1. It's not complicated to become a stripper, but you do have to audition.
If you've got what it takes it should be as simple as walking into a club, dancing on stage for the manager, and booking your first shifts.
2. Stealing a stripper's song is almost as bad as taking their customer.
What we dance to allows us to clearly declare who we are to the whole club, so imitation is not really flattery.
3. We're usually asleep from 6am–3pm.
So it's important that we have some goddamn heavy blinds, or throw an extra blanket over our curtains.
4. We know every place in the city that's still open and selling food at 5am.
After a nine-hour shift, a girl has got to eat.
5. Stripper shoes are the most comfortable heels you'll ever wear.
It's worth buying an extra pair just for going out.
6. You don't need to know how to pole dance to become a stripper – you pick it all up on the job.
Helicopter spins are easier than they look.
7. Stag parties are some of the quietest and least-fun customers we have.
This is mostly because 90% of them don't even want to be there.
8. We are immune to flattery.
9. Sometimes we walk out with less money than we came in with.
Most strippers are freelancers, so some nights we might be booking continuous dances and going home with lots of money, but on others the club might be empty and after paying a house fee, we end up with less cash than we came in with.
10. We buy the cheap perfume, because we go through a bottle a week.
11. Even the best of us slip on the pole at some point.
It's fine, nobody cares.
12. The changing room is where the drama goes down and where all the real fun is.
There will always be either a girl having fake tan rubbed into her butt or someone on the hysterical brink of exhaustion. More often than not, there'll be both.
13. Strippers work at that time of the month, they just trim their tampon string.
14. It's really difficult to get out of a garter belt and stockings while making it look sexy.
The pros stick to a G-string.
15. A stripper's bag is full of secrets.
Wet wipes? Check. Body glitter? Check. Vape? Check. A home-made taser and 100 random business cards that will never be looked at? Check.
16. Never drink the wine in a strip club.
Just trust me on this.
17. You will have bruises in shades of purple you never knew existed, thanks to all that sexy floorwork.
18. But more than the physical strain, stripping is emotionally straining.
The conversations take more effort than any naked headstand ever could.
19. It’s important to know your rights.
We have to strike a balance between pleasing the strip club owners and standing our ground.
20. But it's still one of the best jobs around, for many reasons.
There aren't many jobs where you can tell a rude customer to go die in a fire or run away to travel the world for three months and still have a job to come back to.
21. But the best part is getting home and rolling around in all your hard-earned money.
Note: This post is based on one person's experience of working in the industry.
