Laila Lucent - The Yoga Stripper: A Las Vegas Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Namaste

What are you doing here ?

Stripping for money. What are you doing here?

Umm Im giving you money to strip?

Sound s good to me! Lets get a dance.

Okay!

During my two years as a Las Vegas stripper, I had this conversation thousands of times.

T he underlying subtext of this conversation was:

Why are you stripping? Youre such a clean, smart, nice girl. You could be a reporter for Fox News, or do PR for Middle Eastern dictators, or design the green labels for plastic water bottles, you know, something respectable.

Im sorry you disapprove, random guy Im trying to get money from at a strip club . Men pay me to dance topless, I understand what Im doing, and I think its great! I have money, free time, and I get to travel. Youre only meeting me because, apparently, youre just as morally bankrupt as youre implying I am.

Youre right! I m being a hypocritical dickhead. I would love to see your breasts for money. I didnt mean to imply anything different. I love boobs, and yours are real which is wonderful.

I accept your apology. Now give me money, and Ill take off my bra.

Okay!

I can have entire strip club conversations without paying any attention to what Im saying. One time, I approached a man for a dance. I walked up, put my arms around his neck, made my pupils dilate on cue (oh yeah, girl has got skills), and asked him his name.

Youve got to be joking, he looked at me and said. I just got a dance from you 20 minutes ago. Dont you remember?

Oops, sorry, I guess Im the dickhead.

**

Obviously, this wa s not ladylike behavior.

But I was straight out of college, newly heartbroken, completely disillusioned, and secretly hoping the world would end in 2012, and Id be off the hook for figuring out the rest of my life. I was shameless and, more importantly, I was damn good at sales.

If youre a man, and you think youve got the best game, the ladies fall at your feet, and no ones got mad Tucker Max swagger like you sit down, shut up, and get out a pen and paper. Youre going to want to take notes.

The Spearmint Rhino strippers in Las Vegas have game that is world-renowned. If your husband o r boyfriend was in Las Vegas between 2010 and 2012, theres a good chance I sat on his lap, raised my left leg straight up by my head, giggle-bounced, and cooed in his ear, Im a yoga instructor.

Whoa, calm down, lady! I would have danced for you too if youd been there. Lets not get possessive. Im not trying to take your man. I dont want him. I want the contents of his wallet.

Im sorry, maam! I swear it meant nothing to either of us . Its just that men have these uncontrollable hormones that run amok, and I have bills to pay and my mouth to keep fed with organic vegetables. Are you aware theres a recession out there? Personally, I blame the economy. Chill out. Dont hit me. I bruise easily.

You havent seen game until youve gone into the Spearmint Rhino on a Saturday night at 2:30 a.m. and seen hundreds of shockingly beautiful women strutting around, licking their lips, and eyeing their prey. The Rhinos a trip - let me tell you. Youre guaranteed to leave broke but with a huge smile on your face.

This memoir is one of those reverse fairy tales where the wicked stepmothers and ugly stepsisters of the world finally get the chance to tell their side of the story. I cant tell you why other girls make the choice to strip, other than the money, and I understand a lot of it is unhealthy, and I understand I may be the exception and not the rule, but this isnt a story about the rule. Theres enough written about that side of things. I want to tell my side.

There are happy, healthy, well-adjusted strippers out there; mucking up the status quo. You can find them: speaking Spanish during their summers in Spain, putting themselves through graduate school, working towards their pilot licenses, killing it on stage in your weekly improv comedy classes, and backpacking with their adoring husbands across Europe. Some of the most exceptional women Ive met in my life, I met stripping at the Spearmint Rhino. This book is for them, because I want the world to know they exist.

This is the story about my quarter-life crisis on the Las Vegas strip, and its one of my very favorite stories if only because The Yoga Stripper is my story. Try to be kind.

Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.

Moralizing isnt attractive. In fact, its boring - which is the opposite of attractive. Everyone wants to be seductive and desirable, whether youre loose enough to admit it to yourself or not.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious, Oscar Wilde explained. Which are you?