Strippers' Rights

In her New York Times Op-Ed, Stop Stealing From Strippers, Antonia Crane explains well the injustices done to strippers and defends strippers' rights.

Lauren Kolesinskas via NYTimes.com

She’s one of the only other stripper/writers I’ve seen address the pay-discrepancy between what people think strippers make and what they actually do. Her main point for this essay is to point out how unfair it is for strippers to have to give away so much of their income.

Strip clubs have provided me and many other dancers with steady income for our entire adult lives. I’m thankful to have enjoyed decades as a paid entertainer. But we deserve the same protections and respect given to any employee in any other work force. We are night laborers who have found a way to offer fantasy, entertainment, intrigue and human contact in an impersonal culture. We want to see a safe and sexy dance floor in every strip club in America. And we deserve to keep our tips.

I’ve fallen prey to all of the pay-outs that Crane describes: the percentage of our earnings that have to be given to the club, to the manager on duty, to the DJ and even to the “house mom.”

That these payouts are accepted practice in clubs all across America is truly unfair and exploitive. While many may disagree with the stripping profession, exotic dancers still deserve to have workplace protections just like any other profession.