Parris Quinn and Pamela Pleasants were a mother daughter stripper team who sometimes did dances together on stage. Off stage, they gave two-girl lap dances to customers, as though they were having a threeway. It was SO UNBELIEVABLY GROSS. HOLY SHIT.

Pamela worked at Mettler's since at least the 90's. She didn't come in a lot while I was there, but her daughter Parris was at Mettler's regularly. Poor Parris. I can't imagine the type of grooming she must have endured growing up to become the adult she was in 2016, so proud of doing two-girl shows with her mother. I thought about not using her real name since I consider her a survivor. But, the fact of the matter is, she spoke with the Mettler's lawyer about me. She's not closeted about working at Mettler's, so this is hardly a doxx post. They used their real names in lieu of stage names. This post is just a portrait of two sad people.

When I started at Mettler's and many times thereafter, Parris introduced herself to me and others as “a second-generation stripper.” In literally every conversation I have ever had with her, and literally every conversation I overheard her having with other dancers, she gave unsolicited, incorrect, patronizing advice about how to be a better stripper, using her second-generation status as a way to emphasize her knowledge. The thing about Parris was that she wasn't much of a hustler during one-on-one interactions with customers. She also had minimal dancing ability or naturally flowing movements. She just accumulated a lot of tips and tricks from Pamela throughout her childhood, which she preached about to dancers who made much more money that she did. Her mouth and gums make that awkward geeky suction noise when she speaks. It was all just pitiful.

One time, two guys from Iowa came into the club. I was giving one of them a dance while Parris was dancing for the other. My customer had a large, red, pitted, demonic face with glasses. He was repeatedly and aggressively asking why he couldn't sexually assault me. I was explaining to him that I didn't fucking want him to touch me because he is unattractive. Meanwhile, pathetic Parris was next to me, struggling to hold back the enormous hands of her customer, to prevent him from touching her. She giggled to me,

“They're from Iowa, they don't know any better!”

I ended that dance without giving him a refund. For those unaware, Iowa strip clubs are known for being horribly gross for the dancers. I will not work in that state because of it. Sometimes Iowa residents would drive up to Mankato and experience disappointment when going to Mettler's. Many Iowa customers are used to getting away with sexually assaulting dancers. They do not deserve sympathy or kindness, though. The patience that Parris displayed for them was only a symptom of her conditioning.

Mettler's did not enforce illegal rules with regards to what kind of shoes dancers had to wear. Eventually I started wearing ballet slippers, with no objections from management. The one person who did approach me with an objection was Parris Quinn. Parris was used to being proud of aesthetic stripper norms, so when she saw me in my ballet slippers, she approached me with concern. She calmly asked me where my heels were, just as many control freak strippers with fascistic tendencies have done in my past. I informed her that I did not want to wear them, and that I was fine with my ballet slippers. She prodded me with questions for the next several minutes, dismay in her voice, before leaving me the fuck alone.

Parris Quinn is not a mean person. She speaks gently and kindly, but with passive aggressive slanted statements one might hear from a grandmother who begins every insulting sentence with, “Bless her heart.” Most of the dancers didn't like working with creepy overbearing Parris. Most of the dancers did not appreciate seeing Parris and Pamela dancing together.

Parris, Pamela and their dancer friend Cara used to peek in my backpack and makeup bags if I left them open in the dressing room. I never knew if they did this because they were nosy, or because they knew that I audio recorded strip clubs, and were searching for my electronic devices. People have done that more than a few times over the past few years, as though my recorders would even be visible. Sometimes Parris pried into my life outside of Mettler's, by asking me questions about where I lived. Sometimes she used her epilepsy as a way to try to invite herself over to my home. She used her seizures as a reason to explain that she could not drive herself home at night, and said that she needed to sleep in my home. I lied to her and told her I had a home, rather than explain to her that I lived in hotels and camping grounds. I have a little seizure problem too sometimes, so maybe she felt more comfortable talking to me about her epilepsy. I never knew what her motivation was in any of our interactions, be it her loyalty to Mettler's, paranoia that I was a undercover, or a genuine inability to drive herself home and a desire to rely on the Mettler's community to take care of her. Whatever her motivations were, she creeped me out too much to ever want to converse with her for very long or tell her about my life.

Near the end of my time at Mettler's, her mother started a move to Florida. Parris was displaying symptoms of clinical depression because of their separation. She was in her mid-twenties by then. I was happy when Pam moved to Florida, because I thought it would be good for Parris's self-esteem to cut the umbilical cord.

When Hima B. came to Mankato to film, I asked Parris if she wanted to do an interview for the documentary. I hadn't worked at Mettler's or talked to Parris for a few months by that point. When I contacted her, she was still depressed about her mom leaving. She said she didn't want to be in the film, because Mettler's would get pissed.