By Valerie Stunning
This piece has been lightly edited from its original version, which originally Valerie Stunning originally published on her site in two parts.
Countless first responders, firefighters, search and rescue workers, EMT’s, law enforcement officers, ER nurses and doctors, military members, and even a Homeland Security guy or two have paid to see me naked. Accordingly, I often joke that I, too, was a public servant — especially because my experience working as a stripper for 13 years was that nudity is the amuse-bouche, but rarely the meat and potatoes of what these folks seek at the club.
First responders, like 98% of people I’ve entertained, often come for the titties and stay for the connection. It’s a group of people I was regularly happy to engage with, as no one appreciates a smiling professional party girl more than a person who regularly bears witness to the worst day of peoples’ lives. Actually, I was regularly happy to engage most of my customers. Ok, all of them except cops.
I have a long history of not trusting cops. I had the seed of distrust planted in me as a kid witnessing domestic violence, then nourished as a troubled teen, and grown and grown throughout my adult life — particularly during my tenure as a sex worker and community organizer. In fact, “not trusting” cops is putting it mildly, vehemently disdaining is probably more apt, to the point that if I met someone at work who admitted to being a cop (typically from another city or state) I would get up and walk away.
Heralding an ACAB ethos (all cops are bastards) has been a fixture in both my personal and professional belief systems. If I tally the combination of my own experiences plus years of organizing with fellow sex workers who’ve shared stories of being violated by police when they needed protection (or were just going about their business), and add in the endless historical and modern day examples of police racism and brutality, it’s really a no brainer. I like piña coladas, getting caught in the rain, long walks on the beach, and, I hate cops. That is, until a series of encounters at a ramshackle nudie bar in Colorado Springs.
The second-to-last club I worked at before retiring was a proper relic, the kind of place with un-ironic wood paneling and its original carpet and staff. The drinks were stiff, the sound system was weak, and the pool table was lopsided and spotted with unidentifiable gunk. As emphasized in this love letter I wrote to a jiggle joint in Vegas when it closed, I have a soft spot for strip clubs like this, and had a blast working there.
One night, as we were getting dangerously close to power hour (the hour before last call when all strippers go into overdrive pushing sales), I sauntered over to a big square man at the bar. He was clean cut, sported a bushy mustache, and wore a bright colored Hawaiian shirt. He appeared uncomfortable in that way highly anxious people do when they’re attempting to assert confidence. I appreciated his effort; it signaled he was dealing with some shit (who isn’t) but was making the effort to have fun. The first rule of strip clubs is you have to want to participate.
He bought me a drink and we took a seat behind the stage. Then I did what I always do when getting to know a prospective client: I sat in a way that flaunted my assets and asked innocuous questions. As a rule of thumb I never asked what people did for work. One, I really didn’t care (unless they were cops). Two, strip clubs should provide respite from work and real life problems (unless you’re a cop). Three, 90% of people ended up volunteering that information anyway, which always reinforced to me that work is where a lot of us source our identity and sense of value.
As we talked I noticed this guy was prickly. His mouth was saying all the right things, but the way he said them and his physical rigidity told me he was hiding. It made me not trust him. Unfortunately, my purse was a lot lighter than I had wanted it to be for the time of night it was, so I decided to sit a few minutes longer and continue to feel him out. I needed to know, was he a bad person? Someone capable of violence or at the very least being a disrespectful customer and more hassle than he was worth? If so, I’d cut my losses. Or was he, as I'd initially picked up on, fronting as a way to not think about or expose whatever he was dealing with outside the club?
I flirted a little more and as he talked, I realized his Hawaiian shirt had grenades on it. Then it dawned on me — the mustache, the prickliness, the douchie shirt… this guy was a cop. As if he had heard me think it, he suddenly stated that he was on leave from his job as a police officer.
He kept talking, but whatever he said after his reveal faded away. I was too busy slowly reapplying my lipgloss and taking note of the number of songs that had played since we sat down. Then I looked at the waning crowd in the room, mentally recounted my night's earnings, and made the calculated decision to try to close the sale. I lowered my voice, touched his arm, and went in for the kill. With a hefty dose of fuck it, he slammed his drink and stood up. We were off to the VIP room.
