Romana Van Lissum - The Life of a Stripper: Special Bonus Edition. 5 Exotic Dancers Confess Their Personal Experiences in the Adult Entertainment Industry

Special Bonus Edition

5 Exotic Dancers Confess Their PersonalExperiences in the Adult Entertainment Industry

Copyright 2012 Romana Van Lissum

Published by Romana Van Lissum atSmashwords

Cover design: Aqilla Aziz

Editing: Carnation

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this free e-book.Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted propertyof the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, and distributedfor commercial or noncommercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book,please encourage your friends to download their own copy atSmashwords.com. Thank you for your support.

Also by Romana Van Lissum, available at ebookretailers everywhere:

The Life of a Stripper (50 Exotic DancersConfess Their Personal Experiences in the Adult EntertainmentIndustry)

How To Be a Waitress and Make Big Tips (Get aTop Servers Secrets to Maximizing Your Tip Earning Potential)

Disclaimer: These are true stories, and thecharacters and events are real. However, in some cases, the names,descriptions, and locations have been changed, and some events havebeen altered, combined or condensed for storytelling purposes, butthe overall chronology is an accurate depiction of the authorsexperiences. You may also be uncomfortable with some of thelanguage and content.

This book is dedicated to Marsha, who was anicon in the Western Canadian exotic dance industry, and to all thedancers I have had the privilege of knowing over the past 17 years;the rookies, the veterans, the retired and the deceased.

I especially want to dedicate this ebook tothe 5 girls who bared their souls to me so that I could exposetheir experiences and secrets. Thank you for giving us a peak intoyour world - the crazy, unpredictable and misunderstood business ofstripping.

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks go out to each and everyone of these girls for opening up to me and sharing their stories.Without your time, honesty and patience this book would not bepossible.

Thank you to my editor and friend, Carnation,for ensuring the stories were told with grace and, wheneverpossible, humour. A big thank you to an old friend Aqilla Aziz (orfor those of you in the front row, Pleasure) for using her graphicdesign skills to create my cover the way I envisioned it. Im alsograteful for the unwavering support of my beautiful daughter Kelseyand my best friend and husband of 21 years, Rod. Xo

Thank you to my friend and long-time regular,Mr. L who gave me the idea to use the names of flowers.

Thanks to you, my dear reader, for taking thetime to read this ebook. If you enjoyed it, please share it with afriend. I invite you to freely copy and share this ebook withanyone, provided you do not charge for it or alter thecontents.

I remembermy first time on stage. I dont know what I thought. I guess I waswaiting for the fear to hit - the realization of what I was doing.But it was something different instead. The lights flashed and Iwas on fire. By song three, however, the adrenaline was gone and ithad sunk in that soon I would be naked on a stage. For forever, ina way, because once youve done it you can never take it back. Ididnt hesitate, though. I pulled my gear off and didnt look back.I was home.

Looking back on that moment now, what feelslike hundreds of years later, Im proud of that girl. She did it.Weve all done it, and thats what sets us apart from everyoneelse. We will all be, in some immutable way, on that stage forever.Dancing absolutely changes you, for better and for worse, but ifyoure smart and lucky you will get out with some money, some goodstories and only a few battle scars.

Editing these stories has been a privilege. Iknew it would be interesting, but who knew I would feel as proud asI do of my fellow dancers. Although we are all different; came fromdifferent backgrounds and made our way to the stage individually, Isee a similar spirit in each one of us, in each of the beautifulwild women Ive danced with all across this country. Its thisinner strength that makes me proud to count myself among thesenomadic, furious, fiery hellcats. Thanks for the stories,ladies.

Written by Carnation

For17 years, I have been a server at a popular Vancouver strip club.Throughout the years, I have always wondered what a girlsmotivation was for taking her clothes off for a living. Is it outof desperation? Can they truly enjoy dancing naked in front ofstrangers? Is it the money? The attention? What road do these womentravel to end up on that stage?

Although Im not a dancer, I feel that it ismy duty to bring these womens stories to a broader audience.During the course of this project, I asked my questions and lent anear, all without judging or scrutinizing. I feel honored to beentrusted with this confidential information, and to be able to actnot only as their storyteller, but also as a confidante and friend.My mission is to do these women justice by helping them find theirvoice.

This book will open your eyes, as it did forme. I apologize in advance for the vulgar language and vividexplanations. The stories are written here as they were told to me.You will quickly realize that the stories are not sugar coated, andyou may find, as I did, that some weigh heavy on your heart. Thatbeing said, I encourage you to keep an open mind and refrain fromjudging these women. They are wonderful human beings just making aliving.

The main question that couldnt be answered,by myself or the dancers I interviewed, was about judgment. Why arepeople (especially other women) so focused on judging andcriticizing strippers? Its easy to judge this profession as awhole and not take into account the individual paths that a persontakes to get here. Dancers pay taxes (like the rest of us) and mostof them work six and sometimes seven days a week. They do make agood living, but in my opinion, they deserve to make the big money.I definitely dont want to do their job!

Most people are convinced that every dancerhas daddy issues and comes from a broken family. This is far fromthe truth. As the reader, you have a front row seat to see exactlywhy these women made the choices they did. It is important forpeople to realize that strippers are just like everyone else.Yes, some of them have an alcoholic father or come from a brokenhome, but this is also the case in the general population. Many ofthe girls in this book have parents that are still happily married.In this life, each person is ultimately responsible for makingdecisions about what they will do, and those decisions sometimescant be tracked. Do they end up homeless, wandering the streetshigh on drugs, or accomplish something with their life such asbecoming a doctor, car salesman, teacher, or even an exoticdancer.

In the end, you will come to realize thateach woman has walked her own unique journey. They arrive fromdifferent roads but have all ended up at the same destination - atough business, full of long days, late hours, rough customers andmost of the time, living out of a suitcase.

For privacy purposes, I have chosen to keepthe dancers names (and stage names) confidential by substitutingthem with the names of flowers. I feel that it is my responsibilityto keep stage names and private information confidential becauseits too easy for an unstable individual to hunt down a girlthrough their agencys website. Also, using an alias allowed thesewomen to be totally open and give us their insider secrets.

You will find that some of the stories havebeen written by the girls (in The Life of a Stripper. 50 ExoticDancers Confess Their Personal Experiences in the AdultEntertainment Industry), and the rest of them were written byme after I interviewed them. During my interviews, I spent manylong hours chatting with these women (my longest interview was overfour hours long!) and later transcribed our conversations, but thegirls had complete control of what was published. During theediting process, some information ended up being pulled by thegirls or the editor to protect their privacy.