Is It A Good Idea to Date a Stripper?

Life as a Stripper

A strip club is founded on the fault line between artifice and authenticity. Each of the dancers is a real person. Their names are unlikely to be identified. Customers are real, just like their desires and, most importantly, their money. Is the feeling of intimacy that a customer has when they leave genuine? If that’s the case, why does he insist on knowing the dancer’s real name and eavesdropping on her personal life? What might she say to show him that she’s real enough to satisfy his dreams, if not too real? Therefore is it a good idea to date a stripper?

Club for Gentlemen

In 2014, photographer Chris Buck began his project “Gentlemen’s Club” with the aim of resolving some of these contradictions. He sought out strip-club dancers’ romantic partners for the series because they are deeply acquainted with the work’s passions and paradoxes. Buck said, “I couldn’t understand how anyone could be comfortable dating someone who works in a job that involves sexuality.” Over the course of six years, he photographed forty women who made a living as strippers. At times, he would visit them alone, and at other times, the dancers would pose for him. The portraits, as well as lengthy, frequently probing interviews with his subjects about the line between life and labor, are included in a new book. Their stories bring depth and warmth to an often overlooked profession. They also offer insight into what it is like to date a stripper.

Photojournalist

Buck, a well-known portraitist, gets candid responses from his subjects. He explained, “I photographed George McGovern in a Speedo—you’d be shocked what people would do for a photograph if you ask nicely.” In “Gentlemen’s Club,” his portraits capture the strip club’s contrasting realities. The portraits are at once playful, tender, bold, and inscrutable, and they are framed but never forced. One of the subjects, Jerrod, lies down on a bed with his shirt open all the way down to his sternum. His girlfriend’s name, Gabriella, is tattooed on his heart, and he’s staring almost seductively into the camera.

He claims to be aware of the satisfaction she can get from her job. He confesses, “I don’t have a very muscular physique, and some of her club customers do.” “Let’s pretend she has a private moment with them when she’s at work. Without crossing those boundaries, I believe it is possible to achieve personal fulfillment.” He says he also makes sure Gabriella has enough food when she gets home. He did date a stripper before.

Returning the Favor

Karley, from New Orleans, rides on the back of her girlfriend, Emma, during a downpour, her feet in the water and Emma sticking her tongue out to catch the storm. Karley says she lived under a bridge as a child and rode freight trains around the country. Emma admires her open-mindedness, which she credits in part to her career. “It’s definitely improved her self-esteem a lot,” Karley says, “because people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars just to look at her butt.” It makes one wonder if dating strippers is a smart idea.

Date a Stripper – The Dilemma

Others, on the other hand, are less compassionate. “I want a little craziness in them, you know?” says the author. Anthony, a native of St. Petersburg, Florida, discusses why he admires dancers. “It’s like adding just the right amount of paprika or spice to something.” Buck is a photographer. Anthony knelt over his Fiat’s open hatch, exposing his ass crack under his jean shorts. Prior to the shoot, Vincent, on the other hand, orders a bottle of whisky. Following that, he sits shirtless and inebriated on a mossy outcropping underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, hat in hand, leaning forward to give a fist bump. During the interview, he breaks down in tears. “Do you want to know how a stripper’s boyfriend lives?” he inquires. “ The boyfriend of a stripper stays in the house, picking up pennies and drinking beers while pleading for help.”

Should One Date a Stripper?

Buck’s images show many of the dancers’ partners topless or nude. Buck said, “As a straight man, I find male nudes to be very powerful and insecure.” “Most men like being nude in a sexual context, but they don’t enjoy it outside of that,” Buck said. In the toilet, he shoots a shirtless man called Brennan. He places his hand in his pocket, as if to will himself into insouciance, because his abdomen is scarred. Brennan, a former stripper, recalls offering lap dances to widows in their seventies who just wanted to talk to him.

“I got to see the world’s sadness,” he says. “I felt like I was actually involved, like I was providing a service to a friend, but not sexually.” Blaine, a dancer and hunter from Portland, Oregon, appears on his roof in his underwear, armed with a bow, and seated in a deep squat—possibly one of the few places where strippers and sportsmen coexist. Another man, Tim, stands naked near the edge of a well-mowed field, and a cat nuzzles his ankle. He was with his girlfriend, Sarah, when she first went to a strip club. As he watched her light up, he said, “Like a kid in Disneyland.” She was hired right away.

Interviews with Strippers

Pairs of Brians, Davids, and Aarons collide in a plaintive, cautiously optimistic chorus as the interviews start to blend together. Bouncers, who date dancers and are forced to watch them perform night after night, are riddled with envy. “The job is to make sure nothing bad happens,” one man says, “but you can’t look.” Others suffer from money phobias. How can dancers’ partners compete if customers are willing to pay for the same love that the dancers get for free?

The dancers themselves are acutely aware of the emotional work that their roles require when they talk. “You notice how everybody likes breasts, even gay men,” one of them says. “I believe it’s a maternal thing, and I believe men are more receptive to a topless woman, either because of the honesty or because they feel nurtured and cared for.” But, as she points out, compassion can only go one way.

“As soon as you ask them about your real problems, they refuse to address them. You can’t be the well of sympathy if they have to feel sorry for you.” Another dancer adds, “I used to volunteer at a suicide prevention hotline when I was in college, and it reminds me of taking those calls.” “You’re in a highly charged emotional situation with someone you’ve never met before. Even if they are fleeting, there are real-life interactions.” The role is theatrical, and the customers are often obnoxious; the dancers entrust their partners with leading them back to themselves after a long night. As one puts it, “I can say, ‘This happened to me at work today,’ and he’ll just say, ‘I’m so sorry.” That’s a little sketchy. ‘Would you mind if I stayed with you for a while?’

Final Thoughts

I asked Buck if he felt any closer to understanding the ties that connect strippers and their partners after so many years photographing them. “Absolutely not,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going to give you the answer at the end of the book.” In some respects, “Gentlemen’s Club” works as a kind of sex workers’ advocacy, exploring their lives honestly and without polish. Buck, on the other hand, said that his inspiration came solely from his insatiable curiosity. His subjects’ motives and private yearnings are concealed behind life’s beaded curtain.