I snuck into strip club on the arm of a cocaine dealer. I was too naive to know he was a drug dealer. I never thought to question why he hung around the peepshows for hours and never took in a show. But then I never questioned why any of the guys were there. The place was full of women in panties.

He even offered me cocaine one day but I turned him down. His exact words were, “Oh. You’re a good girl in disguise.” He seemed surprised and happy about this. It was a very accurate description of me. He and I became fast friends.

After one of my shifts the two of us were on our way to drink some Old English on the stoops by the parking garage around the corner. But first he had to stop in to Runway 69 to “talk to some guy about a thing.” I was totally tickled to be inside because I was underage for drinking clubs. And I had been dying to know what was going on beyond the black glass windows bouncing neon naked ladies back at me.

The dealer told me to stay put near the door and darted to the back of the room. Once my eyes had adjusted to the dimness, I had them focused on just one thing. The girls.

They were up on a narrow walkway behind the bar. They were so far from the customers and with so little space to move. The wall behind them was pure mirror but they had to stand so close to it that you really could not get the 360-degree you wanted. As a young business woman, all I could think was how I’d hate to be up there. How do they get the tips? How do they even bend over? A showgirl’s got to bend over.

One woman caught my eye. She had that beautiful air of despondence. She bumped her hips and would pick up one foot a little here and there. She just didn’t care. She wore a white spandex thong with white suspenders that pulled her thong tight to her pubic mound. It did not look very comfortable.

She had on pink stilettos and white bobby socks. It all worked so well with the black lights and neon that framed the stripper’s runway. The whole thing looked like a scene from an MTV music video, except with boobs and the scent of cheap perfume, liquor and cigarette smoke.

Then it hit me. That was it! SOCKS. She was wearing socks. All the 8-hour days I had spent in the peepshows, leaning against the doorway of my peepshow booth and spinning on the round stage poles. My arches had become accustomed to the burn and were falling into place but the balls of my feel where developing think calluses. And the cheap five-dollar hooker heels were tearing up my skin. Bobby socks. Socks. In my two months working I had never seen anyone do it.

I tried to explain my great revelation to the dealer as he popped open the beers, putting a straw in mine. He just looked out across the street and ignored me. So I stopped talking.

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It’s an old story, but the I stumbled (via curvaceousdee)  onto this great tale of strip club revelations by Stoya. (A girl after my own heart!) She writes…

In the US, we have this stereotype of strippers and dollar bills. We’ve had that pattern since the seventies. A dollar now buys what $0.17 did in 1970. Things like food, rent, and shoes have gotten more expensive, while the standard tip for a stripper has stayed the same for over thirty years. The next time you visit a strip club and think the girls are lackadaisical, remember that you get what you pay for and they’re no longer being paid enough.

True.

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You might also enjoy: Songs for Sex Workers | The Peepshow | This is What a Sex Worker Looks Like