Transcription
Hi guys, welcome back. And I wanted to do another one in the security, uh, talk that I did. I talked a little bit about my old security work. I was doing that for about 23 years, and it was popular enough. People asked, you know, can I do another one? So here we go.
And this one's all about strip clubs. And I worked in, um, a couple of different strip clubs for about four years. And I just wanted to break down some of the myths about strip clubs and some of maybe the unknown truths about them as well. And most people imagine that strip clubs are these places where there's a bunch of, you know, uh, sort of downtrodden girls that are having to work there because they're down on their luck and they desperately need some money. And then these kind of misogynistic men turn up that are really, um, rough and ready and very confident and arrogant, and they're sort of throwing money at these poor girls and ordering them around and, uh, and all that kind of thing.
Now, I'm sure sometimes that goes on, but I'm just talking about my experience. So the strip club I worked in made the majority of its money from men who were generally single, very lonely, and probably had never had a girlfriend. And this was kind of a girlfriend experience for those guys. So they would turn up. They were very, very like, scared and humble at the door. I used to have to go up to the door and greet them, you know, anyone that rang the door, I'd then let them down into the club. And, uh, these guys generally, you know, probably 90% of the people that spent any significant amount of money in there with that kind of character, they were nice guys. You know, they weren't, um, unpleasant. You know, they were very, um, nice to the girls. They, they lacked kind of social skills a lot of the time. So they weren't probably very good at, um, talking to the opposite sex. Maybe it's something they just never done before.
And they would often pay the girls to have what's called a sit down. So if you go to a strip club, the, the options are, you can sit there and watch the girl dance on stage and maybe give her a tip for dancing on stage. You can ask her to take you off for a private dance, and that will cost you X amount of money, 20 or 40 pounds, whatever it is. And she will give you a very intimate, close, private dance. In the UK, normally that is no touching. That's generally the rule that sometimes gets broken. We'll get into that. And then, uh, you can also pay for what's called a sit down, which is where the clubs make a hell of a lot of money because the guys simply pay these girls to sit there, have drinks with them, and talk to them and kind of behave like a girlfriend would behave.
So most of the girls had second and third names. So the guy, you know, this sort of lonely type guy would sit down with the girl, and her name was, say, Roxy. And then he would sort of get talking to her and he would say, "Oh, I bet your name's not really Roxy. You know, if you really liked me like you say you do, you would tell me your real name." And she would say, "Oh, fair enough. You know, I do really like you. You're just the kind of guy that I've always dreamed of. My real name's Claire." So of course, he then is very happy because he thinks he's got some sort of emotional relationship going on with this girl. And he would generally come up to me while I'm working and say, "Oh, you never guess what, mate, you know, um, this girl's told me her real name and she really likes me. I think I remember the chance." And I'd say, "Well, okay, bud, you know, cool." And, uh, I didn't want to sort of break the, um, the myth, if you like. And then he would spend more money.
And most of these guys weren't rich. So they would spend vast amounts of money that they could not afford to spend. You know, it was pretty sad to watch. But some of them cried on me on the way out. You know, at the end of the night, they would say, "I've spent my rent money. I don't know what I'm gonna do. You know, I'm in love with this girl." And they would come back week after week after week after week, and they would continue doing the same thing. And in the end, you know, some of them were finding, "Well, I didn't, but I don't think your name is Claire." You know, I asked around the club and some of the other girls said it wasn't. Then the third name comes out, "Well, actually, my name's Mary." You know, and then the guy's happy again because he thinks he's really got to the truth this time. And that would just continue.
And the girls would generally tell these guys, "Hey, don't you know, I'll, I'll meet you outside of the club, but I'll meet you next week." And, you know, and then next week, "Oh, I can't meet you this week. I've got a doctor's appointment." There would always be reasons why the girls couldn't meet these guys, but they would just keep them hanging on for for the longest amounts of time. And eventually, these guys were kind of, you know, uh, catch on to the fact that they were never gonna get an actual date with this girl that they had just wasted all their money on. And, uh, that was the end of that. The girls were very, very good at taking money off of these guys like that. And, uh, the certainly the power game there was in the hands of the girls taking the money. It was not in the hands of these guys.
Then you had like the other 10% that were coming that would be like stag groups, um, maybe like drug dealers, um, like small-time drug dealers would come in there thinking they could like shut up the girls and take them off and whatever. And, uh, just like flashy guys that would come in. And they generally were not good customers because most of those guys had a big ego. So most of those guys believed that they didn't need to pay for female attention, which probably some of them didn't. And therefore, they weren't going to pay for female attention. They were there to chat up the girls, to show off, and to try and persuade the girls to to leave with them or to spend time with them outside of the club. And maybe sometimes they would have a couple of dances, but that would generally be right at the end of the night when they kind of realized that not much else was happening. And they would, uh, they would get a dance.
So then the other myth about, uh, strip clubs is that all the girls are absolutely gorgeous all the time, you know, and they're really nice. And I was so lucky to work in there, you know, that's what all my mates would say to me, "Oh, you're surrounded by all these gorgeous strippers all the time, you know, it's like the dream job." And I maybe thought that the first week I was there, but believe me, it was not. Because when the club isn't operating, the girls are all in there and they've got no makeup on, they're all in their dressing gowns and like big pants, and they're like laying around with hot water bottles and stuff. And they're all moaning and they all complain, "Oh man, I've got period pains, my stomach's hurting, oh, I've had diarrhea all week." All these like girl gossip that I really didn't want to hear that guys probably don't normally hear. And I was the only guy in the club, so I was like stuck with this host of like female gossip going on all about their problems and the problems they had with their boyfriends during the week and, you know, all their life problems and stuff. And then they would be arguing with each other and having a go at each other. So that was not an erotic experience for me. Most of the time I was trying to like break up verbal arguments between all these girls.
Then sometimes that would lead to actual fights between the girls. So a couple of times, um, the girls would get so angry with each other because it was a competitive place, right? So what people might not understand about the clubs is generally this is how the club works financially. The girls pay the club. So the girls turn up, they give the club a fee, let's say it's like 50 pounds to dance for the night. That's the club's fee. The club will then take a percentage out of each dance as well that the girl does. So when the girls have paid that money, they've like paid for their spot at the club. When the guys come in, and if it's not particularly busy, especially the girls are then very, very competitive about getting money off that guy because they've paid money to be there. So they want money back, you know, they want to leave with more money than they came with. And the girls get competitive.
Now, when I mentioned about the no touching bit, this is where that comes in. Because if the girls aren't making much money, and a few guys come in, and it's a quiet night, how are the girls going to persuade those guys that that's the girl that they should spend all their money on? Well, of course, there's a couple of certain ways to get a guy to kind of do that. And one of them would be to touch that guy or to, you know, go a bit further than maybe the other girls do. And then of course, the guy's gonna spend all his money on the girl that is doing that. That really angers the other girls because they're all watching each other like hawks. So as soon as one of the girls sees another girl like step over the no touching rule or do anything like that, or slip the guy a number or something that's like a bit more than is allowed, all the other girls will then hear about it. They will get super angry because now that girl is like usurping the the customer basically.
So fights can break out. And I remember one night I had to go home and explain to my then girlfriend, I, I'd come back from this club. I had scratches all down the front of me, I'd scratches all down the back of me on my back, big red like five-finger scratch marks. I had makeup all over my shirt, front and back. I absolutely stank of perfume. I was covered in like glitter that they all wore on their bodies. And so my message is like, "What on Earth have you been doing?" You know, she thought I'd been in like a mass orgy. But what had actually happened was a fight had broken out, and I'm trying to split these girls up, and they're like clawing each other over my shoulders. And as they're doing that, they're clawing the hell out of me at the same time. So that was not a fun evening at all.
A lot of the time the girls would get really drunk and abusive to me normally. So, um, on a quiet night, especially the girls would be allowed to get drinks from the bar, you know, and they weren't, there was like rules of you're supposed to have two or three drinks or something like that because obviously it's not professional to get smashed at work. But, you know, no one really paid much attention to that. And the other clubs I've been to, pretty much the same, you know, the girls could do what they wanted. The girls that were professional and made money didn't drink a lot. The girls that were maybe not so professional, they sometimes had nights where they went wild and drank absolutely tons and then got crazy and would basically turn on me and and go mental at me for, you know, telling them off because I would have to go up to them and say, "You can't go out on the stage and, you know, wobbling about or whatever." So they would go angry at me about that.
I also had the, uh, dubious job of, because I was the only guy there, it was deemed by the house mistress that ran the place that I should be the one who tested the girls out when they came for an audition. Which again, everyone sort of said to me, "Oh, you lucky so-and-so, you know, you get to have all these lap dances." But what they kind of didn't understand was, um, 90% of the girls that turned up were either crazy, had like personal hygiene issues, were not attractive in the least. And the the mistress thought it was hilarious not to tell the girls any of the rules. So I would be sat in this chair, and some girl that was not, not at all attractive to look at, which I'm, I'm not going to go about that, but, you know, not attractive, had boobies, and then would be rubbing herself all over me, uh, because she thought that was what, you know, the club was all about. And, and of course, the mistress and all the girls would be laughing their heads off behind me because they would find that absolutely hilarious. And I'm a bit of a germaphobe, so I used to absolutely hate it.
And, uh, with the guy that owned the club, eventually went into prison for, um, various different issues. But he would come in and get absolutely smashed on brandy. And during this time, the girls would then fleece him for every penny he had because he was quite rich. So if he was very drunk, the girls would all get as much money out of him as possible doing dances and sort of, uh, um, sitting with him and just getting paid to sit with him basically while he would buy them more drinks. But he would then turn cranky because he couldn't handle his alcohol very well. So I remember, like, on my last night at the club, he, um, he asked all the girls to make a contribution because I was leaving. And of course, I'd worked with a lot of them for quite a few years. And I used to do favors for the girls, you know, point customers in their direction and help him out with stuff and whatever and go and get them drinks and go and get him food from down the road and whatever they wanted. So I was kind of their go-to for for doing all this stuff. And, um, a lot of the girls obviously wanted to give me a goodbye tip, you know, because I'd been there like quite a few years. And, uh, that was fine. But there was a few girls that didn't know me that well, they were quite new, and they didn't want to pay me a tip because they didn't really know who I was, you know, they'd only just met me.
So the owner of the club puts on a bit of paper on this big whiteboard at the end. So we're gonna have a party, a leaving party. And he, he puts a line down the middle and he writes all the girls' names down there and then how much they've each given me in my card. And then on the other side, he's got these girls' names and they haven't donated anything on the card. So the first thing he does, he says, you know, "Paul's leaving, we're all very sad about that. But if you look behind you, here's what everyone thinks about Paul." And those three girls that haven't donated any money get his stuff and go. And he didn't say "go," he said a much ruder version. And he basically sat the spot, which I, I was begging him saying, "Please don't do that. You know, that's ridiculous. You don't need to do that." But he was absolutely off it on brandy at the time. So that was it. Mine made up. He never changed his mind afterwards. And he just got rid of them on the spot. And that set the scene for, you know, a pretty awful party after that.
We had some pretty good parties there. He often used to get legless with his mates. And then for whatever reason, because I guess I was quite muscular, him and his mates would often decide that I should do a lap dance and I should get dressed up. Which I used to refuse at first. At first, because they would offer me a hundred pounds. And I would say, "I'm not dancing around for a hundred pound." But they were very rich, these guys. So the money would go up and up. And in the end, they would say, "Look, 500 pounds to, you know, dance around in a G-string." And I would think, "Well, 500 pound, that's that's a decent amount of money." So then I come out in a cowboy hat and a G-string and a bra top, and I'm going to be doing a lap dance. I don't care, it's 500 pound. And that happened quite a few times.
I ended up actually, uh, doing modeling for that club because they used to do hen parties there on, um, a Saturday afternoon. And they wanted a guy that, um, would do like nude modeling for a sort of, uh, like a fun life drawing class. So I ended up doing that because I was pretty muscular at the time. And, uh, that was good fun. That was always a good laugh and I enjoyed myself doing that. But, uh, the way the strip club actually worked was way, way different to what I thought it was going to be. And it certainly wasn't the, the standardized strip club that you, you know, you imagine from films and stuff like that. The girls were very much in control. And, um, it was a very, very like strong feminine environment.
On the downside to that, because of the nature of the work, the work's like gambling, right? Like I said, the girls pay money to to come to this place and then they hope that some customers are going to come in and they hope that they're going to get picked. So it's like a gamble every night. But they kind of get addicted to that style of making money because some nights they could make like a thousand pound cash, walk out with a thousand pound cash, and they put in 50. So it's like gambling on a slot machine. Other nights, they're minus 50 quid plus a drinks bill, you know, because they haven't got any dances, they've got nothing. But they would get kind of addicted to that lifestyle where when they went to get a normal job, you know, it just didn't have that buzz anymore. They weren't gambling anymore to get that money. And getting paid like a standard 80 pound a day is nowhere near as exciting as someone saying, "You might get a thousand. We'll see how it goes." And by the way, you can have a few drinks while you wait. That's definitely more attractive, right? You know, it's more exciting, especially if you're a younger person. So a lot of the girls found it really hard to get out of the industry and into that because they'd become so institutionalized into that sort of gambling exciting lifestyle.
It was also in their eyes quite glamorous because they get to turn up, they're working in the evening, they're, you know, dressing up, they're putting all the makeup on, and they've got this, um, power over these guys, you know, because they're in a controlled environment. They had me stood there making sure none of these guys did anything outrageous. So it's controlled, it was safe. And then these girls could absolutely dominate these guys and just fleece all their money out of them. So it was a very, very, um, powerful female environment to that degree. But somewhat unrealistic because when these girls went out into the real world where they didn't have a bouncer stood next to them making sure that they were all right, that stuff may not have worked. Because not all guys are nice guys, you know. And if you start, um, sort of throwing your, uh, feminine power around with some guys in the world, you know, they're gonna throw some, some masculine power back at you. And, uh, it's not going to end too well. And, uh, you know, that's, I'm not saying that's good, I'm saying that's the reality that there's some unpleasant people out there.
So it was, it was an environment that maybe taught the girls some behaviors that wasn't particularly safe outside of that environment. And it was an environment that gave the girls some unrealistic expectations about money and about how much money's worth and how you earn money. And, and the sort of responsibilities that come with taking a job, slowly working your way up. Because in that job, they could just walk in off the street with nothing and then they're earning a thousand pound one night, really tempting, you know. And then you go for a job as like an, um, office junior or something, and they say it's 80 pound a day, and it'll take you a year to to better that. You're not going to be interested. So it kind of sets them up for, um, for, it doesn't set them up well for a proper career and a career that's got really good strong outcomes. You know, a lot of the girls became exposed to drugs and alcohol through the club because of course, a lot of the patrons would be doing that. A lot of the girls just did it themselves because they, that's the kind of people that, um, would be attracted to working in those places. Was really gregarious party type personalities. So of course, along with that personality would often come some drugs and alcohol. And if you add to that, large amounts of money that you haven't had to work very hard to get hold of, it didn't take long for people to become cokeheads and, you know, really serious drug problems. So that was a downside of it as well.
Out of probably say, 500 girls I saw working in that club or clubs that I worked in, there would probably be two that were very successful in that they funded their university education through work in there and then they left and then I never saw them again. And I sometimes think about those girls, you know, they were really nice girls and they were two girls that I really think probably went somewhere in life because they were very professional. They didn't come in drinking, they got the work done, they earned good money, and then they left and they never came back to that lifestyle. And hopefully, they both went and got really good jobs after getting a great education at university. And if there was one positive thing I'd say about strip clubs is that they can be used for that. But it takes discipline, like everything in life, you know, you can, you can use life in many different ways. There's many caveats in life that you can kind of use for good or bad. Those girls were using it for something really good. And the girls that were just stuck in the institutionalized sort of existence of working in that strip club, generally things didn't end too well for them.
I hope that's of some interest. I'm sure there will be some people that have some comments to make on that. Sorry if any of that offended anyone. It's certainly not meant to. Uh, if you've worked in a strip club, no offense, men, um, you probably know some of the stuff I'm saying is true. And maybe there's stuff I said that you'd rather I didn't. But there we go. I always tell the truth on this sort of stuff. So I hope you enjoyed it. Have a great evening, guys. Take care.