Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer

When I was first living in L.A. and scraping by on very little money, with no car or health insurance, I once saw an ad in the newspaper saying that I could make a lot of money by just being a “dancer.”

I did wonder about strippers and how much money they made, I figured it was a lot. I had moved out to L.A. from my small towns I grew up in, first in Kansas and then in Louisiana, outside New Orleans.

The biggest thing that stopped me from going to audition as a stripper was that I didn’t want to disappoint my mother. That meant porn (which I thought would be degrading and soul crushing and frankly, hurt a lot) and hooking were totally out as job options.

It’s weird to be young and attractive, but not quite a six foot tall Supermodel, and it makes you wonder, why the heck am I slogging for pennies as a waitress? I’ve got to be able to use this youthful beauty thing for something, right?

I never fell in love with anybody really rich, so I was gonna have to figure it out on my own.

She works hard for the money.

I make a lot of jokes about hookers, but I don’t really know any. The ad for “dancers” in the paper claimed that I could make big money just by dancing with some nice men, with my clothes on.

It was tempting to call the number, but then I imagined hairy, old, sweaty men trying to rub up against me and grab my boobs and butt.

A sexy image to be sure, but not my taste in highbrow employment options. Even worse, what if I tried to push them away and the boss got mad at me? What if they really tried to force me to take it further?

A friend told me recently that strippers look down on hookers, even though a lot of us think they’re only one step or “champagne room” slip away. I guess there’s a hierarchy in everything, even sex workers.

I once fell in love with a stripper named Yanna.

Ahhh...Yanna.

Well, it was just a girl crush, and she was so pretty and her skin smelled of pears and vanilla. I used to go to strips clubs sometimes with my male friends after we went out to dinner, this was before any of us had children.

Then one day my boyfriend and I went to this particular strip club where Yanna worked alone. She was dancing on the main stage, which means her top was off, but this was not the seedy “bottomless” type club- those men in there have a serial killer vibe.

Yanna broke character on stage in the middle of her strip dance and ran over to me and Nick, waving and exclaiming “Hey, you guys! Where have you been?”

“Yanna?” I asked. She had lost weight, at least 10 pounds, from an already thin body. She was still gorgeous, though. “Yanna, I barely recognized you, have you lost weight?”

“Yeah.” Yanna replied sadly, “My boyfriend broke up with me. I’ve been depressed.”

Nick and I looked at each other, speechless. We had gotten too close to our stripper, too close for comfort.

And that moment ended my stripping career. Now I just get naked on the Internet, y’all.

Women are beautiful.

XOXO-

~ Heidi

P.S. Follow me on Twitter @GirltoMom -but warning: I cuss like a sailor there.