Bitter

Memoir, 2025

“You can’t use the name Ginger,” she says.

The manager sitting in front of me is years younger than I am, with red hair and a naive look on her face.

I want to roll my eyes. I’ve used Ginger for nine years. I’ve built a brand, an online presence, and countless customer relationships around Ginger. I don’t want to use another fucking name.

“Can I use Claire?” I ask. Claire is my fake “real name” that I sometimes have as a back-up.

“Claire is fine,” she says, smiling. She is bubbly and chatty, and it pisses me off. She has the energy of a baby stripper, not a manager.

I can imagine her going home and saying “I love my job!” after fining a bunch of strippers for not following some stupid rule.

I don’t want the chit-chat, the friendly conversation. I just want to get hired and be done with it.

My answers are short and sharp. I know I’m being standoffish but I can’t help it. I started in this industry when it was rougher, when managers were older, and when girls who talked shit in the back room had their hair extensions ripped out.

I look around the club, taking in the shiny stage, the neon signs, and the fancy VIP booths. It feels like strip clubs today are built for Instagram photoshoots instead of selling lap dances. I know that in this day and age, social media is everything, but I can’t help but feel as though these nice club fit-outs miss the point entirely. The clubs that I’ve made the most money at have looked dark and dingy on the inside, filled with customers who care more about booking dances than being seen in a nice place.

She tells me that it’s the highest earning club in Brisbane.

“What’s the average earning potential for someone working here, then?” I ask.

“Well, most girls get upset if they don’t make a thousand dollars in a night, but our top earners make two thousand dollars per shift,” she says.

I do my best not to laugh. In Brisbane, at a club where you earn just over $200 for an hour-long booking? As if.

“Does the spa get booked out every night, then?” I ask. The spa is their VIP option, going for double the price of a regular lap dance. Doing the maths in my head, I figure that multiple dancers must be doing at least five hours in the spa each night to make that kind of money.

“Not really, only on event nights,” she says.

“Right,” I say.

This club isn’t really my first pick, but I don’t have many choices left. This place doesn’t have a weekly shift minimum, like all the other clubs in Brisbane do, and I only really want to work a few nights so I can have a little extra money for my trip.

I organise a trial for the following week.

It’s raining and by the time I get to the club my hair is frizzy and curly, despite styling it before I left my apartment. I know I’m not as up to industry standard as I used to be, and I don’t really care. My extensions are gone, so are my nails. I’ve put on weight and I couldn’t give a fuck about the size of my butt or stomach anymore.

After arriving on time, I sit in the change room for forty-five minutes, waiting to do my “induction”. By the time someone comes to get me I’m already in a foul mood and ready to go home. I’m studying law, working a day job, and juggling a few different side hustles. My time is precious, and I don’t have three quarters of an hour to spare waiting around a change room.

I’m inducted alongside two other new girls, and the whole process takes over an hour. A manager takes me through all the rules and laws, stuff I’ve already heard dozens of times before. She reminds me that I’m an independent contractor, not an employee, despite the fact that I can’t say no to any lap dances I don’t want to do. They also tell me that I’m not allowed to end my own bookings once the time is up, that I have to wait for a controller to end it for me. I think of how, when I worked here years ago, controllers would forget about my booking and I’d end up dancing for an extra ten, fifteen minutes. A decade of experience in the industry, and my time and business is still at the mercy of people who are barely in their twenties.

At the end of the induction she tells me that I can’t use the name Claire after all. For fuck’s sake, I think. I end up going with Candace, my first ever stripper name, one that I had to abandon nine years ago at this same club because they wouldn’t let me use it.

Once I’m finally out on the floor, I get booked almost immediately. My customer is rough, squeezing my boobs as I dance for him. I remind myself what I’m doing this for, and try to forget that the club is taking almost half of the money, even though I’m the one being groped.

“The club takes 45 percent of dances, so it’s industry standard,” the manager said to me during the interview. I’ve worked at 50 clubs and can count on one hand the clubs that have taken 45 percent of my money. You don’t have a fucking clue about industry standards, I wanted to say.

I walk out of the lap room and back onto the floor. I talk to a few customers, but nobody else is booking me yet.

A girl that I recognise walks past me. I used to talk to her at another club years ago, back when I was posting my stripper vlogs to YouTube. Her skin is glowing and she holds her head higher than she used to. I glance at her and smile, but she looks away.

Whatever, I think. Ever since I stopped posting videos about stripping, I started to fade into the background of the club, becoming more and more invisible. Gone were the days where I would walk into a venue and everyone would know who I was. I do prefer keeping to myself, but sometimes it feels jarring.

Most dancers are leaning on the bar waiting for customers to come in, and I do the same. I stand for a few moments, but I feel awkward and unapproachable in the crowded space, so I walk to the change room instead. Besides, I’ve been starting to think about all the things I’d get done if I went home early, and I’m trying to keep my focus in the club.

There’s plenty of tasks I can do on my phone instead. Draft social media scripts, work on pieces for Substack, message customers. I keep myself productive in the change room for long enough to keep my mind stimulated, and then I walk back onto the floor.

Standing at the bar gradually becomes more and more unbearable though. Drunk dancers shout around me, and a DJ turns the music louder. The smoke machine begins going off and I feel my throat start to hurt. I walk back to the change room.

When I come out and continue hustling, more and more customers tell me the same story. “We’re just here to drink”, “nowhere else was open”, “we just wanted somewhere to hang out”.

I manage to get a few short lap dances, but nothing amazing. At 1am I ask a girl in the change room how her night is going. “I’ve made fifty bucks,” she says. I wonder if anyone in the club has ever made two grand in one night.

When my shift ends, I approach a manager. I get paid the cash I’m owed, a measly $185, and she tells me that I spent too much time on my phone in the change room. She tells me they don’t know if they want me to come back.

“We like to have the girls on the floor and rotating from customer to customer, even if they’re not spending,” she says, looking at the cash I’m holding. “If you want to use your phone next time you’ll have to take your half hour break.”’

I think back to how they emphasised, like strip clubs always do, that I was an “independent contractor”. You’re not paying me by the fucking hour, I want to scream.

I get dressed, knowing I’m not going to come back, whether they let me or not. I don’t want to be micromanaged by a bunch of girls who think they know how to run my business better than I do.

I look out the window of the Uber on the way home, bitter and nostalgic for an industry that barely exists anymore.