. So there are other ways you can tip us. If you're sitting in front of the stage, it's customary (see world standard, rude not to) to tip the girl who is dancing in front of you. In return, you will usually get a bit of special attention and if you tip well, possibly some boobs in your face.
So you don't want to sit in front of the stage? That's also fine. Girls will approach you. If you enjoy the company of some of them, tip them. You may stuff that tip into our bras or into our G-strings, just make sure that tip is of the foldable variety. Don't try to stuff it over our nipples (paper cuts!) or into areas of membranous skin (VAGINA!). Instead, most guys try to prove to us that they're not a jerk by offering to buy us a drink. It's astounding how many men will buy a stripper a drink but refuse to put that $5 or $10 into our bra. A drink does not help me. I don't drink at work. Every city has *that* guy who likes to spike strippers' drinks, in fact two drinks were spiked with GHB on the first night I ever worked. I also drive home.

One of my most memorable time waster stories happened just before Christmas in 2012.
I approached a gentleman who was clearly enjoying my assets, happily sat next to him and introduced myself. His first words to me were:
"I'm not going to give you any money. I just want to fuck with your head."
This sentence will forever be burned into my mind. Why would anyone walk into my work and tell me he wanted me to be his victim? Needless to say, I was not impressed. I was not going to walk away and let him have the upper hand, nor was there anything he could say that could possibly get the reaction he was looking for.
"Oh really? Go ahead." I challenged.
His first question was pretty much what I expected.
"So how do you feel about doing this?" I gave him a brief spiel about how it was the best uni job ever, and I enjoyed the choices and autonomy he gave me. Next he asked me about my relationship with my family, so he got an ear full about how annoying it is that the general public still subscribes to many of Freud's now disproven theories. There were a few other questions he asked me, all of which clearly tried to lead me down a path of feeling bad about myself or what I do. I could see him getting frustrated from it not working, but his last question made me laugh.
"So what do you think the meaning of life is?"
I couldn't help but laugh. "Really? Existentialism? Is that the best you can do?"
What he said next, however, floored me almost as much as his opening remark and is burned into my mind just as clearly.
"I don't like you. You're smarter than me. But I do kinda like you, but I don't. Do you know what I mean?
I laughed at him some more and told him he wasn't used to women calling him on his bullshit, before walking off. I'd like to think it was 5 minutes well wasted, although if I ever see him again, I'd like to fuck with his head some more.

With practice, you get better at figuring out quickly who is a time waster, both in the ambulance and a strip club. You also get better at not taking "No" for an answer and getting a dance anyway, or redirecting them to appropriate healthcare services. This reminds me of my brief foray into sales many years ago, where the mantra was "Three nos is a yes". In fact, stripping is really just a sexy sales job where your nudity and presence is the product.

Similarities

So what DO stripping and being a paramedic have in common? Other than the line “I couldn’t do your job” and the inevitable questions about the weirdest, grossest things you see and put up with.
Well it’s surprisingly a lot. These are some of the things that I think about a lot. Some of these are going to get their own blog posts.

Dealing with people who are drunk and/or high.
So drunk guys like to do two things. See boobs and find ways to fall over. Sometimes, the falling over can be elaborate and involve a fist fight. Other times, they’re just more unsteady on their feet than a LOL right after her hip replacement.
In both jobs, I have to manage these people. I have to get them to willingly do what I need them to do so that I can either take their money or take them to hospital. As a paramedic, I don’t have added incentive of well presented cleavage, but often their instinct for self preservation can be an asset. 

People who waste your time.
I’m going to devote an entire blog post to this, but paramedics know exactly how annoying it is. Ever transported a patient who was obviously not sick? Or picked someone not critical up from a house with 13 cars out the front? Well at least you get paid for that. I can’t tell you how annoying it is when a paramedic walks into the club and pulls the “we’re just here to have a drink” line, clearly enjoying the company of the girls and refusing to even tip one.

Avoiding bodily fluids
Depending on what’s wrong with a patient, life in the back of an ambulance may have you contending with blood, vomit, diarrhoea, saliva, CSF, and anything else a body might find a way to ooze.
While CSF is less common in the strip club (unless one of the strippers snaps and attacks someone with her stiletto one day?) the others are all regular contenders.
Vomit – drunk people. They vomit. Sometimes explosively and sometimes without warning.
Blood – Get too close to a fist fight, get stepped on with a strippers heel, suddenly there’s a blood hazard around. More common, however, is awkward moments when your body decides that NOW is a fantastic time to menstruate. This has been known to happen on stage, mid lesbian show, mid lap dance, walking around the club… any time you’re not taking a break seems to be a great time to get your period. Oh and then there are the tampon string accidents to be wary of later in the night.
Diarrhoea – See drunk people, loss of control and also girls who work when they’re sick.
Saliva – So first things first, some education for the people reading this who are not strippers.
NEVER PUT A STRIPPERS NIPPLES IN YOUR MOUTH! NEVER! NUH-UH! NO! Those of you have never thought about it before are now hopefully having an epiphany. If your mouth is on those nipples, then other people’s have been, too. So for the not so medical readers, what does saliva to saliva contact expose you to?
Off the top of my head, I can think of HSV, bacterial and viral infections (including not-so-fun to admit to ones like chlamydia), Hepatitis (That stripper DID just rub her anus before playing with her nipples), colds, mononucleosis, and thrush. Guys often want to do intimate saliva-ey things like kiss our necks, although one charming gentleman once licked my face. At least as a paramedic, when I’m dealing with airways I have gloves on. I can also wash any part of myself that gets drooled on without having to re-apply fake tan and lose time on the floor.
Semen - Some guys cum in their pants. Some of them don't tell you.

Injuries
Paramedics hurt ourselves way too much. We lift heavy patients, or frail patients, or the incredibly common heavy, frail and positioned really awkwardly patients. Apparently, the average weight of a person lifted by paramedics is 120kg and growing! Even with the best lifting techniques, sick people sometimes topple over or are in hard to reach places, so paramedic manual handling injury numbers are huge!
But what do strippers lift? Well… ourselves. Gracefully. Up and down those slippery poles above a hard floor. And we do it in some of the most ridiculous shoes you can think of. Torn muscles and tendons, repetitive use injuries, back injuries, fall over and break your ankle injuries, FOOSH injuries. Even without falling over, our shoes are by definition injuring us. So why do we do it? Because the money is (usually) worth it, and this is a trade off we make with our body in return for money. If you think that’s unethical, I suggest you go and take it up with your local labourers before strippers. Your local bricklayer is making exactly the same trade.

The uncertainty of the next job.
You never know what you're going to get next. Will it be something simple like a lift assist, run off the mill like chest pain, or crazy like a multi trauma MVA? And just because it starts out innocently enough doesn't mean it won't deteriorate quickly and unexpectedly.
It's similar in Stripperland. The work gets very repetitive after a while, and the types of jobs don't change much. 3 song lap dance? 3 song lap dance that is actually sexual therapy in disguise? Drunk guy who flips out and becomes aggressive and violent for no reason half way through? Rowdy bucks show getting handsy and the bouncer mysteriously disappears? Or it could be the one you don't see coming. It starts out innocently enough with a polite gentleman who asks you for a lap dance, which then deteriorates quickly the second he thinks no one is looking.

People tell you their secrets and problems.
A large part of stripping (and sex work, or so I've been told) is connecting with people intimately. People tell you things they don't usually tell people. Their fantasies, their problems, their secrets. To be a good stripper, you need know when to be a good listener, and be able to make people feel good or better about themselves. Although you tend to get fewer sexual fantasies admitted in the back of an ambulance, people still tell you their secrets and you need to know when to be a good listener.

Management.
In theory management is there to help you stay safe and provide a great service, right?
But management has other priorities, like profit. Good management provides you with what you need to do your job safely and support when things go wrong.
In paramedic land, this includes the right equipment, police backup, reasonable guidelines. In Stripperland, it includes security, cameras and reasonable guidelines. No one likes it when their client/patient is being an aggressive or downright dangerous and management finds a way to make it our fault.

Burn Out.
Paramedics burn out. So do strippers.
The crazy hours, the long shifts, the assaults, the repetitive nature of the work. At the end of the day though, it's always the people that burn you out. The time wasters, the emotionally needy, the people who abuse your existence, and yet you still need to be able to connect with and provide a service to these people. It's your job. And it burns you out.

"I couldn't do what you do"

“I couldn’t do what you do”

People say this to me all the time.
When I'm wearing combat boots, a stethoscope and horribly fitting placement clothes that identify me as a student paramedic, it's always said to me with respect.
Change it to six inch stilettos, designer lingerie and a killer smile, and it's usually (but not always) with discomfort or disdain.

So who am I?
Well… that’s none of your business. As much as I’d like to tell you, I really can’t for future employment reasons. You can call me Lucy, or Sarah, depending on what club I'm working in. This blog is part of my rebellion against the societal norms that stop me from being ‘out’ and is probably just an elaborate catharsis to help deal with all the secrets I have to keep from my friends. What I can tell you about myself is that I’m female, I’m in my mid-twenties, I live in Australia, I’m in the latter half of my paramedicine degree and I’m stripping my way through it.

So why aren’t I out if I want to be? Because it’s not worth it. Because a large portion of society still thinks that exchanging nudity for money is immoral, that women who take their clothes off don’t have any self respect and therefore don’t deserve respect, that I’m just an attention seeking whore with Daddy issues and a drug addiction who likes the cash. Because I don't want to be the next Harmony Rose. To quote a girl in my class whose friends had recently visited a strip club – “You’d have to be sooooo fucked up to be a stripper!” My objections to this idea were met with a long string of ‘reasons’ why women have to be fucked up to be strippers. What she couldn’t see is how it was actually a long list of reasons why she wouldn’t do well as a stripper.
Of course, she had no idea that I’m a stripper. If she did, knowing would change her opinion of me, not her opinion of strippers. Unfortunately, that kind of fervent belief is really difficult to talk through logically. And I don’t want to work with that.

Another question I get asked a lot is how can I, as a woman who believes in equal rights, be a stripper? This is usually followed up with statements about how it’s demeaning to the women involved, how it’s an abuse of my sexuality to manipulate men, how it has no useful function in society [with an implication that it is therefore a waste of time/money/effort], etc.

So to deal with the first part, that it’s demeaning to women.
I chose this job. I enjoy it. Like any job (including paramedicine), it has its ups and downs, good nights and bad nights, and the differences between the two are usually the clients. What I find demeaning is all the men who walk in and tell me that I deserve better, that I don’t need to do this to get by, all with an underlying implication that I’m doing this out of desperation. I work because I have to – we all do. I strip because I choose to. And no, you can’t make choices about what I should and shouldn’t do with my body, because the assumption that I can’t choose for myself is demeaning. As is the condescending tone used when they try to ‘save’ me. We have a name for these guys – white knights.
Paramedics get called ‘drivers’ all the time. After doing a degree in 'How to save your life and/or make you feel better', that can be really condescending. But even when someone doesn’t take your skills seriously, you still don’t get the uncomfortable ‘Oh. Well I guess you have to do what you have to do’ talk, followed by the fervent ‘What else do you do?’ in which they try to redeem you by acknowledging you're not JUST a paramedic.

The second point, that it’s an abuse of my sexuality to manipulate men.
I’m really against women who use their sexuality to manipulate men. That said, I’m also totally for a place where men can go to live out the stripper fantasy. There are many reasons why men end up in a strip club. Loneliness, fun, the desire to gaze upon and be close to a beautiful woman, these are all completely legitimate desires. However, acting out these fantasies in a public place is not always appropriate. So why not have a place people can live out these fantasies with willing and paid participants? If an old man who hasn’t seen a vagina in 20 years wants to give me money to gaze lovingly at mine while telling me how beautiful I am, I’d much rather this transaction happen in a safe place with a willing participant than with some terrified girl on the street.

And lastly, that it has no useful function in society.
Neither does an X-box, but I don’t see anyone campaigning councils to ban those in their towns. Or bankers. Or lawyers. Or any other morally questionable profession (except sex workers, but you know, add sex to a job and suddenly it's immoral). As a paramedic, I provide medical care and help relieve suffering. As stripper, I provide entertainment, company, fantasy, and you’d be surprised at how often I help relieve suffering. 

Although they are miles apart, it’s almost astounding how much Stripperland has in common with Amboland. This is what I actually want to talk about. There are plenty of blogs, articles, and debates that can be easily found online logically outlining why stripping (and sex work) IS moral, ethical and deserving of respect. I'm not here to argue that. If you think otherwise, I think you're an idiot. I'm here to talk about how much stripping and paramedicine have in common, because I sure as hell wasn't expecting it and I'm sure a lot of other people aren't either.

Although there are no laws (that I know of) protecting client privacy in a strip club, I consider my clients' privacy to be just as valuable as my patients' privacy, and so all the stories I write about are going to remain as anonymous as I am.