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Discrimination is rampant in the sex work industry

Internally, there are instances of “pretty privilege,” racism, misogyny, and body shaming. 

Externally, people who work in the sex work industry are often discriminated against when they try to hire professional services, ironically, like tax accountants. 

We wanted to dive into this industry to better understand the financial difficulties and realities of what it’s like to work in an occupation that’s so often misunderstood. We sat down with Grey Renee, a stripper, educator, and former money-coaching client of Tori’s, to discuss the realities of sex work.

We get into:

• What a typical shift looks like financially

• How clubs make their money, and what that means for tip shares with other club employees

• The difference between legal sex work and exploitation

• Who the worst clientele really are at clubs

Grey’s links:
Instagram
Spiritually Ratchet

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Transcript:

Grey Renee:

For me, if I’m at a club and I’m taking my top off and dancing for men, 500 to $1,000 is like I’m going to leave happy because in the system of things, as long as I didn’t have an particularly abusive experience, which does happen, I’m happy with that. A thousand dollars in one shift for maybe four to six hours that’s great money.

Tori Dunlap:

Hi, Financial Feminist. Welcome back to the show. So excited to see you back. You know the drill, subscribe, rate, review helps us support the show. Okay, let’s talk about it. Today’s episode. Some content warnings. This episode discusses sex work and stories from that industry. So it is not a listen on the Sonos in your entire office kind of episode unless your office is the kind of place where that would be totally allowed, in which case, great, but also maybe not one to listen to around your children. I think this whole show is maybe not as much as we try.

I curse all the time, so maybe just in general, but especially this episode, or could lead to a very interesting conversation if you wanted about the world’s oldest industry. So I will leave it up to you to decide. Okay, we are sitting down with a former coaching client of mine, Grey Renee, who is a stripper entrepreneur and coach who sat down with us to talk about the ins and outs of the strip club and sex work industry, including how and when dancers get paid, the surprising client stories, and how laws and regulations vary across state lines. The sex work industry is incredibly vast, and it’s important to understand the differences between legal and responsible sex work and exploitation, which we dive into in this episode.

This is a great episode if you’ve ever wondered how the industry works if someone can become financially independent when working in an industry built around not only inconsistent income. But also, in many ways, the patriarchy and the challenge challenges many sex workers face financially from club owners and managers who take more than their fair share to discrimination both at work and in finding resources like accountants, literal actual accountants who are willing to work for them. I also ask a question that might be on your mind in this episode, which is, is sex work feminist? It’s a debate that’s really interesting because part of me is like, “Hell yes, this is the most feminist thing you can do.”

And the other part of me is like, “Mmm, This feels really dicey.” So if you are the person who has wondered and thought about this, this is a really, really great conversation that is very eye-opening and really important for, I think, all of our journeys as feminists. We talked about managing tipped worker finances in a previous episode with Barbara Sloan, but here are a few quick facts. 5.5 million workers are in the tipped industry, and an estimated 23.9 million are in the gig economy out of 155 million workers, so roughly one in five. There are, in total, 57 million freelancers, which is crazy. That’s on its own way to be kind of tipped or an inconsistent kind of income industry.

We also, in this episode, talk about some of the surprising costs that fall back onto individuals in the sex work industry and one shocking revelation about who the actual worst clients really are. Once again, not safe for work content ahead, but let’s go ahead and get into it. But first, a word from the companies that allow us to bring you all of this good free content. Are hats better, if that makes sense? Do you get better tips if you wear a hat? I imagine, with Santa hats, it’s like, “Oh, this might be somebody’s kink.” I don’t know. I don’t know.

Grey Renee:

Sometimes. I think costumes, depending on where you’re geographically located and how serious the men take themselves and how serious the club takes themselves is going to depend on whether or not outfits and costumes are kind of an experience that people want to have. Or if you just look like the weird girl in high school showing up [inaudible 00:04:16] outfit.

Tori Dunlap:

Interesting. You think it’s geography. Is that really it?

Grey Renee:

Oh yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

So what regions are down with a Santa hat and which are no way Jose?

Grey Renee:

Well, here right now, because at the specific place I work at, we have kind of a theme before the Christmastime, and we’ll have a Christmas party, so everyone dresses up. And in South Dakota, where I’ve worked pheasant hunting season before, there you have girls that have really unique set of skills.

One year I had an entire cowgirl outfit, so it was hot pink, and I had my friend custom do a little neon cowboys cowgirl hat, and she did fringe and a little broken heart on it. And then I had this whole getup that was hot pink, sparkly cowgirl, and I had these heels that had a little revolver as the stiletto.

Tori Dunlap:

Cool.

Grey Renee:

And they loved it. I mean, these guys are in the middle of South Dakota. A lot of them are farmers. Some of them are flying in from Minnesota, Wisconsin, different areas to go shoot birds for some reason. I don’t know. It’s very popular, and they love a theme.

Tori Dunlap:

What states are you like, “Theme does not work. Tried it, bombed, does not work.”

Grey Renee:

Yeah, I would say Texas is sometimes that way. It depends on the
club. You have them what I like to call hot girl clubs, which means that sometimes you are discriminated against for your weight, for your race, for your particular look. If you have dark hair versus blonde hair, you might get hired later with the blonde hair. I’ve experienced that-

Tori Dunlap:

Wow.

Grey Renee:

… where I naturally have this little dark hair right here, and I make more money as a blonde. I get more attention. I get… Sometimes I don’t even have to audition for the clubs, whereas other times, I did. It’s very unique. There’s very strict beauty standards that are bleed over into the patriarchy-

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Grey Renee:

… and keeping women in their place. And so it just depends. But I think, traditionally, the higher-end clubs that you’re going to pay a 20 to $50 fee to walk into, they… I do an act where I travel and pole dance on roller skates. And in Texas, they hate it. They’re like, “No, do not do the roller skates.”

Tori Dunlap:

Interesting.

Grey Renee:

Yeah, it’s too Portland for them.

Tori Dunlap:

Is that on your resume that you’re handing them auditions, and it’s under special skills? It’s, “In addition to regular pole dancing, might I give you pole dancing on roller skate.”

Grey Renee:

I called myself a Roller Girl for a while, which then when I re-watched the movie…

Tori Dunlap:

Oh, because it was like trademark thing.

Grey Renee:

Yeah. Yeah. And when you… I had danced back in 2011, and when I danced at that time, I think that I was getting away from a family dynamic where I had very authoritative parents that controlled me a lot with money. And so when I started dancing at night and then taking 21 credit hours during the day, I was like, “Oh, actually, this thing cocaine sounds maybe kind of nice because I can do all the things I want to do and over-function really hard.” And so I villainized stripping as catering to very brief drug addiction and issues with my mental health.

However, when I came back to it a few years ago, four years ago, five years ago now, I was in Portland, and I had just come out of an abusive relationship and had been financially abused by this guy. He had racked up thousands of dollars on a credit card that he convinced me to open up. And I was just kind of in this spot and was like, “Okay. Well, let’s see how it is now.” And going back into the industry and relearning boundaries and how to kind of just function in the strip club where it’s safe for me to be there, which is totally possible. And it’s a code that me and my best friend and business partner have unlocked. It is difficult, and it’s not foolproof.

There are… Just like in any situation, there’s disordered people out there, and there’s predators out there, and they’re going to try and get at you no matter what industry you work in. And I would say that a lot of people consider the strip club to leave you in a really vulnerable place. And it does on one hand. On another hand, when you’re supported by the people that work there, the bouncers, the management, you can find a working relationship where if somebody is being disrespectful and crossing a boundary and you are in your power, you can get them kicked out. I dare a guy at certain clubs that I’ve worked at to make a move because he would get… Ooh.

Tori Dunlap:

Try anything. Yeah. You unknowingly just answered most of my questions, which was great. No, but let’s dive into that, and I appreciate your vulnerability right off the top. You and I connected because you came to me, and we worked in a coaching scenario, which I loved.

And it sounds like I know a bit about your story as well. There are a lot of, unfortunately, negative beliefs around money, financial abuse. What for you is the impetus of coming and starting coaching and doing that coaching session? And then, oh my gosh, I have so many other questions about what you just said too. She just blew my mind in so many aspects.

Grey Renee:

So number one was finding a woman that was successful.

Tori Dunlap:

Mm-hmm.

Grey Renee:

Finding a female who…

Tori Dunlap:

Shouldn’t be as novel as it is, [inaudible 00:10:05].

Grey Renee:

It really shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t. I think I… I feel like I learned this maybe in your teaching or somewhere else. I’ve been doing over the past year, a lot of research. But women having more of the student loan debt in the country and having kind of the pink tax and all of the things that hinder us to be becoming financially independent. And what I recognized in following your profile for over a year before I ever paid for coaching was recognizing some of the belief systems in myself, some of the ideas, and the fear. I remember one of your posts where you’re asking for a raise, and then you grab your water, and you’re like… And it’s like, “Oh God, okay. I relate to that.”

A lot of where some of that stuff and that positivity led me in my personal growth. However, some of it can be so such a wall. There’s like, “Oh, just do it. Just it. Just get it done. Just man through it.” And it’s like from the woman’s perspective, and I feel like from the human perspective, when we get more connected to men’s vulnerability and open the door for that, it’s like, “Well, let’s talk about the feelings that this stuff is evoking because it’s the deep-rooted feeling that our society gives us of not being enough.” And then financially, that being a huge factor in that feeling of not-enoughness.

So it’s like you can be rinsing your mental health, seeing a therapist, doing all these things. But if you’re in debt and your company’s not successful, let’s say you’re an entrepreneur and you’re trying to start your own business. There’s this big fear around doing that because you’re like, “Oh, I suddenly, now that I have a business, need to just have it all figured out and need to have my finances ready.” And it’s like, “Well, typically, the first year, two years of business, you don’t make a huge profit, and it’s a learning experience.”

And I felt like with the information that you offered was digging into that vulnerability, pulling it up and dissecting it, dissecting what was true about it and what was actually just either patriarchal bullshit or st
ories that from your family systems that you were telling yourself, generational trauma, et cetera. It’s getting down to the brass tacks of why you’re telling yourself, even in your manifestation practice, why you can’t ever have enough money.

Tori Dunlap:

That’s our entire book and podcast just summed up. So you said something, and this is something I have been thinking about and reckoning because we’ve had multiple conversations with sex workers on the show, and part of the feminist in me is like, “Hell fucking yeah. Do whatever you want to do with your body. Make the bag.”

Grey Renee:

Mm-hmm.

Tori Dunlap:

“Convince straight white men to just give you a bunch of shit.” And then the other part of the feminist in me is like, “This feels exploitative. If this is not a choice, this is icky.” And I live about five minutes away from a very famous street in Seattle where you can drive and you can see sex workers just standing on the street, just waiting to get picked up. And literally, it makes my body hurt watching women do this.

Grey Renee:

Mm-hmm.

Tori Dunlap:

And then I also go, “But is this a choice for them? I don’t know if it is.” So what do you say to that? What is your response to that because I go back and forth?

Grey Renee:

Yeah. I mean, it’s a really interesting internal struggle. As a very privileged white female, my appearance, I have pretty privilege. I have white privilege. I grew up with two different kind of alternating experiences. My mother biologically was a drug addict. So when I would go visit her for a couple of months in the summer, we didn’t have food. We didn’t have underwear to change. I had lice for over a month when I was there.

Tori Dunlap:

Wow.

Grey Renee:

But then on the other… Yeah. And on the other end of that, I had my father, who remarried my stepmother, who was a VP of finance, and he went back to school and was a stay-at-home dad. So we didn’t have everything we wanted. We weren’t like spoiled rotten, but for the most part, we did. We had all of our basic needs met, plus little game boy advances at Christmas and-

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Grey Renee:

… different opportunities.

Tori Dunlap:

… [inaudible 00:14:28].

Grey Renee:

Yeah. So I feel like making that clear of where I’m coming from. And my perspective is important because I’m going to have a different perspective than somebody that is doing sex work as a means of survival. I have definitely dabbled in it. I’m very open with a lot of my community and a lot of the people close to me. I’ve had sugar daddies before. I’ve had strictly sex work relationships, and I also consider stripping and erotic play with your body to be sex work. So I don’t deem sex work in a negative connotation.

However, there’s sex trafficking. There’s sex slavery that all needs to be considered. Sometimes in the clubs, you see issues with pimps and girls being kind of controlled by them due to circumstances of drugs, financial irresponsibility, or children in their life. And so there’s a lot of different perspectives on this. For me personally, in my journey, sex work has given me an immense feeling of control and power over my own experience.

My stance on it personally is that it has brought a lot of power into my life and a lot of recognition of what a boundary is for me, where my boundaries are, how to express my boundaries, how to utilize nonviolent communication. It’s opened up an entire world of an internal therapist within myself that I’m able to actually share with others. So for me and my clients, I am more of a sex therapist life coach than anything. I help them.

When I first started, it was kind of not very transparent. The only advice I was getting was from other sugar babies and sex workers online that was like, “You know, con them and take them for all their worth.” And the wanting to balance the patriarchy feminist in me was like, “Yeah, they deserve it.” But then the water sign cancer in me was like, “This doesn’t feel good.”

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Grey Renee:

And so I shifted my business model to being transparent to like, “Full disclosure, I am a service provider. I’m providing you with a service, and if you want this service, it’s going to cost this much and for this amount of time.”

Tori Dunlap:

Yep.

Grey Renee:

And it’s like any other service provider. However, when you get into the realm of people needing emotional connection and needing this service, it comes from a deep place of the society failing in terms of mental health support. So sex workers, therapists are often there to pick up the slack. So specifically, with sex workers, you create an open, non-judgmental environment that’s even more so than what you would experience going into a therapy session. We are considered bottom of the barrel of people.

So immediately when somebody is like, “Well, I’m actually providing you with a service, and this is how much a…” They’re like, “Oh, hope. Thank God I can finally be myself.” It’s such a difficult question to answer because there are people out there that are doing it for however they do it, however they get their hustle. And if we’re talking about people taking advantage of other people, it’s like, well, Jeff Bezos takes advantage of other people on the larger scale than a sex worker on a white guy who’s got millions of dollars, who’s looking to-

Tori Dunlap:

Totally. Totally.

Grey Renee:

… have sex with a young girl and kind of is not emotionally matured because they’ve paid everyone around them to exist in the way that they want them to exist because they’re so rich that they can control that. Well, the one thing that they can’t control is a whore or a prostitute in their eyes is how they would perceive that. I don’t utilize that language.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Grey Renee:

I think service provider is more accurate. But they’ll kind of put you in this box, and you end up being th
e one person that they get a lot of their disordered behavior out on. And so it’s navigating whether or not the relationship is healthy, whether or not it’s safe for you to be in, whether or not it’s beneficial for you, and whether or not you’re actually helping them. I’ve had clients where I’ve worked with them for a year, and it’s just like beating my head against the wall, and I’m like, “Okay, you’re out.”

And then they’re like, “Well, I spent thousands of dollars on you, and I just blah, blah, blah,” whatever story they’re telling themselves. And I’m like, “Well, you’re not doing the work. You’re not healing with me. You’re [inaudible 00:19:01]…” Every time I would go to this one client, he would argue with me. He would buy dances from me, even though I consider that sex work. It’s not exclusively what maybe people in society would consider sex work.

And he was young too, and he would argue with me every time I got there. He would argue about my price. He would argue about how long I was going to be there. And then, after the end of it, I’d be like, “Well, I’ve now been here for two hours, so I’m leaving.” And then he would send me the money when I left. And I’m like, “You can’t pay me enough to just sit here and argue with you.”

Tori Dunlap:

Maybe that’s what he got off on.

Grey Renee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

No, I think there was a TikTok or something I saw probably a year or two ago that is women or basically non-men it’s sex work selling their bodies, but we don’t consider the military. The military is the way you’re selling your body for violence, and then, typically, men doing that. But then sex work is the thing that is considered on the outskirts of society or a bad thing to do. And it’s like, “Is the military any different? We’re just selling somebody’s body for a different reason. It’s for war, not necessarily for sex, right.”

Grey Renee:

Yeah. And I [inaudible 00:20:15] go deeper on that. It’s any job. Any job you are clocking in and literally selling your body to the position. You are… Whether it’s you’re clocking in for yourself or you’re-

Tori Dunlap:

Sure.

Grey Renee:

… clocking in for a serving position. If you’re a busboy, a barback, if you are data entry, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. You are selling your time. Your physical body is doing something in order to elicit money. So how do you want to do that? And in regards to the military, I mean, I could go really deep on this because the military, what they’re encouraging people to sign up for, is psychological abuse, which is necessary to be able to murder another person. That is not innately in our human nature. There’s been scientific studies and facts proving this. It’s not within our conscious behavior. So if we’re excluding sociopaths, et cetera, who are devoid of a conscious, and we look at the broader spectrum of humans, the military goes in to create a brotherhood around this abuse to create this environment of soldiers that will respond in a way that they want them to.

So I mean, I have more problems with the military than I do with sex workers because sex workers, a lot of the time, are healers and are in the realm of healing these men who have been scarred and discarded from the military who have no one left. And when you start talking to them, and you go into a VIP with this guy, he’s spending thousands of dollars on you to hang out, and you’re… you end up just talking about their life and about their experience. And sometimes, I’ll go really deep with them. And still, the programming within this structure is so strong that these men will turn around and be like, “Yeah, but it’s not the military, though. Those are my brothers, and I live for that.” I’m like, [inaudible 00:22:14].

Tori Dunlap:

Well, and there’s a difference between, I think, people in the military versus the system that exists, right.

Grey Renee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

And it’s like, we are not anti-veteran on this podcast. It’s not like-

Grey Renee:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Tori Dunlap:

But it’s more this idea. And I think the trauma bonding that happens with other soldiers with other members is so strong where it’s like any sort of criticism is not aimed at people.

Grey Renee:

Mm-hmm.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s aimed at systems or ego that gets us into wars in the first place. But I do want to focus us to talk. I have a bunch of questions about your experience at clubs. What for you looks like a bad shift?

Because in some of our research, we learned that sometimes you can lose money on a bad shift, especially if you’re getting started. So what are typical house expenses you pay before you even go on stage, and what would you consider, at least financially, to be a not-so-great shift?

Grey Renee:

So I’ll talk about what is a good shift for me personally, and this range can be different for everybody. For me, if I’m at a club and I’m taking my top off and dancing for men, 500 to $1,000 is like I’m going to leave happy because in the system of things, as long as I didn’t have an particularly abusive experience, which does happen, I’m happy with that. A thousand dollars in one shift for maybe four to six hours that’s great money.

Tori Dunlap:

This might be my naivete. I have actually… I’ve never been to a strip club. Are they allowed to touch you?

Grey Renee:

So technically, there’s a lot of overlooking in certain states. It depends on the club. So in Tennessee, if there’s alcohol sold, you cannot touch, and there can’t be nudity. But if there is nudity and you don’t touch, there can be alcohol sold. So it’s the little Tennessee wiggle around. And then also if they are selling alcohol, but they don’t want nudity at the club, they’ll do what they call go-go dancers. So you’ll give lap dancers, but you’ll be in a bikini.

And in addition to that, it’s to the dancer’s discretion. I’ve worked at clubs where girls have allowed touching for $20 dances, and I’m like, “I would never.” Because I’ve been in the industry so long that as far as inflation goes, I’m like, “I’m not going to give you a $20 dance in the first place.” I’ve been doing this since on and off since 2013. If dances were $20 in 2013, what should a dance be now? So I think-

Tori Dunlap:

[inaudible 00:24:52] we could do that math really fast-

Grey Renee:

Yes.

Tori Dunlap:

… way more than $20.

Grey Renee:

It should be a lot more. The whole idea of it is a sales position. You’re not just selling your body. You’re selling an experience, a fantasy, and what are you comfortable with within the fantasy? What are you comfortable offering? And then how much does that cost? And what does that look like? And some of discovering that in your career as a dancer or as a sex worker is doing it for a price and then going away and being like, “Ooh, that felt really icky.”

That either needs to be more money, or it doesn’t need to be on the table at all. And so that’s where you discover your own boundaries. I had a night the other night. December is literally, especially December, and a recession is the worst month at the strip club because everyone is very family-focused. There’s not a lot of the people that are what I would consider the good clientele in the club at that time because they’re focused on buying Christmas presents, they’re focused on holiday meetups.

Tori Dunlap:

What is good clientele? Who is the good clientele?

Grey Renee:

Honestly, good clientele are respectful men who ask consent before they touch you or before they do anything. I mean, there’s some guys who will come up, and they think it’s cool because they’re throwing a wad of a hundred dollar ones at you, but then they chuck it at you, and it hits you in the face, and you’re like, “[inaudible 00:26:24]. Why? No.” And so it’s very like I am a… I feel sometimes too as well as a life coach for the better clientele.

For the worst clientele, I’m a kindergarten teacher. I go and start a lap dance, and I’m like, “Okay, crisscross apple sauce. Now look at me. Look at my eyes. Okay. So boundaries. Okay, no pinching, twisting, or tweaking my nipples. I don’t like that. That’s very uncomfortable. Boundary number two. Do not touch any private areas of mine at all, or your dance will be over.” And then, by the end of the little lecture, they’re like, “Wow, so many rules.”

Tori Dunlap:

Oh God.

Grey Renee:

“I don’t know if I can follow them.” I’m like, “You will, or your dance is going to be over.” So on the antithesis of that is the great clientele. There can be two realities here where they’re like, “Oh, can’t even believe a guy would do that.” And they’re absolutely the guy that would do that. Or they’re like, “Wow, I can’t believe you need to say that.”

And they’re like absolutely respectful, sitting on their hands, not crossing a boundary at all. And that’s not to say sitting on your hands is preferred. I think that consensual boundary like sensual touching is the goal. I want to enjoy it as much as you do, and we both can if you are doing it right. But a lot of these people, a lot of these men too, are so devoid of sometimes physical contact, but really emotional contact and emotional resonance.

Tori Dunlap:

Right. Intimacy.

Grey Renee:

Yeah. They’re literally what I call grabbing. They’re pulling your energy, but it manifests in the lap dance in a physical pulling and jerking of your body. And you have to be like, “Hey, babe, when you do that, you’re hurting me. Do you want to hurt me, or do you want to turn me on?” It’s terrible too, because I’ve boiled it down to men respond to very basic commands, and training them is a matter of saying they’re hot or they’re not. Because at first, I started trying to be like, “Hey, so in consent culture and blah, blah, blah, and boundaries.”

Tori Dunlap:

Right. You’re trying to reason with an unreasonable or… Yeah.

Grey Renee:

Well, somebody who doesn’t even have the vocabulary.

Tori Dunlap:

Trying to use the lofty educational language when they’re just thinking with they’re-

Grey Renee:

Yeah. And so you just have to be like, “Babe, babe, you’re being really not hot right now. Can we be hotter? Okay, thank you.”

Tori Dunlap:

Which… Does that make you feel weird?

Grey Renee:

No.

Tori Dunlap:

Because I know…

Grey Renee:

I mean…

Tori Dunlap:

Oh, see, for me, as someone who’s like, “I want to be educated, and I don’t want to just dumb this down for you, it makes…” Oh, Jesus Christ.

Grey Renee:

You’ve got to cater it to each clientele. I mean-

Tori Dunlap:

Sure. Sure.

Grey Renee:

… I feel like emotional intelligence is centered around vocabulary, and really education in any aspect is centered around your vocabulary in that subject. And how much do you understand when someone else is talking to you? And what guys respond to is, “Do I want to touch their private parts and have a sexual interaction with them, and are they attractive?”

And these are the two things that, in this environment, they go into with anxiety about. And I think, similarly, women have this experience. We, especially in this industry, are thrown into an environment where our bodies are objectified. I wouldn’t say that, in that environment, we necessarily lose the idea of our autonomy, but with some clients, maybe, perhaps.

Tori Dunlap:

Do you find that it’s a different experience when women come into the club?

Grey Renee:

Honestly, women are worse.

Tori Dunlap:

Really.

Grey Renee:

Women are worse. I would say, in my personal experience, I want to say 90% of women will grab without asking, smack without c
onsenting. I mean, I’ve seen women… Oh, this is terrible that I’m going to give this away, but I’ve seen women getting fingered at the bar under their skirts at a club.

Tori Dunlap:

Wow.

Grey Renee:

And I’m like, “Hey.” I just go up. I’m so awkward. I go, I’m like, “Hey, it looks like you guys are ready for VIP.” [inaudible 00:30:26]. There’s a lot of reasons that this can happen is innately. When you’re seeing a bunch of really beautiful women walk around you half naked that have incredible dance skills, a lot of makeup on, hair extensions, et cetera, it can be intimidating for a woman. But also-

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Grey Renee:

… for on the other end of that, a woman who is maybe more reserved in her normal life can feel like she can let her freak flag fly and take off her shirt in the middle of the club, and you’re like, “Whoa, literally, I’m working here, and you’re messing up my workflow because that’s supposed to happen in the back, not on the floor.”

Tori Dunlap:

So let’s talk about the back room. So what is the difference? The difference is, again, I’m coming from all of this, never been to a strip club, very naive when it comes to all this. So front of the house is on a pole stripping. Back of the house is more intimate, one-on-one touching. Is that correct?

Grey Renee:

Yeah, I would say it depends on the club. There’s certain clubs where… There’s a club in South Dakota where you can do a vibrator show, but the guy can’t touch you. So you can basically get paid to masturbate, and nobody gets to touch you. It’s awesome. For me, it was interesting as I grew in this industry. When I first started dancing, I was a virgin. And I was like, “Oh, I would never, never have sex for money or do a sexual act for money.”

And that in itself is a lot of whorephobia and a lot of shame. And it dates back to brothels and the experience around putting women into a spot where you can shame them. And what’s the most shameful thing you can say to a woman is that she’s a whore. It ruined their reputation back in the day. It’s less so now we’ve got artists like Cardi B, like Nicki Minaj coming forth and making it a part of the culture, but whorephobia is still rampant and a major issue.

Tori Dunlap:

Men are applauded by society for their, quote-unquote, conquests, right.

Grey Renee:

Mm-hmm.

Tori Dunlap:

But a woman’s… Still, in 2022, 2023, I think a woman is prided on her virginity, which is completely a social construct, right. Virginity is a social construct.

Grey Renee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

And so…

Grey Renee:

It’s made up.

Tori Dunlap:

Right. Right. So it’s-

Grey Renee:

I wish I had sold mine.

Tori Dunlap:

[inaudible 00:32:52]. Oh my God. Yeah. Even you just saying that. And I can only… I can tell from just society. And also how I was raised, I’m like, “It makes me so uncomfortable.” It’s just like-

Grey Renee:

I know.

Tori Dunlap:

It’s so… Oh, God. But yeah, it’s like for men, it’s how many women can you have sex with? How many women can you conquer? And again, I put conquer and the most massive air quotes. And then for women, it’s like, how do you stay pure above all costs? And again, pure in major air quotes. Yeah, it’s interesting. But yes, back room.

Grey Renee:

Yeah. So the back room, it can vary in a lot of different places. Typically, if there’s a champagne room, I will hold space for that. If sex work is occurring in the club, that is to the discretion of the woman involved, and the man involved and I don’t hate on it. My only speech out there to women is charge more. If you are charging the same amount as I’m charging for whatever experience, a blow job, who knows, then mine’s not going to sell as well in the club. So I always… I really want [inaudible 00:34:02] that says, it’s like, “Make pussy expensive again.”

A couple of my stripper friends have it, and I’m just… [inaudible 00:34:09] honestly love it. But yeah, I would say the backroom is to the discretion of the woman and obviously within the laws of the state most of the time. For me, it really depends on my interaction with the client. If I am feeling really safe with that person, I might let a little bit more vulnerability happen. Sometimes I’ll go back there with customers, and I’m like, “No, absolutely. You can do absolutely nothing except look at how amazing I look and worship me and throw money on me. Thank you.”

And then there’s other times where the person and I have a great connection, and they’re very attuned to just life in general. And we have a great experience together where I would let them kind of lick my nipples or maybe kiss a little bit. But it really is dependent on who you’re talking to, what kind of experience they’re looking to have, what experience you’re looking to have with them, and meeting in the middle of that kind of sale.

Tori Dunlap:

So the money you get is not money in your pocket. So let’s talk about that. Who do you have to pay before you leave the club? And then, what do taxes look like?

Grey Renee:

Oh, gosh. So I’m, and this is so funny because this is why I ended up doing your coaching and joining and starting with Ameritrade and starting on investments because I was investing with Robinhood, just trying to Google things and be like, “Well, I don’t know. I’m making money again, so what do I do with it?” And there is a tremendous amount of wage theft in the industry, and it’s just something that we as workers have to accept. And as much as I want to fight it and want to be on the front lines of feminism and being like, “This is fucked up. Let’s fucking organize.”

The repercussions of organizing against clubs, it’s a string of predominantly male-dominated, specifically white male-dominated ownership. And a lot of these guys own multiple clubs, so they’ll have different names, but they’ll be essentially a chain from the same chief guy, and if you piss off th
at chief guy, you will be blacklisted from the industry. So I tread lightly on preaching too negatively on the tip-outs and the house fees and et cetera because I’ve worked at clubs where it’s definitely not an option. And the place I work at now is probably the most fair.

I would say when I worked in California, California will hire you on as an independent contractor, which is good because, in that state, strippers did unionize and tried to create an environment of benefits for them, et cetera. But it backfired where essentially the club will hire you as an employee, and you will pay the club the fees that you get at the end of the week for your paycheck, and that will be your house fee. So if you are working eight hours, it’ll be, whatever, eight hours plus taxes of what they would pay you at the end of the week. And so you pay that upfront to work the shift.

So it’s like they’re wanting to fix things, but then the patriarchy just comes around and gets their cut regardless. And this is dated back to brothels. Shout out to the podcast, The Oldest Profession. It’s really educational in regards to sex work and the history of sex workers. They do incredible work on demystifying a lot of these concepts. But what they talk about is back in the day, brothels were predominantly percentage based. So you would sleep with a man or whatever, and they would take a percentage. So just like in California, when I worked there, I didn’t pay a house fee, but if I sold a dance, they would get 40%, and I would get 60%.

Tori Dunlap:

40.

Grey Renee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Okay. At your current current club. Okay, so let’s say you make $1,000. I’m trying to do easy math. How much of that money is actually yours before taxes?

Grey Renee:

Yeah. So the current club, which is not the one in California, I would say all of that money is mine. And then I tip out managers or the DJ. I tip out the DJ. You want that to be based on a percentage, but it’s an unknown percentage. So when you first start working there, they’re like, “You better take care of us.” Because legally, they can’t be like, “Hey, you need to tip us out 10%.”

But you discover through talking to the other dancers, you’re like, “Hey, how much money do they want from me because I don’t know how much to tip to not get fired?” And the club that I work at currently is probably one of the more fair just clubs. However, sometimes you’ve got 40 girls that are able to work on the floor because you are an independent contractor, which is what I seek out. But then it’s like, “Okay, well then the DJ gets $20 from all 40 girls, and then I’ve walked away with maybe $100.”

Tori Dunlap:

Wow.

Grey Renee:

That doesn’t always feel right. However, it does balance out, like tracking it now and tracking the evens. And then also dancers not being financially educated. For me the past two years, I’ve been a sole proprietor. I’m dealing with heavy taxation, especially having come from the State of California. Even though I was flying to different states and working in different areas, I’m still having to pay those taxes.

And now that I’ve formed an LLC, it’s like I am the company, and I can pay myself a livable wage, and then I’m taxed on the other parts of it. And it’s like nobody explains that to you. So I had to go to tax professionals and seek out… Because at first, I was like, “Well, H&R Block can help me.”

Tori Dunlap:

No. If anybody’s listening, leave H&R Block right now.

Grey Renee:

Do not do H&R Block.

Tori Dunlap:

They charge so much in fees.

Grey Renee:

I did it for three years. They really do. And now I have an incredible CPA who it sat me down and helped explain because I had formed my LLC, and he was like, “Do you know why you formed an LLC?” I was like, “I don’t know. I Googled it, and it seemed like a good idea.”

Tori Dunlap:

“Because I was supposed to maybe.” Yeah.

Grey Renee:

And he was like, “Let me explain it to you.” And so it’s like, it’s really interesting because sometimes you can go away with thousands of dollars at the club, but then sometimes there can be a month where you are making $100, or you’re spending 45, $100 to be present there and not make any money.

Tori Dunlap:

So you were saying before about it’s… December’s not a great time. We’re recording this obviously in December, and that I imagine with [inaudible 00:41:01] recession discussion. There might have been some lost wages. We found a stat that says that strippers are indicators of the economy. Have you found this to be true?

Grey Renee:

I think so. Yeah. I think strippers and sex workers alike, it’s a huge indication when you have a client that’s willing to spend $5,000 on you fairly regularly, and then that client kind of slowly is, “I don’t know.” It’s also, too, some people’s money is wrapped up in stocks. In their mind, they think, “Oh, I have all this money,” and then the stocks go down, and then they panic because not in a place where they’re seeing that as a sale and they’re not really trading in a super healthy way. It’s a little bit more of a gambling way.

And so they come in, and they’re big ballers in the club, and then the recession hits, and they’re nowhere to be found except maybe at the bar, not tipping a single dollar wasting girls’ time. So yeah. So I think that any luxury item, which is what I consider sex work and stripping to be like it is an… Human connection is a necessity. But specifically, this bracket of human connection is not… you don’t need it. It is a luxury item.

Anytime a recession hits, the blue states that are small bars and strip clubs are going to be the first to go. So California last year in the clubs was terrible. So I went to red state, and it was slightly better for a year, and now it’s kind of on the downtrend. Granted, this is just how the economy goes. So as a person who has a emotional regulation and what’s about me, it’s like, “Okay, well, let’s do some research. What’s happening here? How do we work around this?” Next year, I will not work in December.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah.

Grey Renee:

December is when I’m going to be going to Europe or doing something that is not working at the club.

Tori Dunlap:

Totally. I’ve discussed in multiple interviews about how it’s difficult navigating the dating world as a financially independent woman. Is it difficult for you navigating the dating world is a stripper. Do you talk about it on the first date? Are your dates intimidated when they find out? Are they like, “Is that fun?” I think of Nick at one point, in New Girl, dates a stripper, and he’s so intrigued by it. And for me, it was one of his worst moments where I’m like, I’m kind of grossed out by how he basically is-

Grey Renee:

I agree.

Tori Dunlap:

… turned on just because of what she does. I don’t know. How is that for you?

Grey Renee:

I think that dating is so… it’s so funny. It’s the first question that men bring up when they sit down with you. They’re like, “Wow, you’re so amazing and smart? You’re not anything like a stripper that I thought. Is it hard to date?”

Tori Dunlap:

Ew, no. Boo. Tomato, tomato, tomato. Don’t ever say that to the person ever. Regardless of like… Oh my gosh.

Grey Renee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

If they’re a sex worker or a stripper or not, just never be like, “Oh my God, I didn’t know you were this smart.” Like [inaudible 00:44:20].

Grey Renee:

“Wow, you’re so smart for being a woman in her underwear right now.”

Tori Dunlap:

Oh man.

Grey Renee:

Okay. Wow.

Tori Dunlap:

Right.

Grey Renee:

Wow.

Tori Dunlap:

“Wow, you’re so well-spoken. Thanks, bud.”

Grey Renee:

Ugh, I forgot your question again. What was it?

Tori Dunlap:

Oh, just how is it like dating?

Grey Renee:

Yeah, so dating for me, this is why I forgot the question is because I don’t date for free. Yeah. To be honest, in my own therapy process currently is dispelling a lot of the fantasy around dating. The fantasy around some man coming to save me because I’ve already saved myself now so that fantasy is… doesn’t work anymore. And then I’m like, “Well, what if it was this cool thing where we were just in love, and it was amazing?” And what I find is that there’s a lot of people out there that get very quickly attached to you start love bombing you and being like, “Wow, you’re so amazing, so incredible. I just love everything about you.”

And then you get kind of the hormonal experience where you’re attracted to them, and you have maybe a sexual experience with them. And then you realize actually this person is fairly disordered and was kind of initially really attracted to you very quickly for a disordered reason. And that’s what I’ve been experiencing recently. So for me now, it’s like I’m charging for my time. You want to date someone that looks like me, that talks like me, that is doing the work me. And I feel like there is a part of me that’s definitely open to the wounds that I’m personally healing within myself. Because what I’ve noticed is that I’ve gained a lot more male friendships now.

And one of the things that I’ve recognized in a lot of the male friendships that I’ve found is true authentic vulnerability and an incredible male perspective that is healing a lot of what some people that come into the strip club have kind of wounded and validated as far as the patriarchy and how men act and reducing them to you are hot or not standards. It works in that environment. But having these close, open male friendships where I can talk about being a sex worker, where I can talk about being a stripper, and they’re so open and vulnerable with me that I’m like, “Wow, this is healing a big part of me.”

So when I say that I don’t date for free right now, it is because there hasn’t been this person that’s connected with me on the same level. However, I do see lines in my life opening up for these men through friendships, and I feel like friendships are the initial lead into a relationship that would be nurturing. And also, I don’t want to do this forever. I think every woman takes the opportunity to suck off the [inaudible 00:47:11] in this industry, but is also doing this to further her business and her passions, and how she wants to show up in the world.

Tori Dunlap:

Yeah. And I love that you said that. There have been plenty of my personal experiences with men who have love bombs/been weirdly caught up in almost [inaudible 00:47:32] the fantasy of me. It’s very different than obviously a sex or fantasy. But we were talking about this on a podcast I was on called Man Enough, and we released that episode of the Fantasy of the Feminist Woman. Weirdly, men are like, “Oh, I want a feminist.” And then when they get into the weeds, they’re like, “No, actually, I don’t. I don’t want that.” Or they haven’t done the work on themselves to be able to handle it.

Grey Renee:

They’re like, “This is a lot of work.”

Tori Dunlap:

Right, right, right. But there are people out there. There are men out there who are really lovely and beautiful and have done the work on themselves. And yeah, I just want all the best things for you.

Grey Renee:

What we call the fantasy complex that a lot of women have. And we have started talking about it with each other because it makes it from being really, really big in our mind and blown up to this kind of funny, silly, playful thing. But I remember the first time I brought it up to her, she had been sharing with me, “Yeah, I’ve been having some fantasies around men, blah, blah, blah, on our healing journey.” And I was like, “Yeah, actually, I had one the other day, and I need to share with you.”

I was like, “I had been traveling so much. I was popping to and from club, working music festivals, working at different clubs at events, and doing feature performances.” So I was lonely without realizing that I was lonely. I was so fulfilled socially, and I’m going to grab my suitcase, and this guy and I make eye contact, and immediately I’m like, “Oh, I wonder what our kids would look like.”

Tori Dunlap:

Oh, I do this shit all the time. I do this shit all the time. I immediately am like… I’m like, “His last name.” I mean, I’m not taking ever a man’s last name. But I’m like, “My first name with his last name. Oh my goodness.”

Grey Renee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

Literally five years in the future of like, “Oh, we’re on a vacation together.” I have the same shit.

Grey Renee:

Yeah. It’s like this biological thing. And I think too, sometimes it comes from the fantasies that we were fed with Disney and all sorts of bullshit.

Tori Dunlap:

Oh, it’s all the media who tells us this is the meet-cute, and it’s a whatever. And I’ve talked about this publicly. I met my current partner at a bar, and wild that happened. Utterly wild.

Grey Renee:

Yeah. Honestly, wow.

Tori Dunlap:

But even in that, I can feel myself getting… Because I love this person very much. This is not by any means the only reason I’m in this relationship. But there is a part of me that is, “This story is really cute, and can I keep this story?”

Grey Renee:

Yep.

Tori Dunlap:

And I know that that is because we’ve been told, “It’s not just your relationship. It’s how you perform your relationship to other people or how it happened, right. The meet-cute of how it happened.” I met a guy studying abroad. Oh God, what was that? Seven years ago? Thought I was getting married to this guy because I’m like, “We met when we were studying abroad, and then we traversed Europe together, and then we stayed together for three years,” which was way too much time because it was like I wanted the story of we’re together, we met abroad, we fell in love.

Grey Renee:

Yeah. I can relate. I stayed in my last abusive relationship for, I think, we were together for five years, but collectively, we were best friends before that and then tried to make it work after we broke off our engagement, and the relationship was not working very early. He was showing signs of emotional dysregulation very early, and I don’t want to label him. I think that he had abuse in his family. I had abuse in my family. The work that I’ve done now, it’s we came to a head. However, part of that was not being able to walk away from the story.

We met while we were serving. I remember making this, you know the astrology map that you get custom etched into wood of the day, that we met the first night that he told me that he liked me, and we’re both cancers. And cancer was in the middle of the sky, and I was like, “It’s destiny.” And my love for the story and the theme and the adventure, and then also the turmoil. So the arc of the story and the journey, it’s like I couldn’t let go of it. Like at the playground when they have the thing spinning, I’m hanging off the edge, and I’m like, “I’m never letting go.”

Tori Dunlap:

Right, right, right, right. No, I mean, I totally, I totally understand that.

Grey Renee:

Yeah.

Tori Dunlap:

So you mentioned these retreats. Can you give us the TLDR of what these are, as well as where people can find you?

Grey Renee:

Yes, absolutely. So right now, we’re getting… I’m hiring a marketing team. So our Instagram is not fully formed yet, but our Instagram for our strip [inaudible 00:52:14] retreats are Wearestripaway, all one word. And in addition to that, we’re opening a podcast in February that talks about kind of mental health awareness tools for… I feel like it’s women specifically, but also men as well. But it’s centered around our experience in the strip club and what we’ve learned from these experiences.

The retreats are going to be focused on kind of combining our experience, working music festivals, and the silliness that comes from clowning, the silliness that can come from stripping and connecting women with their sacred sexuality while also teaching them a lot of tools that we’ve learned to help curb our fantasies that we have about men. Help build our relationships into more productive experiences. One thing that I’ve noticed with my best friend and I is we’ve known each other since we were 10.

We started stripping together way back in the day, and now we have a house together and live in Texas and have this incredible experience with each other where we can hold extreme space for each other’s wounds, and we want to share that with other women and create a community centered around what we’re calling our podcast Spiritually Ratchet because we are both spiritual, but we like to shake that ass.

Tori Dunlap:

I love it. Thank you so much for being here and for your vulnerability. Thank you.

Grey Renee:

Thank you.

Tori Dunlap:

Thank you again to Grey Renee for joining us for the show. You can connect with her and find out what she’s up to and follow her on all the socials and get more information about what she was discussing on the show. Link down below in the show notes. As always, Financial Feminist, we thank you for being here. We thank you for subscribing and rating and reviewing and for diving deeper into these episodes by looking at the show notes. We have transcripts in every single show notes page for every single episode. We have links for further reading and researching, and understanding.

Our team puts a lot of effort, not only, of course, into these episodes but also into the episode show notes. So if that is of interest, if you want to learn and take your learning further, check out those show notes. We would love to see you over there. Thank you, as always, for being here. Thank you for supporting the show and supporting topics that are sometimes a little difficult to talk about, but so important as we learn and grow and as we better support people in industries that, unfortunately, society does not largely support. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being Financial Feminist, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First $100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Sophia Cohen, Khalil Dumas, Elizabeth McCumber, Beth Bowen, Amanda Laffew, Masha Bachmetyeva, Kailyn Sprinkle, Sumaya Mulla-Carillo, and Harvey Carlson. Research by Ariel Johnson, audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Strat
ton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First $100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests, and episode show notes visit financialfeministpodcast.com.