Star Light Ministries

January 30, 2008

A former dancer checked out the NPR interview and had these comments to make:

Thanks for sending me the link to hearing the NPR show. One the whole, I liked the show, especially the part where you make it known that dancers have to pay to work, and pay highly. I wish you also had publicized the fact that dancers have to pay for licenses to work in most geographic areas–and the fee recently doubled in my area, where you have to have both a dance and a business license.

I did not care for the part about the drug abuse, drinking on the job, and the blow job in the parking lot. I am an example of a dancer who did not drink on the job (I always drank “fake drinks” with no alcohol in them so that I could make the drink money but not injure my brain).

I also wish you had acknowledged that many of the dancers, like me, are educated women who have simply found that working in clubs pays more than even educated women can earn in a sexist economy. Even at the highest executive levels I have worked in corporate America, I was still paid 30-60% less than a man was paid in a similar job. Often, I got the job through a temp service which exploited my labor by paying me $12 an hour while they earned $30 an hour from the company for my work.

I know that in a limited time period you could not cover all of these bases, but most people still believe that women in clubs are all victims of abuse, etc. There are so many stereotypes for dancers out there, I wish you had just mentioned that many women emerge from the experience of dancing as I did– unscathed from the experience. I quit the club in July 2007, and I have not gone back. I miss the money, but I also saved a lot of money while I worked there and I am fine.

I am getting married soon to a wonderful man that I actually met at the club and not only did he not judge me harshly for working there, he immediately saw past where I worked and saw the heart, the brain, the kindness which dwells inside my being. I am lucky to have a man who loves me so greatly while knowing my past to be there for me during the difficult times.

I have been working a crappy “transitional” job at a grocery store to bridge the gap back into teaching. My plan is next to do substitute teaching work which I have learned is a great way to introduce oneself to the school and get to know the administrators. Thanks to my 3.9 college degrees behind me, I know that getting back to the real world and living with less money is a viable option for me. After working a back-breaking week at the store, my paycheck is less than one night at the club–that is economic privation of the highest order. It was a cruel lesson to learn all over again how grindingly difficult are the blows of poverty.

During my years of dancing, I paid off the mortgage on my home, saved money, stayed away from drugs and alcohol, made loyal clients who respected me and loved me platonically, and earned the respect of most people who knew me. Some coworkers did not like me for what I represented, but I think somewhere down deep, they appreciated my difference. I was never a party girl and I never played the part.

I recognized that the greatest abyss one could endure was the schizophrenia the industry causes with having a “stage name” and making the colliding worlds between public and private/ work and home work. I have emerged from the experience with an intact identity and very few bad memories. My skills of working with the public and belief in myself have increased from my experience surviving a strip club. Please do not suggest that we present and former strippers are all victims of the experience. Some of us strong individuals are enhanced by our tenure pole dancing, and I am proud to be a strong survivor.

Thanks for the feedback!

January 25, 2008

So here we are, in a club, where there are no clients, dancers who need to make bank, volunteers who are still a little “green,” and an invisible barrier between the dancers and us. They know that we come to the club regularly. They know that we’re religious. But they don’t know why, they don’t know us, they don’t know if we judge them or not.

So, me, with the bright idea, I go get several $1’s. I give each volunteer a stack, and I tell the dancers that my friends are new at this, could they teach us what it’s like to dance?

So our volunteers began asking questions. “How hard is it to dance in those shoes?” “What does it take to do a good pole dance?” “What’s your favorite part about your job?”

We tipped everyone, and we tried to do it evenly. Anyone who came to sit with us (by the way, we had brought pizza, so everybody was eating pizza) we tipped. Several young women told us their stories. They told us about their children. They told us about their disappointments. They told us about their dreams.

All in all, it was a good night for our volunteers. I hope, and pray, that it was a good night for the dancers. Some nights are like that.

January 24, 2008

January is typically slow in strip clubs, just like in restaurants and bars. People are cold and paying all their bills from Christmas. I walked into a club the other night, at a time when there should have been some business, and there was none. No guys at the bar, no guys in the room with the stage. No customers whatsoever.

It’s the first time I’ve ever been in a club that was that dead.

So what do dancers do when there are no clients? How do they make enough money to pay their stage fees? And what about any quotas that they have?

In this particular club, the stage fee is $40. And they have a quota of private dances that they must do to the tune of $90. And yet, no customers!

And it gets worse. The dancers had just been fined (yeah, that’s right, FINED) $50 for not paying enough attention to the one client who had been in the club that evening. Dancers have great radar, remember, and there was a reason why no one wanted to sit with this client, but it’s against the rules to not talk with a client. So here we all are, with 7 or 8 dancers with NO CUSTOMERS facing $180 in fees.

So what’s a good Star Light team to do? Go trade in some $20’s for some $1’s! More tomorrow. . .

January 21, 2008
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

It is my own tradition to read the Letter from a Birmingham Jail on the honorary observance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. I’ve read it every MLK day for at least the last 15 years, and very much like Scripture, it says something new to me every time I read it.

For today’s reading, I am mostly thinking about a recent club visit, that I will post about later this week, and my own frustration with the ease with which the world disposes of the population of women and men who are in sex work.

In MLK’s first paragraph, he writes, “While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities ‘unwise and untimely.’” When I look at what Star Light is doing, I think, “Now is the time.” But I’ve been told so many times that it’s not the time, that this ministry is unwise. My hero felt that push, too. And I am convinced that there is no better time than right now.

Although MLK is talking about racial injustice, I believe the same holds true for exotic dancers: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” How we treat the women and men in the sex industry is exactly how we treat everyone. They are us and we are them.

MLK says, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” It is time that freedom and respect is demanded.

January 21, 2008

From ex-millennial girl:

It’s hard when you’re a dancer and you want to belong to the real world. So many aspects of daily life were foreign to us, like getting up at 7:00 a.m. to go to the office. It’s hard to feel like you belong to a world that looks down on your profession. But people are not like soap opera characters: always plotting some evil scheme to personally benefit from another’s suffering. And yet that’s how people treated me when they found out I was an exotic dancer. Hey: strippers like to send get well cards, make their own Christmas wreaths, and baby-sit, when they’re given the chance and the trust.

If I could do anything in the world, I would have everyone meet at least 2 exotic dancers. I’d make them meet for breakfast or lunch, or go grocery shopping together. I’d want them to just do a terribly mundane thing, so that that the non-dancer could see, once and for all, that dancers are just folks. They’re not evil. They’re not catty. They’re not conniving.

Sure, there are evil, catty, conniving dancers out there. But there are evil, catty, conniving bankers, cashiers, real estate agents, stay-at-home moms, ministers, IT specialists… Every profession has them. But that doesn’t mean that every one in the profession shares the same traits.

Those of us who are not exotic dancers have a responsibility (Yes, I am going to get preachy now) to make sure that we’re not adding to any woman’s feeling of isolation from the rest of the world. Yes, you are your sister’s keeper.

Ex-millennial girl continues, “If you can beat down the overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, you can be a good person, whether you’re stripping or working the register at McDonald’s. We all feel inadequate about our professions, it’s just that stripping is such an easy target. What about you? Are you a good enough publicist? Trial lawyer? Candy bar manufacturer? We all deserve to feel like we matter.”

What are YOU doing to make sure someone feels like they matter?

January 19, 2008

The Panther in Pumps writes, “Rules are important in life. Not for the reasons you think. Not to keep you out of jail or prison, but because they keep you stable. Keep life predictable. Life without rules is chaotic. Scary.”

Nearly every exotic dancer, at the beginning of her career, points to another dancer and says, “She does things that I won’t do.” And each woman draws an imaginary line around what she’s willing to do. She’s willing to do topless, but not bottomless. She’s willing to do private dances, but not lap dances. The list could go on and on. And The Panther is right. Those rules help you know who you are.

But eventually, the boundaries, or rules fall away. What happens then? What happens when you find yourself on a lap, or with no t-back on? How do you re-write, or re-implement the rules?

They say that rules were meant to be broken, but sometimes you find that you’re not crazy about yourself after having broken the rules. So here’s my advice: go back to the original rule, if you’d like. Just because you’ve broken it once, doesn’t mean that you have to break it forever. And if you find that you want to change the rules to include the new behavior, that’s fine, too. But keep the rules. And keep going back to the rules.

Like The Panther says, “If you yourself don’t follow the rules, then you don’t know who you are anymore.”

January 15, 2008

Dive Bar Dancer writes, “I don’t experience my work as degrading (apart from specific instances when I’m mocked, patronized, or simply not tipped enough) but when I see myself from an outsider’s perspective the work itself seems degrading. I know it won’t last - soon I’ll be a stripper in a stripper’s body once again – but I don’t like the idea that that’s probably how a lot of outsiders see me. I wish assumptions about how sex workers experience their work were not so pervasive.”

The pervasive judgments? Not so flattering.

The truth? Much more varied, flattering, and wonderful than most people would assume. Let’s hear it for changing people’s narrow minds.

January 14, 2008

So what do you do with a story like this? A guy goes out for a bottle of milk, putss the baby in the back seat, heads straight for a strip club and leaves the baby out in the 20 degree weather. Thank goodness for the client who said to the bouncer, “There’s a crying baby out there.”

Now that is a piece of work.

January 9, 2008

A Sermon by Erin Spengeman

Based on Judges 19 and Matthew 16:6-13

I am new to this, the world of sex work: prostitution, stripping. I’ve been trying to learn more about it, so I can learn more about the women I encounter. I’ve been reading a little bit about prostitution. It is dangerous work, but women do what they’ve got to do to make money to feed their kids. I’ve been visiting a strip club with Star Light Ministries, talking with exotic dancers, trying to encourage them. I’ve learned there are fines for an exotic dancer if she forgets to tip the bartender, or the DJ, or if she’s late, or if she’s barefoot. I’ve learned that she must pay a large percentage of her earnings to the club owner. I’ve learned that exotic dancers have lots of tricks about how to NOT drink all the alcoholic drinks men in the clubs buy for them. I’ve learned a little about pasties, platform shoes, and pole dancing. I have a lot more to learn.

How much do YOU know about all this? How much do you know about prostitution?
Have you ever talked with a prostitute?
Know any women in your family, neighborhoods, or circles of friends who work as prostitutes? Know any children of women who earn their living in sex work?
Know any women who work as exotic dancers?
Know what a day at work is like for a stripper?
How much do you think the average person knows about the life of a sex worker?
How much do you think people of faith know—or want to know—about sex work?

I mean, sex work gets a bad rap: how often do you hear people say, “Check out that lady’s crazy outfit—she looks like a hooker!” OR As we drive down Jeff Davis Hwy at night—that is, IF we drive down Jeff Davis Hwy at night—we see a woman walking by herself down the sidewalk and point—“That’s got to be a hooker! What else would she be doing walking around by herself?”

How often do you hear on the evening news stories like: “Stripper Raped—Call Crime stoppers With Information” OR “Prostitute Murdered—Cops Looking for Killer”?

How often do we hear the tales of 19-year old strippers forced to do private, fully-nude lap dances for a client on the 3rd floor of a strip club—with no bouncer or security cameras around to protect her should she be taken advantage of?

How often do you think women who engage in the illegal work of prostitution report to the police that they have been raped by a “John”?

Have you ever heard the story of Debra?*:
Debra is talking with a woman named Carole, an interviewer, about her life as a prostitute. Debra tells of being raped multiple times. Carole asks: “Did you ever report these incidents to the police?”
Debra: I can’t tell you the countless times I’ve heard police say that a prostitute can’t be raped. It really upsets me. I think a lot of men believe that. It’s totally ridiculous. I’ve had friends who’ve gotten hurt. After a while you stop telling the police. Their attitude is, “Hey, that’s part of your job.” Probably a lot of women believe that, too. Though I’ve had less of that attitude from women than men—the attitude that a prostitute is putting herself out there and that she deserves what she gets, whether it’s rape or getting beaten up.

Who will listen to Debra and speak up for her?

Have you ever heard the story of Barbara?*:
Barbara also interviews with Carole about life as a prostitute. Barbara has also been raped. Carole asks: “From your experience, how do the police respond to the rape of a prostitute?”
Barbara: I’ve heard them say many times that you couldn’t rape a prostitute. Once my girlfriends were attacked by some guys. They were in Berkeley and called the police. The police just said, “That’s the price you pay, it comes with the trade…so why bitch and scream, you’re a prostitute.” Which is totally ridiculous.
Carole: Have you heard about the murders of prostitutes in the East Bay which have taken place over the last few months?
Barbara: I’ve heard about them, but not very much.
Carole: What about the Los Angeles and Seattle murders?
Barbara: Yeah, the Green River murders. Most of the girls he’s killed have been prostitutes. He went from Seattle to Oregon and I think maybe to Los Angeles and then back to Seattle. the feds didn’t want to get involved because even though it’s interstate, they say it’s not their territory. Why? Because they’re only prostitutes. Their age range is thirteen to thirty-five or thirty-eight. I think that if the FBI got involved, they could stop it. And the parents, apparently they don’t want to speak up because their daughters are prostitutes. But it’s so low key that I’ve barely heard about it, let alone other people hearing about it…..
Carole: Have police officers tried to get sexual favors from you?
Barbara: Several times. But not as bad as the other girls. Once two other girls and I were sharing an apartment and the landlord decided to call the police and tell them we were working out of it. He flagged down the police. Well, I knew the guy he flagged down and he was really good. One time, he’d seen me turning a car date, doing a blow job in a car, and he didn’t do anything on that occasion. And there were a couple of other times, too. Then after about four times, he told me that I owed him a date. He told me if I didn’t want to go to jail, I should give him something. I said, “Well, I can’t do that, I’m a prostitute, and if I do that you’re gonna pay me.” He wound up giving me a dollar and seventy cents. I didn’t mind because I would much rather have dated him for a dollar and seventy cents than go to jail.
I’ve heard that happening many times. With vice officers, too. Most of the times I hear about it they’re trying to scare the girls into something, you know. It’s like, if you date me then I’ll keep all the rest of the policemen away from you, or I’ll tell you who all the police are….
Carole: Barbara, why did you first get into prostitution?
Barbara: I did it for the money. That was the only reason I got into it. If I couldn’t find a job that paid more than minimum wage, whatever it was at the time, two dollars and thirty-five cents. I had two children. I had no way of supporting them besides being on welfare. I was always working two jobs but with the one or two jobs I could still barely pay rent.

Who will listen to Barbara and speak up for her and her friends?

Have you ever heard the story of the Levite’s Concubine before?
At least Debra and Barbara were able to tell their own story. The Concubine of this religious leader has no words in this entire story. In the beginning we know that she leaves her master on her own accord. We know she was angry. But, then her fate is tossed back and forth between her own father, her master, an old man, a brutal and violent pack of men, a donkey, and a knife. No, she is not a sex worker. She made no money as a concubine. She made no money when she was tossed out to the hungry pack. But, she had no voice. Her screams were muffled by the growl of the pack of men.

Who will listen to this woman and speak up for her?

Have you ever heard the story of the unnamed woman?:
She walks into a room, kneels down, and slathers an expensive perfume on the feet of Jesus. The people who watched the perfume mix with the dirt on Jesus’ sandaled feet then make a mess as it ran all over the floor were indignant, accusing her of wasting expensive perfume. “That perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor!” they snarled. But Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

In memory of “her.” “Her.” Who is “She”? Sometimes She is only known for her role as a prostitute, as a stripper, as a concubine, as a waster of expensive perfume. But that’s only what She does. Who will take the time to see Who She is? She is someone’s daughter, a friend, a sister, a granddaughter, a niece, a mother, a scholar, a lover, a lover of life, a laugher.

How often do we pause and ask this many questions about the real lives of women and sex work? Once we ask questions, and hear the stories of Debra and Barbara and the Unnamed Concubine, will we be changed? Does any of this matter? Do the lives of sex workers matter? Do the deaths of sex workers matter?

May we dare to ask difficult questions, seek answers, and know women by name. May we join God in the care of all people, male and female. May we be a voice. Amen.

*Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry. 2nd ed. Frederique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander, et al. Cleis Press: San Francisco, 1998.

••••
Reading of the Names:
Some women are not named. Some use fake names. Some names we actually know. We cannot know them all, we cannot know all their stories. But tonight, we will name some, a few, a fraction, whose bodies and lives were cut into pieces.

January 8, 2008

Hobo Stripper wrote, “Nudity and touch create intimacy, and when you blend in the anonymous fakeness of the strip club there’s a lot of soul-spilling realness.”

I’m one of those people that everybody tells their whole life story to. I’ll be in a restaurant, and the waitress will tell me that she has just been in a car accident. The grocery store bagger will tell me that he’s just lost his wife. Total strangers will explain their family dynamics. I don’t know if it’s my face, my manner, my southern accent, but people will just spill their guts to me.

And I’m not a big fan of it, either.

I have a hard time imagining what’s it like for everyone to do that, and me be naked!

Many times I hear from women who are exotic dancers that their job is much like that of a therapist. You have a lot of information, and sometimes it’s information that you don’t really want. It’s also information, that, should you choose to, you could use against a client. And yet, you don’t.

You care. It’s the nature of the beast. You care.