What surprised you the most about the job? Not so much taking your clothes off for strangers, but having to entice them, I knew you had to be good at communication. What was your expectation of dancing for a job before you started? Now a full-time pole dancer, stripper and OnlyFans creator since finishing university, Mercedes’ experience of the industry is largely positive, granting her the freedom to dance, feel sexually liberated in her own body and equal to the men who watch and pay her to do something she enjoys. She first started in the industry whilst completing her Master’s Degree in Neuroscience when she became a professional pole dancer for the fitness benefits but found herself wanting to explore stripping as a creative outlet. Mercedes Valentine has been stripping for two years. From the matriarchal buzz of being backstage with fellow women, sharing chicken nuggets and being enveloped in a cloud of hairspray and sisterhood, to dealing with the downsides, of which there are many: the long, hard anti-social shifts where you don’t make a penny, fines and yes, predatory men too. Here two women share their experience of the sex work industry. Denying sex workers their right to bodily autonomy leaves women even more open to exploitation and situations where their safety could be compromised, dangerously so. The sex work industry is, without doubt, a complex, nuanced and problematic business with high house fees, labour violations and lack of employment rights to name a few, but criminalising sex work and taking away the methods of financial independence isn’t the answer. The real question is what can society do at a systemic level to ensure it’s always safe for women to earn a living in whatever way they choose. Thus, the great stripping debate isn’t as binary as feminist vs anti-feminist. Sex workers’ rights are and always will be a feminist issue and stripping can be a feminist act – if the women are protected by strict regulations and paid fairly for their labour. Taking off their clothes for cash should never equate to being stripped of their employment rights and protection. She has agency over her body and what she does with it. When they’re dancing, the female stripper is more powerful than her male client. Stripping can give women a means to exercise their sexuality in such a way that the men go home with lighter pockets and the women actually get compensated for the same role in this mutually exploitative game, through their ability to command the male gaze. By playing the patriarchy in such a way, strippers can disrupt the power relations in a game of the ultimate one-upwomanship. The opposing stance is that doing exactly what’s expected of you as a woman (being objectified and looked at) but for your financial and political gain is in fact, empowering stuff. Whether it’s empowering or not is irrelevant at best and triggering at worst if they’ve experienced sexual abuse whilst trying to do their job. To some dancers, it is simply a way to earn a living and a job with pros and cons just like any other. No two experiences of the industry are the same and can depend on factors such as class, race and club security. There’s not a one-size-fits-all opinion on sex work, with those working in the industry even disagreeing on whether stripping is feminist or not. There’s a longstanding belief that strip clubs are the capital of gender imbalance, reinforcing rather than dismantling the male gaze and perpetuating the harmful attitude that women’s bodies are sexual objects made to be looked at. Women use their bodies to their advantage… and get criticised for it – it’s a tale as old as time. It’s a debate that’s been dividing friendship groups for years. Is it a feminist act that challenges dominant sexual norms, allowing women to exercise autonomy over their own bodies, or is it an inherently anti-feminist act that will always disadvantage women? Stripping is, and likely always will be, a divisive topic, whether you identify as a woman or a feminist or neither. In the week of International Women’s Day and following on from International S*x Workers Rights Day on 3 rd March, we wanted to amplify the voices of women working within the industry itself. TW: suicide, racism, domestic abuse, rape.
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