That is my experience as well. Hell, that was me. Everywhere I ever worked, we got to pick our own music if we felt like it (sometimes the DJ would get to know your vibe and play stuff you liked). The only thing we really paid for was tipping out the house mom and DJ, and that was based on how much you made. We always wore whatever we wanted. Also, not a lot of bitches. We pretty much looked after each other.

There was a friend of a friend in college who was a stripper. She was a women's studies major. (I can't really call her a friend, even though we hung out together a lot -- we hated each other, but were both friends with a bunch of the same people, so we ended up hanging out a lot.)

She admitted that one establishment was not a "study", but that in general, the women made most of the decisions as to how to dance, what songs, what outfits, hours, etc and that she felt more empowered at that job than most of the other ones she'd had. So she finds it hard to hate the adult industry in general as a Feminist.

This was my experience also. Different clubs have different rules and some expect things of their girls that I wouldn't do, but I never knew of a club where the girls couldn't leave and find one that suited them better (not that such don't exist, but such exploitation is a separate issue from the average strip club). I sure as fuck felt more empowered then, as a woman and a person, when I was strutting around on stage, with men handing me money just to get me to smile at them, making a couple hundred bucks tax-free in a few hours, and as long as I showed up when I was scheduled and gave the club their cut and didn't do anything illegal on the premises, I could do pretty much whatever the hell I wanted, than I felt, say, this morning, talking to my insane boss and trying to squeeze out from between the rock and the hard place she'd put me in, and if I leave? I'm screwed; I can't go to a different publishing house and get basically the same thing I have here. I'm far more boxed in, and treated much more as a disposable replaceable commodity to be loaded with work to the point where I break*, in the corporate culture where I work now, than in the fringe-of-society culture where I worked then. Sure, there were men who treated me with contempt and some who even tried to hurt me, a couple times, but that didn't happen because I was a stripper, it happened because they were fuckwads. And I had a lot more protection instantly available then than I would have now: vigilant bouncers, other co-workers, friendly bikers, and regular customers who didn't want anyone messing with their favorite girl, have all come to my rescue. Police, and feminists, NSM.

• My boss actually said this morning, and I quote, "I'm going to break you. I'm going to break you like a horse."

If I still had the body for it, I don't know if I'd still be working in the sex industry in some capacity, but it's possible. I liked it.

I'll decide if I'm empowered. Nobody else gets to tell me what I should or should not be doing with my own body, whether they like it or not. If Ms. Feminist thinks her marriage will be wrecked if her husband looks at a stripper, she should tell him to stay out of strip joints. Her fucked-up marriage is not my problem. (And women who think strippers are trying to sleep with their men? Hilarious. Totally missing the point, there, ladies.)

A) My Pandora has switched to "Barb" - Bonnie Raitt and Mary Chapin Carpenter. And, oddly, the Bonnie Raitt song is "I Will Not Be Broken" - an omen for Zenkitty.

B) This thought: women who think strippers are trying to sleep with their men is HIGH-larious. From what I've been told, the stripper on your husband's lap or in his face right now is there a) because he had dollars in his hand and 2) is likely thinking about her errands tomorrow afternoon.

Wow, Zenkitty. Your current boss is quite the asshat.

2) is likely thinking about her errands tomorrow afternoon.

"How long til this song ends? Damn, my feet hurt. Does this dude know what deodorant is?"

My boss actually said this morning, and I quote, "I'm going to break you. I'm going to break you like a horse."

That's perfectly appalling. Can I ask what the context was?

My boss actually said this morning, and I quote, "I'm going to break you. I'm going to break you like a horse."

Wow. My bosses do some shit that Ain't Right, but nothing has come close to that.

When I was a stripper, the attitude towards the clients was mostly thinly veiled contempt. As one girl said to me "Most of them wouldn't in here if they could get a real date." There were some clients we liked, but not to date. A lot of men had really misogynistic attitudes, but our reaction was that they were paying money to be there and we were getting paid, so who was the real loser?

I felt that the atmosphere could get toxic for girls with bad boundaries--the attitude that sex was a commodity and guys were there to be relieved of as many dollars as possible was pervasive--but personally, I felt empowered. Certainly more than I did as a waitress or in several corporate jobs I have had.

Thank you for sharing your experiences as strippers, y'all. I'm kind of tickled to learn that we have so many! I love us.

My boss actually said this morning, and I quote, "I'm going to break you. I'm going to break you like a horse."

Where's WindSparrow? We need some good poetic justic.