text: Where I come from, strippers are prostitutes; dirty women who are all addicted to drugs and love easy money. No one in my family would have ever associated me as one. They think strippers might have a disease or worse try stealing your man. Pretty Silly. Little did they know, they had a family member who worked as a stripper. They would never understand the amount of pain that was endured during every shift. Working at a strip club was agonizing but paid for my survival. If they ever found out, I would no longer have a family to reach out to. My family is very judgmental about certain topics. According to them, strippers are the lowest of the low. Women who worked to support themselves and their families? No, dirty women who would do anything for money. Hearing family members and friends speaking with so much disgust about strippers hurt me profoundly. It is easy to judge someone without knowing their entire story. My family's religious beliefs prevent them from being empathetic while my friends just thought those women are whores. I quickly realized my job title would define me in front of the world. It would represent my values in life. It was a label I wasn't willing to admit to. I faced personal inner conflict and tried not to allow the negative labels to define me. However, during moments of great sadness, I accepted a brutal reality. Slowly, religious beliefs developed at a young age became compromised. Stripping became a part of my life and contradicted the ideologies I was supposed to live by. This became a moral dilemma that would eventually consume me with guilt. For the first three months, crying every night after work feeling worthless became my self-destructive pattern. It was challenging to show up to the club and perform a show. Makeup became a mask hiding my pain. Growing up with eczema breakouts along with being bullied all my childhood already accustomed me to dealing with pain. I built up tolerance but this was completely different. Exploitation is dehumanizing and traumatizing. I was exposing the most intimate parts of my body and offering it up like products. According to the Bible my body was my temple not a sexual object but now it was displayed in front of men like merchandise. All my body's imperfections are on display to be judged, or admired in this case. In an environment like this, my body was my only source of income. It put a lot of pressure on me physically and emotionally. I attended college in simple clothes during the day. During the night my face was full of glitter, wearing a revealing bikini and trying to appear happy while repeating the same question all night long; “Would you like a dance?” There will never be a rich young girl stripping. Why? Answer is simple: no woman wants to be groped by hundreds of men a night for a living. The amount of shame that comes with that label alone is enough to have to find a way to hide it from society. Having strangers too close to me was more than just uncomfortable but violating. It's just a living nightmare. Some men smell like the sewer. Every dance I would just close my eyes and pray for it to end but sometimes giving a dance was more complicated than I had anticipated. Being alone with a strange man under those circumstances was incredibly volatile. For the “nicer” customers, when they crossed the line, I could tell them stop and that was that. However, some men would get really aggressive and they either didn’t realize how inappropriate it was or didn’t care. They saw an object unworthy of their respect. Taking their penis out, shoving their fingers inside me and rag dolling me were things they expected me to be OK with. Working at a strip club shows you the dark sides of men. Consent goes out the window in their minds. Learning to trust men after numerous alarming experiences takes a long time. My therapist said something I’ll never forget. You were in an over-sexualized environment. Does that excuse their animalistic behavior? No. So why stay? Why would a young woman endure so much pain? Maybe lack of opportunities but mostly financial strain. Or maybe you start to feel like there’s nothing else for you to do. You never get used to it and yet you believe it becomes all you're capable of. My shift would end and I could push my body out the door by mentally I could never escape. It became somewhat of a paradox. The most vile place in my life became a source of monetary security I wasn’t prepared to give up. The anguish from this place put suicidal thoughts in my head and still I struggled for years to leave. Rinsing my body with scorching hot water trying to burn off the filth that I would collect throughout the night was the ending to every terrible shift. This became a routine despite the pain caused by hot water for a person suffering from eczema. Under no other circumstances, then or now, would a person who suffers from this type of severe skin disorder mutilate their body this way. Someone with eczema showering with hot water would get red, dry, scaly skin causing a lot of itching which would lead to open wounds. Soon depression would take over. Life felt like it had no meaning. After being seen and treated as a sex object it took a toll on my psyche. The only reason I would get out of my soft comfortable bed was to walk my dog. He was my only source of light. I could not vent to anyone about the disturbing customers I had to deal with. My inner peace was gone. After being followed home and stalked frequently. I learned to always look at the rearview mirror to make sure it is safe to go home. There's a reason for stage names. My stage name was Emily. Believe it or not it is a form of protection. Obsessive customers would try to figure out where I lived and what college I attended. There's no guide on how to deal with psychological trauma stripping would cause not to mention trying to manage a romantic relationship without telling my boyfriend the truth. I became a great professional liar, until the man I was dating said let me visit you at work. Those were terrifying words for me to hear from my boyfriend. There was always a risk when dating. Once he knew his dream girl was a stripper on the weekends, my relationship status instantly became single. It is a dark secret that must be hidden from everyone. No one could know. There is a stigma that the label carries with it. That's where the plan of living a double life comes into play. Living a double life might seem fun in the movies but my reality was quite different. The movies tend to glorify everything. My double life was extremely draining. Lying to everyone I knew was difficult; trying to hide the heels/outfits that took up so much space in the trunk of my car, trying to hide the single dollar bills. The hard part was lying to my mom who is my world. It's a very isolating world full of stigma. There was always one question that made me extremely nervous. No matter what occasion or setting it was, it was always asked. “So, where do you WORK?’’ Even though I don't sweat because of my eczema, this question made me sweat, my heart beat fast, and turned my face pale like a ghost. The lies would just roll off my tongue as if my life depended on it. After meeting strippers from all walks of life, I realized something. Each one was unique, but we all had one thing in common; the inner conflict we were battling while performing a job that destroys us psychologically, a job with a lot of monetary benefits but a lifetime of devastating psychological effects. My advice is to save, save, and walk away. Everyone has a past. Unfortunately, my mind hasn’t healed completely from my jaded past. My wounds are still healing. By sharing my story, I hope people have a different perspective on strippers. Hopefully, this could help minimize the stigma around the label.