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.