Some of you may remember that I retired from stripping in 2018, and you may wonder why some of my more recent posts have referred to myself as a stripper in the present tense. It turned out to be a temporary retirement, with a return that lasted up until this past March. Most of that return time was spent in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was fired from my financially stable, no-touch Knoxville club in November of 2019, for complaining about misclassification. After that, I struggled to find another club that was both financially stable and allowed minimal to zero physical contact. It was a rough road ahead, one that I didn’t anticipate.

One of the clubs I tried working at after leaving Knoxville was called J.B.’s. It was right outside of Southern Illinois University, in the town of De Soto, Illinois. I called ahead of time to ask about auditions. The manager hired me over the phone. I was skeptical about getting hired over the phone, without being evaluated by my physical appearance. I knew from past experiences that it is important to work in a club that holds their dancers to a certain standard in terms of mainstream beauty. Otherwise, the result is usually a club full of prostitutes who do not fit beauty standards. Those kinds of places are often more violent and dangerous to work in. But, I figured I would give J.B.’s a try. I also had a morbid curiosity to see what kind of a place J.B.’s was when they hire dancers over the phone without looking at them first. It was January, and by that point, I had already searched in Florida, North Carolina, West Tennessee, Kentucky, and other towns in Southern Illinois for a decent place to work. I found mostly shit holes. It was cold outside, and I barely had enough gas money to get there.

Unsurprisingly, J.B.’s was a lot like the kind of place I worried it might be— ghetto as fuck, BBWs and hair hats all over the place, dirty unsanitary surroundings. The sound system had electrical problems, the pole was a hollow pipe, the ceiling was too low for me to fully stand up on stage. They didn’t check dancer ID’s when hiring. The dressing room had no lockers. The other dancers were boisterous, under-privileged, and disappointed that I was there. These kinds of places are inherently dangerous to work at, but also a particular kind of dangerous for someone like me to work at.

Misclassification at J.B.’s was abundant. One of the most cringe-worthy practices at that place was that they kept the dance money and didn’t give it to the dancers until the ends of our shifts. The set dance prices were rather low. I sold the most dances during my shift, mainly because in contrast to the work force, the customer base had a good number of gentle rednecks and university types who found my conversations relatable and intellectually stimulating.

The manager at J.B.’s was a Latino who went by Chris. He seemed like a nice enough guy my first shift. I only worked one other shift after my first though. Chris didn’t kick out the customers for trying to make physical contact with me at the bar. These were not customers I was willing to dance for, but random people who felt entitled to put their hands on me. When I complained about them touching me, when I punched a man, the more disadvantaged dancers sided with the customers who wanted physical contact. In vernacular-laden language that was hard to decipher, these workers were opposed to me asserting my physical boundaries and consent. I can’t describe their central features or method of speaking without offending people, but I have had these experiences before and was not surprised that they would side with the male predators. It’s their centuries-long survival tactic to do so.

Most of the customers who I was willing to give lap dances to were respectful of my requests that they keep their hands down and not touch me. However, one drunken college white boy with dread locks repeatedly tried to touch me. He had to be a decade or so younger than me, and had many one hundred dollar bills loosely in his pockets. The lap dance room was a small, dingy open space behind the stage, where all of the dancers took their customers. Most of what I saw from other people was grotesque dry humping, and a bouncer standing outside the room who didn’t do shit. When I took my dread locked white boy back there, he smacked another dancer’s ass. He was not thrown out or reprimanded by the bouncer. I shoved him to sit down on the couch and told him not to touch me. I kept a good distance between us while I danced, and any time he tried to get up or flail his arms out, I’d shove him back with my hands, or kick him back into place. He only bought a few songs though, and I really wanted at those hundreds. I told him that I would dance closer and hoover over him if he gave me one of those hundreds. So, he took one out and put it on the arm of the couch. I continued to dance for him, while he continued to try to touch me without my consent. He grew frustrated with the amount of times that I shoved him, so he got up to stumble over to the bouncer and complain about me, like a total Karen. I quickly took the hundred off the arm of the couch and shoved it in my hand bag. Complaining to the bouncer wasn’t good enough for him, so they went to complain to Chris that I wasn’t giving him a good enough dance. I knew it was only a matter of time before that additional hundred was brought into the conversation, so I scurried to the dressing room bathroom and locked the door. The Queens in their hair hats were discussing a desire to beat me up as I scurried past them. I inserted the bill in a place of my body that I knew Chris would not look. Then, Chris came knocking on the door. He scolded me for not humping the guy during the dance. He did a demonstration of how I was to give lap dances, that involved straddling and humping. I did not bother and did not care to tell Chris that he was a disgusting pile of garbage who was essentially engaging in coercion and trafficking, or that I hoped J.B.’s was shut down. I didn’t bother to explain consent to Chris, or why he was completely out of line in even talking to me. He asked about the hundred dollar bill, but I was able to brush it off as a drunken guy paranoid about lost money. After I left the bathroom and returned to the main floor, the angry customer was still stumbling around, complaining about me. Chris made vague threats to me that I should worry about my safety and that he had no interest in protecting me. I hope Chris dies of COVID-19 this year.

I left my shift early that night and never returned. I had enough money to get to my next destination, pay for quality vegan cuisine and a decent room. With only two shifts, I didn’t work there long enough to have a case any lawyer would be interested in. But, if you have ever worked at J.B.’s and would like to sue it, I would be happy to provide testimony. I would be happy to provide evidence of misclassification and sexual harassment. J.B.’s is one of those places that shouldn’t exist, but does because nobody has stopped them from operating that way in rural Southern Illinois.