Books: Confessions of a Stripper

Stripper polemic

By John Ziebell

For a number of reasons I don't pretend to understand, strip clubs have a lot of cultural cachet these days, and there are plenty of self-proclaimed experts willing to weigh in on them, from academics to refried political tyrants. The difference touted by Confessions of a Stripper is that the book is by a working dancer--or a recently retired dancer, to be exact--rather than an outside observer or visitor to the industry.

Lacey Lane, your "tanned and toned" narrator, is comfortable with the idea that she's smarter, sexier and more successful than you or anyone you know, and is not shy about reminding us...but dancing naked in front of strangers is certainly not a career for the insecure. And it's hard to argue that she didn't work for her money. The pockets of narcissism aside, the book does have an earnest feel; Lane might be bragging, and the stories in the book are obviously selected for their entertainment value, but she's also offering what she sees as honest insights into the business.

The book is divided into two parts. The first, "Confessions of a Stripper," is a memoir of getting started in the trade, along with advice to both potential strippers and patrons; the second and longer section, "Tales from the VIP Room," is pretty much what the title leads readers to expect. Don't look for language that soars to new heights...this ain't literature, but it is engaging and energetic.

There are no surprises in the first half of the book, but Lane does provide a good overall feel for the business, and her conversational tone is appealing; still, as the author astutely points out, there may not be much to glean from businessmen who try hard to live up to the image represented on The Sopranos. It's the second part that most people will pick up the book for--the real inside dirt on what goes on in those back rooms. There are about 30 vignettes that detail every kind of tomfoolery imaginable, and some that's not, from the banal through the funny, the sad to...the, uh, bits that are perhaps too cinematic for belief. What's most amazing is the array of bizarre activities people will ask strangers to undertake for a few bucks; sexual perversity is one thing, but some of these guys are really bent.

Confessions of a Stripper is an entertainment, not a treatise. Still, even if the book lacks an agenda, it does have a perspective, and what seems eminently clear is that the people who most buy into all the bullshit strip club mythos are the dancers themselves. The men who go into the clubs, no matter how fun, demeaning or Neanderthal they turn out to be, know exactly what they want, how much money they're going to spend and what they're going to get for it. Some are buying fetish time, but to say there's any fantasy involved seems a stretch. It's only the dancers who somehow believe there's magic involved in these transactions; maybe it's because they're the ones walking away with the cash.

When she's discussing one of the less-upscale clubs she worked in, Lane says: "I got a few good stories out of the time I spent there, without compromising my own values and beliefs in the process, which made it all worthwhile." That's the kind of glib statement that shows up frequently, and while the author may believe it, readers could be a bit unclear about how a dancer can differentiate between letting some creep lick fruit jelly off her feet (okay) and refusing to let another one eat sliced cheese from a a different anatomical area (not okay). Processed food is processed food, right? But perhaps, like any live act, this performance is more pleasing if not examined too closely.