You know how wild cats are in the movies? How when you throw them a bunch of meat they all eat together and then sit around licking each other, but if you throw a bunch of them a little meat they fight? Probably it’s just a Disney thing, like lemmings throwing themselves off cliffs. I’m sure that real life cats have ways of settling problems without injuring each other.
Strippers are like movie cats though. Throw us a bunch of high rollin customers and we bring other girls in to make it, do each other’s hair, and share outfits. But put 17 strippers in a club and give us 12 cheap customers? It’s on!
I walked into the dressing room early in the night and heard “I’m callin my homegirls an there’s gonna be some silicone titties poppin up in this bitch tonight!” I turned around and walked out. I just like to watch the drama and document it for posterity. Participating is not as fun.
A little later one girl was sitting with a customer when three of her friends swooped in, boobs in face, and tempted him away to the VIP room. Sparks flew. The girl who’s blowing the manager at their home club threatened to have them all fired. They threatened to call in their homies and pop her titties. She called them a bunch of whores taking money from her kid’s mouth. Most of us aren’t like this, but there’s a whole group of them now that came down together.
On a bad night it is almost mandatory for the women who don’t make money to accuse the women who do make money of being whores. Of course, while calling other women whores you have to mention that you are a pure white virgin of a single mother with six kids to support and bills to pay, unlike the whores. My friend who happened to luck out and spent several songs in the VIP with a good customer was accused of getting fingerbanged. A girl who wasn’t even there, but makes good money when she is, was accused of being fisted (as if that would even be possible during a lapdance). I didn’t make any money but a new girl called me fat.
Towards the end of the night (three customers, fourteen strippers) there was an impromptu meeting in the dressing room: no finger banging, no cut throat hustling, and remember to tip out really good.
Some girls left after the meeting, but I waited around for the end. Just in case a customer were to come in, you know.
Then the lights went out. The manager herded us all back to the dressing room with a flashlight and left us there in the dark until our genius bouncer discovered that one of the customers had thrown the breaker (conveniently located on the outside of the building) on their way out. He made the lights come back on and we all left, just a few bucks richer.
This is an interesting post. I am a male from the UK aged 36 who has lived most of the last 12 years in Asia, I had an apartment in Bangkok where it is as cheap to buy a girl for the night as it is to have a single lapdance in London. I have no moral issue about stripping or prostitution – I left school at 16 to work in finance, a field that I find morally ambiguous. The competition between hookers in Soi Cowboy or Pattaya in Thailand is just as severe in the quiet season, but I am always surprised by the way the women seem to have so much empathy when times are good. While I don’t judge, I doubt I would wan’t my daughter to be a stripper – I am also aware of how so many of my friends in relationships with prostitutes in Thailand were envious just because I was with a girl who wasn’t involved in the sex trade.
I wonder how the customers experienced this situation (or situations like this in general). Do they appreciate the attention and potential deferential treatment, or do they sense the (un-fun) negative energy and petty competition? A bit of both, perhaps?
Tony, I’ve always been interested in how Thai prostitutes interact with eachother and how they become socialized to the scene. So many people write about the Thai sex industry, but they’re all concerned with the interaction between prostitutes and clients.
Sam, it’s a little of both. Strippers become more aggressive and the guys are constantly being hustled. This is when they start trying to bargain over dance prices, rather than being willing to have a laid back expensive good time.
The prostittion scene in Thailand is very interesting, Bangkok is a classic asian city and the division of wealth is enormous. My ex-girlfriend was from the wealthy side and lived in a compound with her extended family across the river from the Grand Palace. She studied in New Zealand, Canada and London. I met her in London and even though I am, or have been in the past, fairly wealthy there is no doubt I would have never met her in Thailand. Women of her class simply do not mix with the women who become prostitutes. She has grown up with maids and drivers since she was a little girl, (disconcertingly for me she still calls them servants).
As for the prostitutes it may seem strange to an American but the supply of hookers is so lop-sided that the girls can be had for as little as $10 a night, but they all aim to snare a long-time boyfriend because they are aware that most men from Europe and the US that wash up there are dissapointed with western women. Most of these girls are from the poorest parts of Thailand where wages for picking rice are $1-2 per day and naturally they bond with girls from the same background but they tend to avoid girls from near their village. I am generalising, of corse, but they tend to regard their customers as hapless victims who they are quit content to bleed dry financially, but that is the nature of the sex industry any way isn’t it – I mean do you ever ask a customer if he can really afford that last vip dance? As an observer rather than a participant in the sex industy in Asia I have a lot of opinions but I seriously doubt that you would find them palatable.
Well, generally I assume that people are able to manage their own finances unless they indicate otherwise.
Its very sad to think of girls in a place like Thailand so totally vulnerable to weirdos and creeps….I suppose the dark ages are really not so long ago for those young girls.
Well, unfortunately the women in the tourist areas of Thailand are really regarded as rather haggard by most Thai’s and only good for westerners. It is not unknown for these girls to end up there after abuse from members of their own families or being sold into Thai brothels at a young age by their parents, although that seems to happen in Cambodia far more frequently. Often they are just find themselves alone and with children to support after their husbands choose a different partner. I imagine the story is the same for women all over the world, it is just harder for uneducated women in a third world nation with limited options. It should be noted, however that a fast-growing city like Bangkok has plenty of jobs that don’t involve prostituting yourself, just the rewards are far less and the work often very hard. I have had many conversations in bars with hookers who have decided that being a prostitute is far better than working in a Colgate or J&J factory. It is a little foolish to think that there are not women in Europe and the US that find themselves in equally desperate situations.
Maybe not foolish, Callie – just naive.
sociology of work…
again
back to your classes