The Choice

Or, how I got started in "the industry".

Prior to my transition, I worked in a restaurant. I worked hard. I served and bussed and did prep and support for other servers (aka "fountain bitch"). I busted my butt to constantly give people what they wanted. To listen to their comments, compliments, complaints, answer questions and watch them eat. I did all of this, usually, in 7 hour shifts or 13 hour shifts. And for the often degrading work, I made a staggering two dollars and sixty-three cents per hour. Perfectly legal - a "server's wage". I lived on tips, but in a restaurant you can't coerce people to tip you. You can't even ask them to, and hell, some days you feel lucky when they don't run out on the bill altogether.

(Know who pays for that? You think about what a server's wage is next time you
think it might be funny to dine and dash. It's probably half a night's tips you're stealing from your poor server.)

I never felt safe to come out at work so I didn't. In fact, if you went in you might notice there were no boys on serving staff. All but one of the managers were men, and the cooks were men as well. But all of the servers were young, attractive girls. We were hired to be looked at and bossed around. And you know what? Surprise! People treated us like crap. And they could. I don't know what it is about service positions but for some reason society has come to consensus that it's okay to be disrespectful and treat people in these positions like objects of your ownership and disdain.

While I worked there, my general manager and the most regular cook both felt somehow entitled to constantly tell me how hey felt about my body. How cute I was, how pretty. The cook told me, verbatim, that I had beautiful breasts and constantly called me "b.b.". He'd drop ice cubes down my shirt and block my path in the service aisle so he could give me the up and down. The 46 year old convicted felon (ahem...cook) also told me I should go work at his favorite strip club. That I had the body for it and I'd make way more money than working at the restaurant. Every single day we worked together, on and on it went. The harassment and catcalls and the "when am I gonna see you at the (club name)?!".

And one day, I guess you could say I snapped. I was in my freshman year of college and still at that restaurant and I couldn't take it. I got dressed and drove to a strip club over the border in the next state (NOT my cook's club-of-choice), was hired on the spot and started working that same night (a story for another post). I was broke ($2.63! I was barely making enough for the gas to get to work), I needed some way to pay to start testosterone (and eventually have top surgery) and I figured why not? People have been oh so cutely encouraging me and objectifying me and ogling me anyway, so why not make more money for it?

But you know what? The club was nothing like that. The men I worked with were nice to me and looked out for my well being. When customers were inappropriate or disrespectful, they got thrown out. I hardly even had to complain because bouncers were already watching my back, and if I was alone in the champagne room, I could walk right out and just say the word. And I still always got tipped. Even customers at the club treated me differently. Since my body was right there and it was okay for them to look, they looked, commented, and moved on. They actually asked me about other things. What I took in school, where I grew up. Maybe they didn't really care, but
neither did I. The point is they made polite conversation without, generally, thinking I belonged to them.

The trade off here is when you get a shitty customer at the club, even though they're probably only minutes away from being tossed out, during the time they're there, they're A LOT shittier. They say the kind of fucked up things only alcohol and no home training can loosen your lips for, and sometimes they get grabby. It's fucked. But wrong as it is, it at least seems to make some sort of sense. And at least it's called out. And kicked out. Who'd have thought my work environment would be so much better, safer even, in a strip club than a family-oriented restaurant?

I'm not saying every club is like this. But so far, the ones I've worked in have been. And to be fair, I don't go back somewhere if I don't get the feeling they'll take care of me like that. As a stripper - an "independent contractor" in the eyes of many a state law, I have that ability. So guess what? An hour of my time and work is never going for $2.63 again. Not with the kind of strings that came attached in essentially every work environment I was ever in as a lady-presenting person. (And that's been pretty much the case - jobs as a woman come with this element of unspoken expectation that I'll be nice a certain way, I'll aim to please, I'll accept less pay, and I'll allow people to ogle me and I'll be quiet about it.)

It seemed so odd at first, but now it sort of makes sense to me. In a way, a strip club is a pretty honest place. A more honest place than anywhere else I've worked. (Assuming we're all on board and recognizing the "fantasy" aspect in which I'll entertain you and pretend I care about you but we both have an understanding that we don't actually have a relationship outside of this place and transaction.) I'm here to profit from the fact that you want to look at and lust after my body. Naked. You're here because you want to look at and lust after me naked, which you get the privilege of doing for a price. There are rules. You don't get to touch me. You don't get to be disrespectful. We're very up front about all of these things. I had customers who came to the to-go window at the restaurant time and time again because they wanted to look down my shirt when I leaned over. And I gave them that "privilege" because I didn't have much of a choice. And there was no room for dialogue about it because nobody was acknowledging it as the reality. I didn't have the opportunity to state whether or not I was willing to participate in this transaction - your better tips for a few less of my buttons buttoned up. And that's fucked. That's what made me not want to do it. Do I actually have a problem with unbuttoning a few buttons and getting a few dollars for turning you on? Not at all, if I get to choose to participate in that. Maybe it's even fun for me. But I want the chance to say, I'm choosing to do this (as opposed to something else - because this "choice" is of course only within the context of the fact that I don't have a choice about participating in labor/capitalism in some way if I want to live), and I get to set the boundaries, and you're not just pushing or coercing or tricking me into it in some sleazy backhanded way.

So that's how I got into it the first time around. When Boyfriend and I got together, I wasn't anymore, but I went back, as you already know, to pay for his top surgery. But round two, when I was already on testosterone, is a story for another post.