Fresh Meat

For as a long as there’s been music, women have danced for the entertainment and titillation of men. Scheherazade. Minsky’s Burlesque. Cage dancing go-go girls in the psychedelic 60’s. Times Square strippers, pole dancers and lap dancers. Women dance. Men watch.

Three naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and today.

Naked Ladies get around! Look for the Three Naked Ladies and a new topic every Wednesday on thedirtygirldiaries.com, $pread Magazine Blog, and laurishaw.com.

Lauri Shaw: I was a 19-year-old barmaid in Yonkers, NY at this crappy dive topless place, City Lights…

Jodi Sh Doff: Legal drinking age was 21 in NY by then, so you were flying under the radar…

LS: I fell in with one of the dancers, who dragged me along to her shift at Runway 69 in Times Square. I couldn’t believe it — nobody danced, they all just crouched in front of the men, showed cooch, and got paid. The girls got a kick out of me. I was trying to be streetwise, like I saw this shit every day.

JshD: My first cooch sighting freaked me out. I was a cocktail waitress in a joint called Winks. I’m not sure I even finished my first shift!

LS: I wasn’t fooling anyone either, but they decided to dress me up and turn me out. My friend thought it was a riot. Before I knew it, I was wearing someone else’s dress, and shoes two sizes too big. They pushed me right out on that stage. I was terrified, but I was determined to follow through, because I was being dared.

It was truly horrific. I didn’t know how to dance. Three customers walked away the minute they saw me. I didn’t dare let go of the pole, I knew I’d wipe out. I was up there for three songs and the only tip I got was from a guy who said, “I’m only giving you this dollar ’cause I feel sorry for you.” If there was ever a moment in my life I wanted to die of shame, that was it.

Rachel Aimee: I wasn’t even thinking about money when I auditioned. One guy held out a 5 pound note but I was too scared to get close enough to take it.

LS: When I came off stage, the manager was laughing his ass off in the corner. He told me I was hired. Later I found out they didn’t even have auditions at Runway. I’d been an elaborate practical joke for the whole staff. In the end, though, I had the last laugh — I stayed for the rest of the shift and made $300 in just a few hours.

RA: I started when I was 23 and living in London back in 2003. I was so naïve I took a stripping class before I auditioned — I thought I actually had to be able to dance! What a waste of money —we learned all these old burlesque moves…

LS: Oh, that stuff is so hot now, the revival of old school burlesque. Jo Boobs, The World Famous Bob, The Pontani Sisters…

RA: … but completely irrelevant once I saw how real strippers danced. I started at a little club called Boulevard in Soho. It was one of the few clubs that was stage dancing only. I thought tabledancing meant dancing on a table, which I was sure I couldn’t do in heels, and I was afraid of lapdancing because of the contact — as I said, I was very naïve back then.

LS: What made you even think of stripping, then?

RA: I was a total cliche — a gender studies major interested in the feminist debates about whether stripping was empowering or degrading and figured I’d see for myself! (Of course, I soon realized it was just a damn convenient way to pay the rent.) I had an elaborate audition outfit which included a skirt, button down shirt, stockings, and even a cardigan…

JshD: A cardigan? That’s classic!

RA: The dancers just laughed at me. I had no idea most girls went out there in a bikini or minidress. They tried to get me to at least lose the cardigan but I almost started crying, saying I had to wear the outfit I’d practiced in or I’d forget my routine! After that they left me alone, but they teased me about it for months after I got hired.

JshD: I was still living at home when I got fired from my job as a file clerk. The ad in the back of the Village Voice said, “barmaid, no experience necessary”. I had no experience, so I was eminently qualified.

RA: It’s funny how many strippers start as bartenders, or at least intended to…

JshD: Bartending really was a “gateway drug” for me. The Mardi Gras was the largest topless bar in the city, with three stages, a dozen cash registers and Jake La Motta as a bouncer. Total big time. Me & my no experience made more in one day than I had in a week at the office.

It didn’t take long before I auditioned as a dancer. I was already the girl who ripped her clothes off in public when she drank. I realized recently that I wasn’t a stripper who drank, I was a drunk who stripped. What I wasn’t, was a girl who ever felt pretty. The glamor of the bars and their willingness to pay for what I was already doing for free held a lot of allure. I borrowed a nasty g-string, just a scratchy swatch of fabric and a pair of borrowed heels as well, and suddenly I was the center of the world, lights flashed, everything switched from black & white to Technicolor and I was beautiful.

RA: It’s amazing how being on stage for the first time makes you feel like that, even if you’ve never had any kind of aspirations to be a performer.

JshD: It was great… until the manager yelled “Let’s see some floor work! Pretend you’re on top.” I was 17! I’d never been on top. So there I was, a chubby teenager doing naked push ups in front of strangers.

RA: Floor work killed me when I first started — my knees were so bruised and scratched up I couldn’t kneel or bend my knees for at least a month.

JshD: That manager never asked me to dance again, but I was sold. Those few minutes sealed the deal for me.

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