Wednesday 19 February 2014

The therapeutic slap.



Paramedics often joke about the therapeutic slap.
For any non-medical people reading this, it comprises of a sharp blow to the face, used to treat whingers, time wasters and hypochondriacs.
As a stripper, I often get to implement what I call a ‘therapeutic whipping’. While I’m sure the legalities of a therapeutic whipping are murky at best, it’s usually put down to being part of the adventure of a strip club. In fact, our standard buck's show (Stags, for you Americans) involves some "lesbian" action, followed by riding the buck like a pony, whipping him with a belt - preferably his, but friends are always happy to both provide one and hold him down if he doesn’t - and then sitting on him whilst using shaving foam to set his butt crack and nipples on fire. 

You know you’re studying to be a paramedic when you clear contraindications such as aspirin, warfarin, back problems and recent surgery before doing this. You know you're a stripper when you can make it a part of a great show. However, not all therapeutic whippings are used to sadistically beat up bucks in front of their friends. Often, if you’re having a bad night or if someone is being rude to you, they can be wonderfully cathartic.

A case study in the use of therapeutic whipping:
It was early on a Saturday evening. So far, around 20 girls had started and not a single client had yet walked into the club. As usual when it’s quiet, we separated into our groups of friends and were catching up on gossip (gossip is a big part of both stripping and paramedic communities!). If ever there were a case for strippers not being victims, it’s in the way 20 pairs of predator eyes fell upon the first group of guys that walked into the club that night.
Not wanting to scare them off too quickly, we allowed them to get a drink and get settled, then slowly started taking turns approaching the guys and attempting to get a dance.
A short time later, one of the guys left the group and approached me, asking me to take his friend, the birthday boy for dance and paying me discreetly. Obligingly, I approached the birthday boy, reached out my hand and gave him a theatrical and commanding “Matt! You’re coming with me!”
Matt was a skinny, tattooed, ego toting, sideways cap wearing young man celebrating his 21st birthday. I was less than impressed when the first words out of his mouth were “I’m not paying for it”. After assuring him that it was already paid for, he was much more amenable but hardly excited about being dragged into the lap dance room. On the way, I tried to engage Matt in conversation and create a connection.
“So, I hear it’s your birthday! How old are you turning?”
“21.”
“Cool! Are you having a good day so far?”
“S’alright”
“Awesome! So what do you do?”
“Tattoo artist”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“S’alright”
By now, I’d figured out that Matt was not particularly interested in talking, nor did he appear to be particularly interested in anything. So I decided to just give him a great birthday lap dance and then let him take his three syllable responses back to people who seemed to enjoy them.
Usually in a dance, you start in your lingerie or costume, then slowly take it off, piece by piece, to elongate the tease. This particular night I was in lingerie, I had removed my top half and was sexily bending over and shaking my butt at young Matt. Matt was looking as unimpressed with me as he seemed to be with the rest of the world, but I was determined to give him a friendly, happy, sexy lap dance anyway (yes, even strippers can take pride in their work).
He seemed so keen on not communicating, I was genuinely surprised when he pointed his chin at my G-string and told me to “Take ‘em off”.
“Excuse me?” I said, startled at his rudeness.
Again he repeated the chin gesture and said slightly louder to “Take ‘em off”.
I’d been removing my clothes for money for almost a year by the time this happened, so I not only knew that I wouldn’t be spoken to like that, but also had inspiration on how to handle it.
I smiled sweetly at him, helped him from his chair, gently turned him around and put his hands where he had been sitting. He seemed confused.
“THAT IS NOT HOW YOU SPEAK TO A LADY. TRY AGAIN!” I demanded as I used every bit of strength I could summon through the grace of pole dancing arms and my 6 inches of stilettos to give him the mother of all spanks on his ass. It hurt me to deliver, but it definitely hurt him to receive. I was also somewhat amazed at the ferocity of it.
Matt was tense and quiet for a moment, and I started to worry maybe I’d *actually* injured him.
“Babe…?” he asked, nervously.
“WHAT?!”
“Take ‘em off… please?” he eventually asked in a small voice.
“THAT’S BETTER! SIT DOWN!” I demanded as I delivered one more blow to his ass.
He did as he was told, and so I finished the lap dance making sure that I took my sweet time to take my underwear off. After I returned him to his friends, I had a giggle with the other strippers about it. They then took it upon themselves to smack his butt and tell him to “Say please!” whenever they saw him for the rest of the night.

One of my lecturers often says that if it felt good to say, you shouldn’t have said it. This is usually true in stripping as well as paramedicine, but sometimes strippers can get away with it…