by Catlyn Ladd
What people are saying about
Strip: The Making of a Feminist
Catlyn Ladd gives us a compelling and dramatic view into the world of desire. Her journey, mind and body and heart, takes the reader into her experience as a voyeur without judgment and with critical insight. The book is raw, dangerous, sensitive, and real, like the life Ladd portrays. It reads like social science with a storyteller’s heart.
Michelle Auerbach, author of The Third Kind of Horse and Alice Modern
Strip: The Making of a Feminist challenges the patriarchal stereotypes of sexual women as undereducated, manipulative, and exploited. Taking an intersectional approach that considers privileges and oppressions, Ladd offers both her personal history and academic perspective on sex work. This book is not only relevant to the changing landscape of 21st century feminisms, it is useful to all readers who wish to deconstruct their own perceptions of female sexuality.
Neil Cannon, Ph.D., LMFT
Strip: The Making of a Feminist provides a detailed account of Catlyn Ladd’s experience stripping over the course of five years. While like other autoethnographic accounts of the strip club industry, Ladd’s contribution to the genre involves her incorporation of feminist critique within a sex positive framework. Ladd skillfully explores the nuances of female sexual empowerment while evaluating her own experience as “empowered” within a racist, capitalist, hetero-patriarchal work environment and culture. She reveals that although stripping can empower some women, this empowerment exists within the context of broader social systems that grant certain women the privilege of empowerment. In other words, some women choose to strip out of desire, while others choose to strip out of need, or perhaps do not have a choice. These realizations help Ladd synthesize her experience into a tale of growth, whereby the reader begins with a basic introduction to the industry in Section I and is led through Ladd’s growing feminist consciousness in the following sections. It is within these sections we see Ladd explore the contradictions of female sexual empowerment, but it is this exploration that reminds the reader of sex positivity’s significance for women in the United States.
Katherine Martinez, Ph.D., author of “BDSM Role Fluidity: A Mixed Methods Approach to Investigating Switches within Dominant/Submissive Binaries,” Journal of Homosexuality (forthcoming) and “Somebody’s Fetish: Self-Objectification and Body Satisfaction among Consensual Sadomasochists,” Journal of Sex Research (2015).
First published by Changemakers Books, 2018
Changemakers Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., No. 3 East St., Alresford, Hampshire SO24 9EE, UK
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Text copyright: Catlyn Ladd 2017
ISBN: 978 1 78535 737 4
978 1 78535 738 1 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941346
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.
The rights of Catlyn Ladd as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design: Stuart Davies
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Section I: Into the Abyss
Chapter 1: The Beginning
Chapter 2: Stripper Barbie
Chapter 3: A Bad Night
Chapter 4: Material Girl
Chapter 5: Body Property
Chapter 6: Fetish
Chapter 7: Object of the Gaze I Become
Section II: The Dialectic of the Abyss
Chapter 8: Fast and Loud
Chapter 9: In Love
Chapter 10: Skin
Chapter 11: Creep Show
Chapter 12: The Virgin
Chapter 13: Couple’s Therapy
Chapter 14: Black and Blue
Chapter 15: The Addict
Chapter 16: The Female Gaze
Section III: The Abyss Gazes Back
Chapter 17: The Cross-Dresser
Chapter 18: Rain
Chapter 19: Pretty Boy
Chapter 20: The Renaissance Man
Chapter 21: This Is My Body Moving Electric
Chapter 22: Athena, Stripped
Chapter 23: Into the Deep
Reading Questions
Bibliography
For all the powerful, amazing people in the world who choose to do unconventional things.
Acknowledgments
Firstly, I need to acknowledge all of the women and men I worked with in clubs over the course of five years. This is your story almost as much as it is mine. Though this book is written so as to protect the identities of my co-workers and the customers, my experiences with each of you contributed to who I am in my professional, adult life.
Secondly, acknowledgment and thanks go to Tim Ward, my mentor and friend, and author/publisher at Changemakers Books. Tim and I cooked up the idea for this book years ago after I divulged my previous career in sex work. After hearing some of my stories, Tim urged me to begin writing them down.
Thirdly, I am so deeply grateful for my parents and partner. My parents always support me, even when I make choices that make them nervous. My mother spent long hours editing this book for submission and my father and I strategized marketing, design, and philosophy for almost as long. Greg is my magical, wonderful, smart, talented, beautiful partner in life—he always sees the very best in me and holds me to the very highest standard.
I’d be remiss not to give a special shoutout to Robert Linder for his photography skills. Thank you for making me look good!
Finally, a lot of people at Changemakers Books provided invaluable editing, feedback, marketing, insight, and advice. I received rigorous support throughout the publication process. Made the first book seem easy! I am lucky and appreciative.
Section I
Into the Abyss
And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.
—Frederick Nietzsche
Chapter One
The Beginning
The entirety of my wardrobe hangs on a clothes rack occupying one wall of our bedroom. I go through the items rapidly, pulling candidates off the rack and laying them out on the bed, which is a double futon on milk crates. The crates serve the dual function of keeping the bed off the floor and organizing jeans, sweaters, and books. It’s college chic.
My boyfriend looks on, sitting on the bed sorting hosiery. He’s looking for my garter belt, which has to be mixed in somewhere with the fishnets and thigh-high witch stockings.
“What about this?” I hold up a minidress that zips down the front. One side is black and the other side is white.
“With these.” He holds up a pair of black and white striped stockings.
“Those don’t match,” I say.
“They don’t?” He looks at them quizzically.
“No. The stripes are different widths.”
“I kind of like that.”
“I don’t think strippers are supposed to be edgy.”
“Well, I’d tip you.” He goes back to the pile.
Audrey is picking me up in an hour. My makeup kit is already packed; now I just have to figure out what clothes to take. I have lots of hot pants, miniskirts, and cats
uits, but it all looks like club wear to me, something to wear to a rave.
“Ah, ha!” Triumphantly he holds up a garter belt and another striped stocking.
“Add those to that pile.” I point to a small collection of clothing that I think will be suitable. I only have one pair of shoes, white sandals with clunky heels that I bought on sale at Wal-Mart for $10. Everything I take tonight has to match and most of my clothes are black.
I put everything in a duffel bag and add my makeup and a curling iron. I throw in a single black velvet thong that I had been able to afford ($5 at Wal-Mart) along with the shoes.
I am not nervous, only worried about making money. The idea of being naked in front of strangers doesn’t concern me, but I do feel a twinge about my appearance. Loads of people, both men and women, have told me how beautiful I am and intellectually I know that I fit the current social standards for beauty: tall, thin, blond. But my skin isn’t perfect, my teeth are crooked, and I worry that my thighs are too thick. Am I good enough to actually earn money at this? I need money badly.
During the 45-minute drive to the club, Audrey coaches me. “Don’t call me by my real name,” she tells me. “Remember to call me Sierra. Don’t steal a customer from another girl. Don’t sit at the dressing table until I show you where you can. Never take your top off until the second song. If you’re on stage two, don’t take your top off until after the girl on stage one takes hers off. You tip out 10% to the bar, 10% to the DJ, and the bouncers get four or five bucks apiece. Don’t touch the customers and remember that they can’t touch you. Take the money in your G-string; don’t let them do it for you.”
My head buzzes with all the rules. That’s a lot of “don’ts.”
“Did you bring a lock?”
“A lock? Um … no.”
She shakes her head disparagingly. “Well, there’s an empty locker. Just hope your stuff doesn’t get stolen. Did you bring a purse?”
“No.” I’m still stuck on stolen.
“I think I have one I can loan you. Never leave your money in your locker unless it’s locked.”
“Where do I put it?”
“When you’re on stage you can set it next to the stairs. Just keep an eye on it. Some bitches will steal all your shit.”
This information conforms to the stereotypes I’ve picked up from society about women who strip their clothes off for money. In films and television shows, strippers are drug addled, uneducated, trafficked, manipulative, and scorned. Audrey is a year ahead of me in college and is none of those things. But she speaks of her co-workers in ways that seem to confirm the stereotypes.
I don’t know what I expect of the club, but I’m surprised when we pull into the parking lot of a strip mall. The club is nestled between a dry-cleaning place and a burger joint. The air smells like grease.
“This the new girl?”
The bouncer looks friendly enough and he smiles at me warmly. “I’m Ken,” he says, holding out a hand. “Welcome.”
I don’t hesitate. “Desire.” I had chosen the name from The Sandman comics after the androgynous hermaphrodite, sibling to the Dream King.
Ken doesn’t even blink. “Welcome. If you need anything please ask.”
He seems nice enough. “Thank you,” I reply and Sierra pulls me into the club.
Again, not what I expected. The floor is polished concrete. A hardwood bar faces the door. It’s shaped like a horseshoe and the portly, balding bartender gives me an unsmiling once-over. Three of the barstools are occupied and the men look at us with more friendly expressions.
“Hey, Sierra,” one says. “Who’s your friend?”
“Fresh meat,” she says with a laugh.
This is not the last time I will be referred to as meat in this industry.
She leads me between a row of high-top tables and then through a maze of small, round tables. They are fake wood veneer and each has two chairs of the vinyl metal frame variety.
There’s the DJ booth on the left, basically a nook with a high counter. The DJ sits in shadow, lit only by the soft glow of a soundboard. She controls the stage lights as well, as I will learn.
The stage is long and wide against a mirrored wall. There is a brass pole at one end. Chairs line it in a single row against a low ledge for drinks. Two customers sit at the stage watching a dark-skinned girl with waist-length dreadlocks slowly gyrate. Her nipples are covered with crosses of black electrical tape. I stare while trying not to stare. She is beautiful, sensuous, under the lights flashing blue on her dark skin. Black lights line the stage, hidden under the lip at the edge, and they make her G-string glow electric pink.
“Come on.” Sierra leads me through the tables and past the stage to a black door hidden in the shadows of a black wall. She opens it onto more blackness, but my eyes adjust and I see light spilling around a heavy curtain. We step into musty darkness between the door and the fabric and then on through into a long, narrow room.
Battered lockers line one wall and a wide counter runs opposite. Above the counter the wall is mirrored, tube fluorescents making the room very bright. At the opposite end of the room is another door, and the near wall opens into a tiny bathroom: toilet, rust-stained sink. The floor is thin grey carpet. It is a battered, shabby room but it is also fairly clean. The mirrors gleam spotlessly and the worn carpet is stain free. Dust coats the corners of the bathroom but the toilet is new and shining. The room smells of sweat and competing aromas of body spray. Some of the lockers spill swills of fabric and tangles of shoes with very high heels.
A girl with waist-length brown hair relines her eyes with black kohl. She glances at me in the mirror. “Fresh meat?” she asks Sierra, going back to her delicate work. She wears tiny black hot pants and nothing else. Her nipples are covered in silver glitter.
“I’m Desire,” I say, the name still unfamiliar on my tongue.
“Yeah, you are.” She turns away disinterestedly.
“You can put your stuff here,” Sierra says and opens a locker. A child’s clothes hanger falls from the rod at the top with a clatter. “And you can put your makeup here next to mine.” She scoots over a Caboodles makeup case to create a little more space on the counter. I set my case next to hers and sit down on one of the straight-backed chairs. I am not nervous, exactly.
Sierra pulls her shirt off and unclasps her bra with brisk efficiency. “Let me help with the pasties.” She opens her kit and removes an adhesive bra. It is made from basically the same material as Band-Aids and comes in a variety of skin tones.
Laws governing public nudity vary from state to state. In this state women cannot show the pubic region, pubic hair, or nipples in public. G-strings and shaving or waxing take care of the lower bits and a variety of adhesives are used on the top. Tape, thick glitter paint, glue-on pasties, and adhesive bras are all used. Sierra explains to me that men like to think that they’re seeing the real deal and thus she finds the adhesive bra is best because it looks natural from a distance.
“Let me see your nips,” she instructs and I pull my shirt off. Her glance is clinical. The other women in the room glance, too, checking out the goods, then return to whatever they are doing.
“Same size as mine.” She removes a circle of cardboard from her case and uses it as a stencil to cut four rounds of the adhesive with small scissors. She then slices along the radius. “Like this,” she shows me, creating a cone shape by overlapping the radial edges. Removing the backing to expose the sticky, she pinches her nipple to make it erect. Then she expertly sticks the adhesive over her nipple in a small cone, creating the illusion of bare flesh. “Now watch.” She removes a compact of powder that exactly matches the tan adhesive and brushes it over the edges of the tape, blending it with her skin. “Now you.”
I go more slowly but manage to replicate her technique. My skin is lighter but the tan tape looks natural enough. I blend a bit of concealer along the edges.
Sierra has stripped off the rest of her clothes and stands naked before the mirro
r. The light is brutally bright. She looks her body over carefully, tweezing a stray underarm hair and popping a small whitehead on her shoulder. She covers the red mark with a dab of concealer.
I take a deep breath and remove the rest of my clothing, folding it to fit in the bottom of my locker. I pull on the velvet thong and zip up the black and white dress.
“You need to get a T-bar,” Sierra says.
“A what?”
She pulls a scrap of fabric out of her locker. It’s smaller than any G-string I’ve seen. She holds it up. “T-bar.”
I learn that a T-bar is named because of the shape it makes in the back: a T of straps around the hips and between the legs. Strippers layer them to create different colors that glow in the lights and wear them as a second set of undies to ensure that nothing pops out. They’re also worn so that a girl can strip off the top set of underwear during a private dance, adding to the illusion that she’s showing more.
I jump when a curtain between two sets of lockers flies back and the beautiful black girl who had been on stage steps into the room. I hadn’t realized that the entrance to the stage opens directly into the dressing room. The girl with long brown hair leaves through the curtain and I hear hands clapping.
The new arrival appraises me with jet eyes. “Look at the baby stripper shoes,” she says with a laugh.
I flush, though there is no maliciousness in her voice. The sandals I hold in my hands look like church shoes compared to the 7-inch pink platforms strapped to the other girl’s feet. They match her G-string. T-bar, I mentally correct myself.
Sierra takes no notice. “You ready?” she asks me.
I strap on my shoes. “Yes.”
We exit back into the club and Sierra leads me to the DJ booth. On duty is a woman who appears to be in her forties, her hair, bleached within an inch of its life, piled in complicated rockabilly whorls on top of her head.
“She’s auditioning.” Sierra jerks her chin at me.
The DJ looks at me over the top of her clipboard. “What’s your name, honey?”
