Picture it. Tampa, 2002. (Yes, I’m a Golden Girls fan!) Half-naked women everywhere. Hungry – bills to pay, mouths to feed, shoes to buy. Timing is everything. Him? No. He just got here. Let him marinate for a minute. If you’re the first to go over, you’re almost guaranteed a rejection. He wants to survey his options, get out his first no, exercise his power. But don’t wait too long. He’s by himself, so he’s anxious and doesn’t want to seem like too much of a loser. Wait for it. She’s going? Of course she is. She’s not a thinker, she just jumps in and goes for the jugular. She’s walking away. He said no. His first no. Go now? Nope, wait for it. The only way a man says yes to the first or second girl who approaches is if she’s a certified knockout. I’m pretty hot, but not in a blonde hair, blue-eyed, fake tit kind of way. You have to know your market.  What?  You didn’t think strippers had a thought process?  Well, you never met me.

By this point in my stripper career, I had developed a system. A system that was imperfect, but proven more effective than ‘hit and run’ strippers. You know those: they walk up, chewing gum, stick their tits in your face and grunt stale, smoke breath at you…’want a dance?’ You say no, they stalk off pissed, right to the table next to you and repeat the same, lackluster process. They’re also the same ones who complain at the end of the night that it sucked and ‘men ain’t shit.’ The complainers (see earlier entry).

Stripping can be a lot like any other job, minus the whole naked thing. The best thing to do is observe. There’s a pattern, if one takes the time to pay attention. It’s just like the stock market; everything is a risk, but under a watchful eye, attention to detail and a little investment, one can walk away with a handsome profit.

My selection process worked…for me.  The protocol varies from girl to girl.  Take the blonde hair, blue-eyed, fake tittied example from above: she could walk up to ANYONE and has an 86% chance of getting a yes.  Unless she smells funny – and even then there’s still a 72% chance she’ll get a yes.  Hey, she’s blonde.  I’m not trying to be a bitter bitch – I wasn’t mad at my fellow blondes.  It’s fate.  There is something magical about straight, sleek hair the color of corn silk.  Yes, straight hair.  Curly blondes lose about a 16% advantage.  But straight, blonde hair on top of a tan, slender body with a pair of eyes the color of the sky…I’m not a big blonde fan, but there were a few in my day that had me turning my head in consideration.  Strip clubs are where fantasies come to life and, well, many men crave blondes.  Of course, nowadays the tables have turned in favor of Asians, but that’s a whole ‘nother entry.  I would like to point out, however, that I was into Asian women before being into Asian women was cool.  I was also gay before being gay was cool…and not the whole bisexual segue into gay.  Completely gay.  Anyway, the one thing I had to remember was that I had my strengths as well.  And as long as I played to my strengths, I could capitalize on them.

Many men have black girl fantasies.  I know this because I’ve been the subject of many professed fantasies over the years.  I mean, running shorts guy was a prime example.  The trick is to figure out who they are.  Sometimes they didn’t even realize they could be attracted to a black girl.  See, I break the mold.  To some, I’m not entirely one or the other.  Oh, I’m something, they know that.  But what, exactly?

All my life — what is you?  Is you white or black?  Oreo.  Half-breed.  Wanna-be.  As I got older, I learned to appreciate my ‘exotic’ features – especially in this type of environment.  In fact, I was asked that so many times, (what’s your background? what are you mixed with?  where are you from?  I know it’s not the states.), I developed a quick-witted response that always net me a laugh, no matter who was asking…“I’m a little of everything, like the bagel.”  I had to learn quickly that having a tantrum or lodging a complaint got me nowhere.  See, even when you’re accused of something you didn’t do or you were blatantly disrespected, you had absolutely no right to react inappropriately.  Inappropriately being justifiably defending yourself.  You’re the one in a thong, so you’re the one in the wrong.  Always act like a lady and all that.  So, humor has always been my safest defense mechanism.  If I can make them laugh at something clever I made up, it made me less tempted to shove my heel up their ass.  A moment in stripper time that I will forever and always remember: dancing for a guy (redneck – for the sake of simplicity and reference – he was wearing overalls for goodness sake) and he won’t stop staring at my vagina.  My first thought?  Did I miss something during my last ‘check‘?  So, I try to dance and maneuver myself enough to catch a glimpse of what he’s staring at.  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.  What?  I asked.  He smiles and says ‘you got a white girl’s pussy’.  Wow.  How does one respond to that?  I don’t know, but I said: ‘well, that makes sense.  I’m mixed.’  He laughed, of course.  You got to love Atlanta.

But he had a point.  Something that I already knew by the time I got to Atlanta.  I was the best of both worlds.  So my probability of getting a yes?  With the right timing, 74%.  That’s not bad, considering.  However, this changes quite a bit for me in a black club.  More like 35%.  Go figure.  How is that possibly true, you ask?  No man has more fantasies of being with a blonde girl than a black man.  Just trust me on this.  I don’t know if it’s a sense of power, control, a Tiger Woods’ fantasy…whatever.  After a year or two, it ceased to amaze me how often the ‘exotic’ girls were turned down by black patrons in favor of the blondes.  Of course some girls got mad – ‘it’s not fair.  That ain’t right.  Blahblahblah.’  But what’s not right about it?  They are spending their money on their fantasy girl.  It doesn’t matter who they can and can’t have in real life.  That’s the whole point of coming to a strip club.  Money is the great equalizer.  That brings me to my first rule on the floor: Avoid the black men unless 1. There’s no one else.  2.  They tip you incredibly well on stage, prompting you to approach them.  3.  There’s no one else.  It sounds cruel, but remember, it was business.

If you think I’m mean, step onto a car lot and watch the salesmen assess who to approach first…it’s not right, it’s business.