I am in love with my job, and when I say I am in love with this, I mean it - it is not a healthy relationship. Just as people call it love-sickness for a reason, I find myself addicted to it.
I started dancing in the club in October last year. It was a spontaneous, but still quite elaborate decision I made. After spending 5 months in the Netherlands, and having had my heart broken for the first time, I found myself in pieces. And I kept questioning what I was supposed to do. And somehow the images of my adolescent dreams started to come to my mind. I remember myself sitting on the couch of my grandparents’ house, watching MTV, we didn’t have MTV at home, and I clearly remember a TV programme about those two lap dancers who made their living in Las Vegas. They talked about their costumes, dance routines, places they get to perform… And I remember myself being absolutely swollen by it. I could picture myself dancing half-naked in a golden cage covered in oil surrounded by hundreds of people. I could imagine myself dancing for hours in a glass cube being sprung with water, looking at my own reflection inside the cube, while people being able to see from outside. The images were so clear, I was ready to give up everything and flee to Vegas at once. But I was about 14 years old, so, of course, all I had was a fantasy, and that I could indulge.
But last year, sitting in the house of my mother, heartbroken, 23 years old, with words of Wes Craven burning my head, I simply looked up strip clubs in Vilnius. It wasn’t just that, it never is. That summer my father made it clear that there will be no financial support for me from his side, as if there ever was, but still. I knew I had to make a living on my own in Vilnius. I knew I could teach English, so I put on some ads about that skill of mine for people from Vilnius to reply. If you ever heard of banners, those annoying things that keep appearing on your screen while you’re trying to do your business, then you get the idea how I learned about the club I work at now. It was a banner about the search for girls. I didn’t click on it, but it momentarily evoked those memories in me, and I could not but google strip clubs in Vilnius. It took me about 10 minutes to get attached to one of them, copy the contact information in my e-mail box and to start typing the e-mail.
I felt excited, and scared and confused about what was happening so quickly. I was invited to see the club, I was offered to watch, I was welcome to perform almost instantly. It all happened so fast, that I could not really reflect on the thought process accompanying me finding myself on stage. But I do remember the moment as if it was yesterday. One of Halsey’s songs was raving in the club, my back was pressed against the pole, my feet hurting from those sandal shoes I previously bought in Belarus just for the occasion of my job interview - and all I saw was smoke around. And my heart was racing, and my mind was trying its best to digest the idea that then was a moment for me to get naked on stage, in front of people on both side of it. I put my hands on the strips of my pants and slid them down while bending over, leaving the panties hanging on my shoes, and with one quick gesture, I made myself straight, while waving my hair back, and as soon as I face the smoke naked, I felt the happiest, the most joyful, the most liberated in my life. I could not help smiling. For a moment there I wasn’t sad anymore, I could not feel pain, I felt happy, as if I was reunited with something I was missing for a very long time. From then on, this moment on stage would become the purpose of my living. I used to work only two nights a week, because I was still finishing my bachelor and had to attend lectures almost every day from Monday to Friday, but I literally lived for the weekend. I got so excited to get up on Friday morning looking forward to those two nights in the club. I knew I would be dead by Sunday afternoon, I knew I’d exhaust myself so much that I would not be able to go shopping for food on Sunday, but I loved every tiny bit of it. Now that I am older (in a sense of me having tasted the perks of the job quite well), I realise that it has been a self-destructive journey.
So far there have been several times when I ended up in a hospital after work. First, it was my back, second - overall exhaustion, and third - a twisted neck. Apart from numerous sprained muscles, swollen joints, endless numbers of bruises, I was persistently damaging my health, and the scary part of it is that I might have liked the most.
I used to come back from work and cry myself to sleep, partly because I was extremely tired, but also because of the things said and done to me in the club. Everything felt good in the club, but as soon as the work shift was over, I found myself empty, abused. But the feeling was never strong enough for me to stop looking forward to every night I go to work in the club.
Sometimes people ask me about the strangest thing that ever happened in the club. I can never give an answer quickly. I need to ask at least several clarifying questions, like whether they wonder about private rooms, performances, things said to me, done to me, and so on. I need to clarify whether they wonder about good things or bad things. Many things happen in the club when there is work, when there are many clients coming in the whole night. Sometimes it is too much to keep track of all the events taking place in the course of several hours. It takes you away, from everything. It takes you places, because you meet people from all over world, but most importantly, it changes you, in a way. I could never imagine to learn so much about people and life from the club. I remember my excitement when I could see Lacanian theories unfolding in front of my eyes. I would recognise desire in the other, I would see how the object of desire is in fact replaceable, it would bring me so much joy, I was smiling the whole night. That is how I got myself a reputation of a weirdo, who is grumpy and constantly studying backstage, but who is always happy and never tired at actual work. Some laughed at me, some even got annoyed or irritated. But I could not care less, those two days were the only joy I got from life. I lived for them.
It was never about the money. I did mostly charity work (as my friend from Belarus lovingly puts it), which was killing me and was annoying others. One of my colleagues once noticed: you come and dance for two nights, and we are here every day, have some respect”. Of course, I felt a little offended, and I wished to understand, but I couldn’t, and most importantly I knew I could not change myself. When the beat was dropping, I was losing it. I gave myself up every time the beat dropped. I even wrote about it in an academic essay, trying to prove the point of thi inevitability of my relationship with music through the dance. I explained myself that I have this thing, this talent of feeling music, of letting it speak through my body. I also blamed that skill for getting myself hurt. The thing is, I don’t feel pain when I am on stage. Not that I don’t feel anything, but somehow, I am not aware of the physicality of my body when the song is right. That is how I twisted my neck, I only realised that I could not move it, when I got backstage. Wicked. There was one time I collapsed backstage because of exhaustion, I just laid on the coach, all covered in sweat, naked, my mind all blurry and dark. I could feel it coming even on stage, but I blame the Weeknd with his “False Alarm” and my stupidity to thing that I could dance to it, twice. The first time didn’t quite work out, I lost my breath, but I deliberately went for the second try, which almost killed me. I was let go off work that night. I thought I would die, I had no power to move. I think that was the first time I recognised the destructive nature of my love for work.
Clearly, it has always been an escape. But as any drug is addictive, and as any addiction implies, I needed more and more. When I felt down, I needed to go to work. And then I got quite bad news, which had to do with my future. I didn’t receive the scholarship to provide myself the living. What I did was quite religious (as one of my acquaintances noticed) - I worked 40 nights in a row. It all started with my friend who came to work in Vilnius from Belarus for three weeks, encouraged me to join her at work almost every day. So I did, and completed 10 days of work in a row. Of course, before that my record was 5 days. But then I thought to myself, what if I went on? I knew the girl who made the comment of me paying respect to those who work every day, once mentioned that her record was 19 days. So I put myself a goal of 20. But somewhere along day 16-17, people started noticing what I was doing, and one of the girls mentioned that she once worked 23 days. That, of course, influenced my goal, which turned to 30. I was aware that if anything happened, I would give up. But I went on, and when I reached 30, I felt I could do more. But no more than 40, because on day 41 I had a necessary day off, because the next day I would have to be in class for my studies. I was killing myself. Some mornings I would come home and deliberately be scared that I would not wake up. But several hours later, I would be awake and totally aware of the fact, that if I didn’t go to work, I would hate myself. And so I went, on and on. I stopped on day 40, I completed the challenge. But maybe because I had no one to share the joy of completion with, or maybe because no one who saw me do it did really care, but I felt nothing. The following days off were a nightmare. I cried at first night home, I shook the second night, and on the third night I lost it, and went to work. I worked aggressively. I intended to get hurt, so that to have a reason to stay those other 3-4 days away from work.
Reading Anthony Giddens’ “Transformation of intimacy” I concluded to myself that I’m addicted. That is when my attitude to work started to change. I also started looking into all the pain I had in my body, and it turned out that I was so unwell, that if I kept going, I would not be able to continue working. I write it as if I cared. Of course, I went on. A little heartbroken, a little sad, but every time I enter the room with the clients, it gets me - all the time. The smoke, the girls, the music, the possibilities, the promises of the night - I can’t give it up. I may be dyeing, but I would still meet the beat waving my hand.
I am deeply in love with my work. I may not enjoy the work itself, and they may also say that there are better places in the city to work at with my technique, money-wise, of course. But I like the place I work at. I like the stage, which allows me to do the splits. I love the fact that I get to choose my own music to perform to, I guess, that is the most important thing, if it wasn’t for the music, I wouldn’t be doing this job, probably. Nah. I’m lying, I know I am. There are too many things I love about my work to give it up. I love the schedule, which I get to make myself. I love the fact that when there are no clients, I get to do my reading, although I may not enjoy them, or feel frustrated, that there are no people to perform for. Still, the reading has to be done, and I find myself doing it much more effectively at a workplace. Weird.
I like to change the music I perform to on a daily basis. I like to make it match my mood. It’s like a ritual, I may wake up with a clear idea of which tracks I need to perform to tonight. Or I may make the list on my way to work. I make a note in my phone to keep the track of all the changes. I may need to analyse it later. I collect experiences, so why not keep the track of this kind of experience? Sometimes there are tracks I want to perform to, but my body tells me not, like it would be to much to. Music has power over me, it decides how I dance, so when I do the choosing, it is actually a communication between my body and my conscious, like I’m facing a dilemma of what I want and what I can. Sometimes it is irritating, how one wins over the other. Like I want this song on my playlist tonight, but I know I am hurt, so my body wins the right to rest a bit. Still. I can never perform half-strength, I am going all the way, when dancing. I don’t chose music for no reason in the first place. Each track has to do something with an emotion, memory, feeling. Whichever song it finally is, it will resonate with my body on stage. It is inevitable. The question is how, and that is where I get little control. It doesn’t work for new songs though. But I like that first moment of getting to know the song with my body on stage. I never know how the body will react to the sound of it. Sometimes I just come on stage and realise that we do not work with each other, so I never dance to that song again. Still. That song will remain in my folder, because I know I am changing all the time, and someday my mood may just be perfect for this song’s second chance. It is all about music. There are tracks which are so good, that I disappear in them completely, like I am not myself anymore, and yet I feel the most self ever. Sometimes I resonate with lyrics, and I like how the singer cries so loud about what I can’t say aloud to anyone. Sometimes I recognise little specialties in music, and I try to play with them in my choreography. Sometimes I chose music not because I like it, but because of the music video, or the lead singer. Sometimes I make tributes to singers or genres in my playlist. There is one artist whom I consider to be a guilty pleasure of mine. I don’t particularly enjoy rap music, but he is one and only exception. I have a secret - to imagine that he is in the audience when I am performing to one of his songs, it puts a smile on my face every time. And I close my eyes and sway around the pole, and I don’t feel anything, but his voice touching something inside of me, and I am somewhere else, yet I am extremely present in the moment - I feel everything, but. I like to play with the sound, I like to let it penetrate me, I like getting lost in it, and the pleasure grows when someone recognises that. Sometimes I talk to a client, and he or she can notice that he noticed, and that gives me so much pleasure. It doesn’t matter if I am naked or not. It is about sharing something that brings you joy. It is like you have a talent, a beautiful skill, and you make a present out of it, and you feel so much joy, when the person unwraps it and recognises all the joy you put into it - that is truly beautiful. That is what brings me joy at work as well - the recognition of my joy. It is a very selfish thing I do on stage. Many perform for attention, to seduce or because they have to. I do it because I get to, and I create conditions for me to make most of it, for myself. The costumes, the music, the moves - it is all for me, not for clients, not for other girls, it is selfishly to get the most pleasure out of this moment on stage. Too bad I can never get it without other’s gaze at me. I have to be getting naked, and I have to be watched. So it’s not exclusively about music after all. I may be an exhibitionist, or these may be the shenanigans of desire, but many things have to come together for me to feel good on stage: being watched, getting naked, music, smoke, lights, etc. But that is not the only thing that brings me joy at work. Or maybe not joy, but pleasure. I like to watch some girls dancing, I actually like one, and everybody knows that, because I am too obvious when she dances. I caress her with my gaze when she is dancing on stage, or when she sways in front of the client in distance, veiled with smoke. Sometimes I even sigh, and the girl sitting next to me notices, but I could not help myself. I also like to look at the clients watching girls. Although I can’t see them properly without glasses, I can feel they like what they see. And I envy them, and I am jealous of that girl they are looking at. But I still take pleasure in observing that floating desire in the room. Sometimes I see anemoration in action, like when they look at a girl totally in love. Sometimes I am that girl, and I feel powerful, and it brings me joy, but then I feel sad, when realising how much of my happiness depends on occasion and other’s recognition, attention and full disclosure of both. That anemoration is most joyful when it is pure and sincere, then I like to act on it. I will accept a compliment, and I will eagerly answer desire to see more of me. But when desire uses the visual perks of anemoration, I play aggressively, like I will tease on every level, I will drive them crazy, I will be giving the best of me, by giving nothing. Oh, I enjoy those even more, because those are playful, and of course, self-abusive and self-destructive. I am performing the hardest for those who do not appreciate, not sure why.
Or maybe I only say that it has never been about the money, because I have never really been that girl who makes a lot of it. I am rarely chosen, and I am bad at doing my work, which means I am not the best at flirting or making men pay for whatever they can or cannot get in the club. I am straightforward. And I care too much of what I am getting from it to push myself outside of my self-destructive comfort zone. I am zoned-out on stage, I feel safe there, but when I talk, when I communicate, that is different. I am vulnerable. I don’t like that, because the club is not the best place to be vulnerable, especially on those unlucky nights when I am never the girl. I used to get offended easily and bring that sorrow back home, but I would compensate the damage by how much little I cared about work in general, like I did make very little effort to appear pretty. Some time ago, I accepted the fact that I am smart, as opposed to pretty, and I have been learning to live with it. But the truth is that the club is not the right place for “smart”. On several occasions I received “you are too much”, which would compliment my “smart”, but would hurt my income. It went on for a year, until I made a friend with a girl from Belarus. She turned my attitude upside down. She told me “do not work, but earn”, and she would supply me with the clues of make up, choreography, the talk, and all those things that would boost my income and decrease the role of chance. Still. There is a whole lot left to chance in the club, but, at least now I can recognise when it was a chance, and when it was a choice not in my favour. I am still not the prettiest girl, and I am still not chosen often, but… There’s no but, I was just under her influence to believe I can change luck to play in my favour. Now I am having conversation with myself about whether it is worth it. Is it worth it, Nastia? The hurting? The pain? The talking? The make-up? The heels? Is it paying off enough? I recently started taking care of my health, and I am spending just as much as I make, if not more. It’s disgusting. Money doesn’t make much sense to me, but it does to everyone in this world. And even your professional merit is estimated in money units. Did you work well tonight? Let me see how well you did. Oh… It is only a couple of euro, but you danced all night, and you can’t feel your legs, and it hurts you to breathe, what went wrong, what happened? Why others did well, and you didn’t, and still they are running home catching taxis… Comparison - the killer of joy, money - the corruption of happiness. I have been actively teaching myself not to compare myself to others. Still. I do. I do it all the time. I pay attention to what I can do on stay what others can, to what I wear, that others don’t, to how much I take attention from others, to how many clients can’t take their eyes away from me on stage even in the company of another girl, and, of course, to how much I make compared to others. It hurts me personally every time some of those things do not turn out in my favour, and to be honest, they rarely do. And eventually, I notice that there are girls I feel irritated to work with, because they always get all the attention. That is shallow, that keeps me up in the morning, and I wake up tired and in doubt whether I should go to work. But of course that doubt disappears as soon as I remember what I am doing this job for - the promise of that moment on stage, which is exclusively mine, no one can take it from me, except for me, of course. But I wouldn’t dare, as much as I enjoy self-destruction, that moment of joy is pure, and I treat myself to it on every possible occasion. It’s narcotic, it’s not healthy, but it is pure and feels good, and I am not in the position to choose, actually. Being depressed, I do not get those moments often, so when I learn about one, I stick to it. As they say, I find what I love and let it kill me.
I love it so much that I am proud of what I do. My family know, my friends know, and every time I get a chance to talk about it with a stranger, I am taking pride in telling it. Everybody at work laughs at me, nobody makes a voluntary choice to be open about it. I do. Maybe because for the first time in years I feel good about what I do, I have never felt that much pride about anything I did, well, maybe a handmade book I gave as a present, yes, maybe that. But this work is different. Maybe compared to all the humanities, literary and audiovisual production, I can literally feel it in bones, the struggle, the progress, the result. There was one time I came back home from work, totally exhausted, I got fully undressed in front of the mirror, and as my hand removed a sleeve from the other arm, I accidentally became aware of how tough my biceps got. I could not believe the sensation, so I put on some light, and looked at what I just touched - a well-defined muscle startled me. It put smile on my face, because I hate sports, or working out, or diet, but it felt so great to kind of be able to feel the result. In 8 years of academic “career” I have never experienced anything like that - the actual satisfaction - I felt like I accomplished something, which in fact was nothing at all, but it felt like the whole world to me. I have been through many changes because of this work, I put on weight, I lost it, I got hurt, bruised, and I recovered, I learned new moves, I changed a lot of outfits, shoes - all those things that come and go - they make time tangible, they make the progress visible, they articulate the change, the development. It is very different to what I have been doing for 8 years in academics, and that is what scares me the most right now. Will I be able to experience pleasure elsewhere? Will I ever be able to get satisfaction outside of the club? That is what is keeping me, even when I’m hurt and slowly dyeing. What is the point of living, trying, when you never feel good about the result? On the other hand, maybe it’s the sign of existential immaturity - to not be able to get satisfaction from intellectual achievement. So far understanding of anything hasn’t made the living any easier. Being book-smart doesn’t pay off, and if that job taught me anything, it’s that doing does. But I never learned doing at school, I learned doing by doing work I am doing. Too bad that kind of doing cannot be freely projected on real life, although the underlying human nature opens itself up every single night on the palm of my hand. I witness the simplicity of people, and that revelation shows in my attitude towards people outside of the club. I have changed, maybe not as a person, and as a member of society. Nothing surprises me in human interaction, but I know I’m being maximalist, maybe because I’m young, or maybe because I am learning something, and that knowledge is different to what I am used to, so it feels big.
Learning is a big part of why I got me attached to this work. I also experience the fear of missing out when I don’t come to work. It’s the same fear a student has when he or she is making a decision to come to a lecture or miss it. But if a student can rely on a friend of providing him with a missed material or catch up following an online course, I don’t have that privilege missing a day at work – I am missing chances which are never to be gained again. I am scared to lose the money, but mostly I am scared to miss the opportunity to have my moment on stage.
I also enjoy some of the conversations I get to have with people who come in. Apart from common sexual demands, sometimes I meet genuine people, who like getting to know me, and I am eager to share, and many find it fascinating, and many don’t believe of what I have to say, and many question my choices, but mostly I enjoy learning from some of them. There are times when I get life advice, or advice from people who show some interest in my research intentions. I learned from a man with a master degree about the importance of research question formulation, I also learned from someone that is it okay to be changing the research angle, when you feel like it’s taking a different direction. Such a weird place to learn about academics, more than in academia. But, of course, the place is the place, and people come there with particular desires, mind-sets, and charged with stereotypes. And there is too little time for me to try to change them, and I hardly want to do that. However, the idea to write a research about the strip club and how girls experience it was born exactly from this frustration of mine: the inability to reassure that I am in the club because it is a pleasurable experience for me, because I am happy to be there, because I like being there. Something in my consciousness has been hoping that I’m not alone, because I am sure the girls do enjoy at least something in what they have chosen to do for the living or temporally, and that is what I want to show in my research, maybe not directly, but surely.
If the conversation isn’t going, and even if it is, I enjoy co-watching the dance of a girl in front of the client. It seems like she is dancing for me, it is the closest I can get to the girls whom I enjoy watching dance from the distance. All look so pretty, so beautiful when they dance so close. I see the imperfections of their bodies, I can feel the smell, and I feel like I am privileged. I don’t know how there are clients who do not give tips to girls who dance in front of them – that sight, that smell, that choreography – everything is so well worth it.
I enjoy watching girls on stage, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I enjoy what I see, because sometimes girls don have what it takes to make me swoon about it. But I still enjoy watching, because it makes me think, it makes me wonder about whether I look the same. Do I look better? How do I look when I dance? Despite the fact that there is a huge mirror reflecting the stage and all that happens on and around it, I can never really see myself. And maybe “see” in not the right word, but I can never estimate the aesthetics of my performance. I get the glimpse of my outfit, I can catch myself doing some tricks, but I can never grasp the whole idea, the sight, the feeling of my performance. I once tried to record myself, I didn’t quite liked what I saw, but I do like what I see on other girls sometimes. And sometimes I don’t like what I see, and I am scared I look the same when I’m dancing. Sometimes I ask other girls if I look the same, but they never tell directly, they may notice that my style is quite different, but what does that mean? Is it better, is it worse, or is it simply just different? Whatever it is, sometimes I capture attention of some, and that should be enough, even more than enough, I keep telling myself. That should be leaving me satisfied, because they recognize that difference in style. One man once noticed that it’s not quite sexy what I’m doing on stage, because that is so much more like art driven by passion. I took it as a compliment, but was it, really? In a place where sexuality is offered a-la-carte to dance passionately and aesthetically might not be a worth bargain. Oftentimes it turns out to be dissatisfactory to me.
Another thing - a private room. Dancing there I see as a type of communication. I take time to figure out how to speak to a parson who happens to be with me there, and I try to translate his signals in my choreography. Music helps to deal with wrong signals, which I inevitably catch and simply has to deal with the way my body deals with them. It took me some time to figure out the line between professionalism and individuality in the space of a private room performance. It is nice to talk to people without taking my clothes off, then I may be personal with them. But when it’s purely physical – that’s a different dialogue – I am just a translator then. I have been changing in my attitude towards private dances, because of the rumors that transpired, and were given me as an insult by someone I deeply cared for. It broke me. I found myself unable to “share” what I used to be able to “share” - the joy of dancing – privately. That is actually a big issue that I have been raising for myself to resolve while performing in a private room. Why am I doing this? And why I am so joyful doing this? I used to have an answer in the form that I’ve been extremely lacking something in my personal life from the spectrum of sexuality, and being scared of pregnancy, I would not enjoy a sexual act, but working as a dancer would provide me with a safe imitation of acting on my desire, keeping me safe. But then I got attached to someone sexually outside of my workplace, and that enjoyment seemed to alter. I even hated myself being that open with a stranger. I was hurt. I was made to feel hurt about what used to bring me so much joy. I thought I would never be able to get the feeling back. I tried to avoid the most certain way of making money in the club. Silly, isn’t it. But as I was trying to collect the broken pieces of my heart, I found joy in self-abuse again. I kept thinking that I am simply different, and maybe personal intimacy just doesn’t work for me, and I’m just like that. I still feel quite ambivalent about private dances, but that may be the perks of that job in general. I don’t know anymore, and they say I think too much about it, and I don’t have a better answer.
Jacuzzi is a different story. I don’t know what other people do there, but I don’t like the whole idea. I don’t think that I’m worth that investment of time and money, that’s the problem. What can I give in the club? I can only share passion, but it’s fleeting and conditioned by stage and music. Jacuzzi has none. It can though, but to a certain extent. The music will be decided by the circumstances and chance, and dancing can be up to me. But expressing passion through dance for one whole hour can be damaging, for both parties involved. How can one watch passion and not act on it? How can one express it and not burn out? One hour is a long time, when you are sober and naked, especially if this hour is spent with a drunk man. I also don’t like the fact of money involved in it. I once got paid for my time spent in that area, and when I got back from work I could not sleep with that money being present in my room, so the first thing I did when the stores opened – I went and blew all this money.
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