Stripped: Life Beyond the Spotlight

I sit down with Blake Diamond, who spent twenty-two years as a male stripper, traveling coast-to-coast. He opens up about his unconventional life, from backstage rivalries to substance use to how the industry affected his relationships.

Several decades later, Blake reflects on how those years shaped him – what he's gained, lost, and how he redefines fulfillment beyond the spotlight.

Want to share your own story anonymously? Record a voice memo and email it to openheartshiddentruths@gmail.com.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

This is Shamron, and you're listening to Open Hearts, Hidden Truths. I'm fascinated by stories that have an off-the beat angle. People who've taken a non-traditional path. Something a little dark, a little salacious. My guest joining me has a story that contains all these elements. Uh working as an exotic dancer. He's authored a new book, Stripped: Memoir of a Male Stripper. He writes, What started as a side gig turned into a crash course in human psychology. I learned how desire works, how money moves, and how people reveal the truth about themselves when the lights go low and the music hits are just right. Every city had its own style, every crowd its own rhythm. Dallas was bold, Chicago was cold, New Orleans was hot in ways that had nothing to do with weather. And in every club behind every backstage door, there were stories. Raw, wild, and surprisingly human. So 22 years as an exotic male dancer.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yes, uh I don't really use the term exotic. To me that sounds like Caribbean or foreign, and it's kind of a nicer way of sprucing up stripper.

Speaker 1: 1:46

Okay. Just call it what it is then. You just prefer the straight up stripper.

Speaker 2: 1:50

That that's what it is. Because you can know how to dance. That doesn't mean you know how to strip. But if you know how to strip, you don't necessarily have to know how to dance.

Speaker 1: 2:00

It sounds like there's a psychological element you're referring to, maybe.

Speaker 2: 2:05

There is. You know, like for instance, if you watch like Magic Mike and you watch him on stage, he's bouncing everywhere, he's all over the stage. That's very entertaining, but that's not stripping.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Okay, there are a lot of layers here that are very, very intriguing. But let's go back to the beginning to chapter one. How does a self-described, shy little boy grow up to be a stripper?

Speaker 2: 2:31

When I was growing up, I'd never even heard of male strippers. I'd barely heard of female strippers till maybe high school or college. And I was so shy. I remember going to Target and I bought a shirt and it was the wrong size. And I was too shy to go back to return it. And so I just kept it. And I, you know, I would never volunteer in school or raise my hand. And then I got into bodybuilding, and you're forced again on the stage. But the mark is real easy. If you're bigger than him or look good, you're gonna win. And so there's a level you can see, and I could hit that level, and it was hard on the stage, but you don't really see the people, you see the lights, and you know, you get used to looking in the mirror and all your friends saying, Yeah, go, go, go. And I never imagined myself stripping, like taking off clothes in a sexual way for women. But I was in college and I heard a table next to me of all these girls, and they were so excited because they had gone to the strip club and they're talking about all the money and all the men, and their eyes were all lit up. And I was like, wow, it's you know, I kind of consider myself equal to all men, and but I don't get that reaction. And they noticed I was listening and they mentioned they had an amateur contest and I should enter it. I've never even danced a lick in my life. I thought I'm gonna do that. I went to the contest and just got smeared. It was the hardest thing, but I just keep telling myself, if that man can do it, I can do it. And it would make me mad that a guy could do something that I couldn't do. And so I would try anything. I was probably the worst guy in the contest. When I showed up, I thought, you know, I didn't even think about dancing. I thought I'll wear my bodybuilding trunks and my nicest clothes. And I get there, and there's guys with costumes practicing dance moves, fixing their hair. And you know, growing up in high school, we're not used to spending that much time on our hair and so much about looks. We like to look good, but it's not a learned skill. And I went out there and I think I did a few poses and some karate and made maybe eight dollars. Everyone else was getting huge cheers, and they go to call out the winners and it's like, yeah, I can see why he won. I can see why he won. And I mean, I just wanted to run home. It took everything I could not to just go out that back exit. But if I thought if I did that, I would get mad at myself and I'd have to come back. I go, all I have to do is just sit through this embarrassment and everything. And then when I was leaving the club, the manager called me over and he asked if I want a job. And I thought, okay, he must be mistaking me for like any one of those other guys in the dressing room. And he said no. He goes, if you can come in, I said, All right. And I was on cloud nine, you know, driving all the way home. But of course, they sl they start you on the slowest, the worst days possible.

Speaker 1: 5:20

So something that you thought was going to turn out to be just awful and your ego's smashed, you know, you don't do well. That turned out to be a job offer.

Speaker 2: 5:30

It did, but then when I came back and started working, that's where they smashed my ego again. When you come back as a as a beginner rookie, nobody wants you to succeed because they're your threat to their money. So nobody helps you. The costumes, you have to have a costume to get the good days, but you can't pick a costume that anyone else has. You have to go up first and at the beginning of the night. And sometimes there are zero people in the club when you're on stage. You have to earn that right to go up at the end of the list. And I would show up and I would dance to nobody. And I had like street clothes and I would buy hand-me-down costumes from other people and kind of piece together stuff. And it and you have to pay to work, it costs between $50 and $100 every night you go to work. You know, you have to pay the DJ, the clothes runner, the bartender. Everybody gets paid. And you have to pay them whether you make money or not. And I lasted about a year and a half, and I just couldn't make it anymore in that business. And that's when I went into um bouncing. And so when I was bouncing, I was learning the business from the female side. And females make double or triple what a male makes. They're really good hustlers. And so I learned the craft by being a bouncer in the female clubs. And then eventually I went back to stripping from being a bouncer, but I made my own rules this time because I understood the business.

Speaker 1: 6:56

So you you learned the trade from watching women.

Speaker 2: 7:00

The, you know, you watch the top women in a strip club and they're excellent at what they do. And they don't move around a lot on stage. The best women don't move hardly at all. They they talk their way to money or they just look great and they know how to show their body when they're on stage.

Speaker 1: 7:16

So you applied that knowledge, you went back to stripping.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Yes.

Speaker 1: 7:21

And then you must have killed it.

Speaker 2: 7:23

I killed it because not only was I able to dance kind of like a female, I didn't have a problem doing it. You know, the macho thing when you're in dancing is, you know, do you have 25 moves and how fast are you? And can you do spins and all that kind of stuff? And that's kind of a guy thing. Like, oh, I went up there and I did three spins. Yeah, I went up there and stretched my muscles and made double what you did. So what what is better? It's hard for other guys to mimic that because you got to be built to be able to get away with a lot of those moves that the women use.

Speaker 1: 7:59

So the the year was what when you returned to stripping?

Speaker 2: 8:04

I started about 84 and then I went maybe to 86 and did two years in the strip clubs, and then went back right then.

Speaker 1: 8:12

So did you return to the same club? Did you go to a different club in the same city?

Speaker 2: 8:16

Well, I went to every club. One of the women that I was bouncing at the club, her boyfriend did touring. He would go around, travel around the country, and you know, they shut down a bar for three hours and it's ladies' night, and the men come in and do their gig. And they asked me to go on a tour with them because I had some Le Bear experience. And so I went on tour with them. And when you go on tour, you get paid whether you dance well or not, or you can hustle or not. And I thought, okay, this is a pretty good gig. And so I started doing the stripper grams, the touring, uh, the clubs. I did every kind of dancing, you know, the go-go dancing where you're just in the cage for the night and everything. And uh I combined all of it.

Speaker 1: 8:58

So did you get to call the the shots then in terms of where you traveled? Did you make your own schedule and all of that?

Speaker 2: 9:05

Yes. Yes. I would sit down and and I'd pull out my calendar and I would book two months solid. I worked every single day, you know, no days off. But some of our gigs, you know, we would work. Oh, you have a two-hour shift. That's pretty easy. And the way the stripping life works, at a normal nine to five, you get up in the morning and you go right to work. And then you come home and you do what you want to do for a couple hours. Well, in stripping, you get up and you have all day to do whatever you want to do. And then going to work is almost at an afterthought because it's real late at night. Oh, I'm going to slip into work right now at 10 o'clock. And so it's like an afterthought. And so we get to live this whole life, whereas other people don't. I I feel like the lifestyle is faster.

Speaker 1: 9:50

It also provides a lot of freedom.

Speaker 2: 9:52

Yes. Well, some of those times when you're on the road, you need some of those days because they're travel days.

Speaker 1: 9:58

You're traveling the country, you're getting a ton of attention, you're making a ton of money. What's your mindset at this point?

Speaker 2: 10:05

When you get into it, everything is hyper fast. Okay, uh, you know, okay, to be a stripper, you have to have muscles. Okay, I have to work out now. Be a stripper, maybe you have to have hair that's longer or not normal. Okay, you do that. Everything is like hyper fast. And then once you get there, I mean it feels like playtime every day. My goal was to get up before 1 p.m. every day. That was one of my big goals.

Speaker 1: 10:34

To get up before 1 p.m.

Speaker 2: 10:36

Yes. If I could get up before 1 p.m., I would call that a successful day. And yeah, I would get up and go to the gym and go tan or play golf, or we did whatever we wanted to do.

Speaker 1: 10:47

How much partying did you do?

Speaker 2: 10:50

I tried to be a drinker in high school and I failed. I didn't like it. I tried again in college, I didn't like it. And then when I started stripping, everyone's drinking. That just seems part of the business. And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna drink. And it lasted maybe three months. I just didn't like it. It didn't fit in with my bodybuilding and my working out and everything. And I didn't like the feeling of slowness and everything. But through my career, I would say I've tried, yes, every single drug. I mean, they're just right there and in the dressing room, you know, no one hides it or anything. You know, every club you go to, when you read the room, you can see, okay, here's the drug dealer, there's whether they're partying. And so every city you go to, and as a stripper, you don't really have to look for drugs, they're gonna bring them to you. And a lot of people, this is funny. I had this woman, maybe 65 years old, I'm like 25 or something, and she comes up to me and she hands me this some money and she gives me this napkin. She goes, put that in your boot. I'm like, All right. So I put it in my boot after work. Me and my buddy were driving next to him, like, oh man, wait a minute. I pull this out of my boot, I unwrap it. There's like 15 joints. And me and my buddy were like, okay, we're gonna smoke one an hour. I'm like, all right, yeah, let's do that. Well, she laced them with speed. And and sometimes I've been drugged and not known it. I've woken up in my car before and we're like, oh my god, we've been here like three hours. What happened? And so that's when I was new to the business and learning that if you don't want the drugs, people are gonna give them to you anyway.

Speaker 1: 12:24

You know, you see all these movies, you see Magic Mike, you see that version of it. Um one, is there any accuracy to that? Two, take me backstage and give me the real story about what it's like with all those male egos.

Speaker 2: 12:40

I've watched The Magic Mike, and that may be accurate on a day where all the stars are aligned and that's the most perfect day ever, but that doesn't happen. When you're backstage, it could be, you know, if you're at a club, there's 25 guys, if you're doing a show, there's seven or eight guys, and they're all alpha males. They all think they're the best guy there. And a lot of it plays out really quick when they go to do the list on who goes on stage because the number one spot is the worst spot to be opening the act. We all the new guys, you're number one. The best guy is the last guy on the list, and so even before the show starts, and a lot of these shows, there's no manager, they just put a piece of paper up on the wall and the guys work it out, and so that's where you find out who the alpha male of the alpha male is. And when I went back in business, I decided I was always going to be the last guy on the list, and that didn't play over too well, but I really figured out who the alpha male was because I was willing to fight you right there in the dressing room to have that spot. To me, I'm like, okay, if we're gonna do this scenario, I'm gonna go all the way with it. I will fight you to have that spot. I was a martial artist and I did karate tournaments on the weekend. So a lot of times I'd show up to work with a black eye or ace bandes and stuff. So people kind of knew who I was. A lot of times, well, and one thing in the dressing room, I didn't allow smoking, even though you were allowed to smoke. Uh I just I didn't like to smoke because of my health. And so if I was in the dressing room, you weren't allowed to smoke, you had to go outside. And this is where a lot of my fights would come from because I would show up in a dressing room, and there might be me and maybe one of my friends, and then three or four other guys, I've never seen them before in my life. And we're all the alpha male. Usually I'm pretty mellow, get along with people. We're just here to make a living. But some of them will pull out a cigarette and I'll go, hey, you got to put that out. Yeah, who am I, right? I'm just another guy. Tell them to put a cigarette out, and I'll ask them again. And usually I'll just pull the cigarette out of their mouth and step on it, and then it's up to them. So the last time I did that, I went and pulled a cigarette out and he smacked my hand. And so, okay. So I looked at my friend because he brought the guy, and my friend turned his head down. He didn't want anything to do with it because he knew what I was gonna do. And so I put my hand out again, like I was gonna grab the cigarette, and then I smacked him in the head and knocked him out of the chair, and then stood above him, and now it's his move, and he's not gonna do anything. I was 240 pounds, and most dancers, I don't know, 180, 200.

Speaker 1: 15:16

Now, are you guys all juiced?

Speaker 2: 15:19

Yes, pretty much. Even the guys you think aren't taking stuff, they're taking it just because of peer pressure, you know, when you get backstage, because a lot of guys will, oh, I'm at work now. It's Thursday. Oh, yeah, we all do our shots on Thursday. You know, a lot of the guys hang out together outside of work. I was never one to hang out with people I worked with. A lot of times, like some guys, I see you three or four times a year at this one club we meet with in Arizona or something, right? That's how I know you, and I've known you for five or six years, and that's all I'm gonna know you. I have maybe a handful that I would take into my inner circle that would you know actually be at my house or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 15:57

So it sounds like you just didn't really trust the majority of these people.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Oh, you can't trust a stripper. No, that's the worst thing. We had a night where we were cage dancing and a new guy comes in. The new guys are so easy to make money off, and they get attitudes really quick. You know, that first two years, you're a jerk if you're a stripper. And he's making a lot of money because everyone's making money. And we're in the dressing room and he's coming back there and emptying his money into his bag. That's one of the first errors you need to learn as a stripper. Always hold on to your money. You keep it in your boot or wherever you have to keep it. So he leaves the dressing room, and me and my buddy look at each other, and we go over and we get his bag and we unzip it and we take all of his money. Then we zip his bag up and put it back on the counter, and that's the end of it.

Speaker 1: 16:43

You stole all his money.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Every dollar. And we'll do that. We've done that with guys. You get a new guy who'll come in with a brand new costume and try and show it off, and he'll hang it up. As soon as he leaves, the dancers will pick it. I need the belt, I'm grabbing the pants. And these are just airs that the new guys make.

Speaker 1: 17:00

So, in a way, would you consider that hazing?

Speaker 2: 17:03

No, this is more like a grifter field.

Speaker 1: 17:07

So the guys that you're working with, were they predominantly straight?

Speaker 2: 17:11

Every one of them. I never met a gay guy in one of the straight clubs. Now we would dance the gay bars and the mixed bars, and every now and then you'd meet a gay dude. But when we first started dancing the gay bars, they were all gay. And I went in there and I was like three times the size of everybody, and I could dance a little bit. And the gay guys don't know how to dance. They can club dance, but that's not stripping. And so all the guys from the gym started going into the gay bars, and we just kicked all the gay dancers out. We just dominated. And so they all lost their jobs to big straight guys.

Speaker 1: 17:48

So who's who's the better tipper? Gay men or women?

Speaker 2: 17:52

Oh, gay men. And to me, I would feel bad sometimes talking a woman out of, you know, $100, $200. I'd feel kind of bad sometimes. I didn't feel bad at all talking a man out of his money, not one bit.

Speaker 1: 18:07

Did this have an emotional toll on you and your personal relationships, specifically with women?

Speaker 2: 18:14

It did. You know, when I was on the road, I would know like a stripper in Houston, whatever, and I would stay with her when I worked in Houston. And then maybe in Alabama, I would stay with her when I was in Alabama, you know, and so you would have all these, I don't want to call them girlfriends, but friends you would stay with. It was hard to have a girlfriend. I could only date strippers. When you're stripping, that's kind of uh puts you in a higher hierarchy if you're dating another stripper, as opposed to a woman that's not in the field. And the better stripper she is, the higher your status is, actually. We would never go out with a waitress. It was hard because if I go out with a woman who has not stripped before, everything's fine at first. She thinks, oh, that was nice. I'm I, you know, you were a stripper, that's cool. But eventually everything gets used against me. How many women have you been to? Have you done this before? You know, sexually, I'm not gonna be able to make you happy because I know you've done all this crazy stuff, and it it's hard. It's I almost feel like I can't date a woman unless she's been a stripper. Because you have that that commonality where you understand each other or yes, and I think the next relationship I have, I'm not gonna let her know I was a stripper. She's really gonna have to pull that out of me.

Speaker 1: 19:32

The novelty is that, ooh, he's a stripper, let's try that out. But then, but then the fantasy fades.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Yes.

Speaker 1: 19:41

And they're left with Blake, the person, the man.

Speaker 2: 19:45

Yes. And you know, they trust me at first, and I'm faithful. You know, at my age, I am. Back when I was a stripper, strippers aren't faithful. But now I am. If I'm in a relationship, I'm faithful. But to them, after a while, I can't be faithful because I had that stripper past. And that's bitten me a few times too, and that makes me mad. You know, I say trust people till they give you a reason you can't.

Speaker 1: 20:09

And and I imagine, well, I don't want to put the words in your mouth, but does it make you mad? Does it make you angry because you feel judged?

Speaker 2: 20:17

Yes. It it's you're judging me on a perception you have in your head, but also it's the trust thing. Like, I told you stuff because you drug it out of me that probably shouldn't know, but you really want me to tell you things, and I told you, and now you're using that against me? That seems really unfair, and it makes me not trust. Like, how can I be open with you now if it's going to be used against me?

Speaker 1: 20:43

How has working as a stripper for all those years affected your relationships now?

Speaker 2: 20:49

You know, when you date another stripper, there's no first date. You just at the end of the night, you go over to her house and that's the night, right? That's the date. I've noticed in dating, we're not going to bed the first date. Uh that's not even in my head now, but as a stripper, that is. You know, if she's not going to sleep me first date, I'm not dating her again. And that's normal. Now that's not a normal thing. And I also have a harder time letting a woman touch me because I want to really know what her intentions are. You know, I don't want to just be a one-night thing before I've done that and it it's you know cost me money and mental anguish, and I don't need that, and I want more than that. And so it is it is hard to be uh closer because I I've known so many women that I almost get partway through a relationship, I can already tell what's gonna happen with her.

Speaker 1: 21:38

In terms of what specifically?

Speaker 2: 21:41

Just the attitude, and you know, as a stripper, like I work out every single day, I watch what I eat and everything. If they're not working out, that ends up getting used against me too. You know, oh, you go to the gym every day. Is there someone there, or you know, this or that? Are you not gonna like me? Am I because I'm getting this and I don't look like they looked? And so they start comparing themselves. themselves to women that they believe I've dated in the past, and then I catch flack for that.

Speaker 1: 22:05

It sounds like they're projecting. That just sounds like projecting to me.

Speaker 2: 22:09

It is. And when they do that, that shows me mentally they're not where I think they should be. And we're not going to have a good relationship because I want to get past that.

Speaker 1: 22:19

So when you're on a date with a woman, at what point do you reveal that you're a stripper?

Speaker 2: 22:26

Now I'm not. Before they would ask me what I, you know, what do you what do you do for a living? What'd you do this? And it would come up kind of in the first long conversation. And because, you know, there's 22 years I can't explain, right? So they want to know what happened. Truly, I feel if I can't tell you that and you deal with it through the long run, then you're not for me. But I don't want to bring it out at the beginning because sometimes women, you know, they'll judge me right off from day one if I said that. Hey, hello, I'm I'm Blake and I was a stripper. Okay, there's a judgment right there.

Speaker 1: 23:01

So I think I hear you saying that at some point you would share if you felt safe.

Speaker 2: 23:07

Yes, and I mean they're I think they're always gonna find out somehow. I don't know. It I've had people come up to me before that had no idea what I would I did for a living and could guess what I did. And that surprised me because I'm really not phased at anything anymore. Because I I've seen a lot of you know the worst of human behavior and the sexuality part of it, which is weird. And you know, you see all the crime, and you know, you've had guns pulled on you and mad boyfriends, and you know, drug everything bad in society they tell you to stay away from. That's part of your job.

Speaker 1: 23:42

You had a gun pulled on you?

Speaker 2: 23:43

Uh three times. Yeah. So I remember the third time I just thought, oh, this again. Uh the first time I was wearing my pizza delivery costume, and I pulled up and I see a Cadillac just kind of off in my peripheral vision. This brother sitting in his car. And I didn't think anything. You know, it's not my business. And get my uniform on and I park a little bit down from the house so they don't see me out front changing. I go to walk up and he pulls in front of me where I can't cross the street, and he rolls the window down, and he's got a gun sitting on the passenger seat. He goes, Are you going to that house over there? I need you to get back in your truck and go home. I'm like, All right. I turn around, got my truck, and left. Didn't even ask why. The second time was again the same reason. And I think what happens is you get an ex-boyfriend or a mad father that knows that a stripper gram is going to happen at their house or a stripper is coming to see their girl or their spouse or woman, and they get a little jealous and they swayed me off three times.

Speaker 1: 24:44

How do you define success today?

Speaker 2: 24:47

If you can do the things you want to do every day. I have I make a lot a lot of lists, and I have a list of everything I have to do in a day to feel successful. You know, it includes working out, eating right, exercising, all that stuff. You know, spend time with my pets, talking to friends. If I can do all that in one day, that's a successful day.

Speaker 1: 25:07

So it sounds like it's the little things that you appreciate.

Speaker 2: 25:11

I do. And my mother passed away three or four years ago, and that's when I really started appreciating just, you know, I went for a bike ride yesterday and I stopped at a creek and I saw three turtles. I thought, that's really cool. You know, three turtles, right? Where do when do you see three turtles? And so I appreciated that moment more than I would have in the past.

Speaker 1: 25:32

Was your family supportive of your of your choices?

Speaker 2: 25:37

Well, uh, you know, every family that wants your kid to grow up and go to college and be a successful person, get married, have kids. Yeah, I didn't do any of that. They didn't say anything, but I know they had to be thinking it. And my dad's a pretty conservative, straight arrow guy, and so this whole world, he just can't even imagine. And my mom, she's conservative too, but she was uh accepting, and she was my mom. She was my biggest fan. But yeah, they wanted me to go to college, and uh I feel bad sometimes. I would be away from you know town maybe two years and I wouldn't see him or talk to him.

Speaker 1: 26:15

You went through periods of time where you didn't see your your parents for two years because you were on the road?

Speaker 2: 26:20

Oh, even longer than that. I like I I would miss, I mean, I probably missed a dozen Christmases. Because when you work on Christmas, they usually pay double. You make more. You make a lot of money on Christmas and holidays. And and so I worked on all the holidays. And at that time in my life, you know, family wasn't important. I wasn't thinking about family. And I look back and I wish I would have thought about family more.

Speaker 1: 26:45

Do you have any other regrets?

Speaker 2: 26:48

Yes, I because I stripped and I was always on the road, I wasn't able to have a pet. I always wanted to have a dog. I remember I bought an aquarium, but I didn't buy any fish. I just had a a glass full of water and just because I I couldn't feed them, I wouldn't be there. And I regret not having a family, you know, not getting married and having kids. I I see my brother and my friends have kids, and I think that's pretty cool, the family stuff they do. And I I just regret, you know, oh I'll I'll wait, I'll wait. And I think of all the girls I met over the years, like I probably met a hundred wives, you know, that could have been my wife, and just moved on because that I was in the business. When you're stripping every night and you meet that many girls, your standards go way high, higher than they should be. Oh, I'm not dating her, her hair's only down to her shoulder. You know, it it's ridiculous stuff that reasons you don't go out with women that I think back now it's like that was dumb. I should have dated her. I should have dated her. I should have dated her.

Speaker 1: 27:51

So it just really brought out this really superficial side to you.

Speaker 2: 27:56

Very superficial. Even today, now my standards are probably higher than they should be because of everyone I've dated and what you know, those were my growing up years. And to me, you know, we I look at the top stripper, okay, that's what the woman is. Okay, now this girl, she doesn't look like her. Okay, I can't go out with her. You know, even now, I don't know if I can go out with a woman that doesn't look good in a bikini. And that's probably not right. I want to date a woman that I'm not gonna look at anyone else.

Speaker 1: 28:24

You want to be attracted to them, I think is what I hear you saying, and you put a lot of effort into your physique. You appreciate that in someone else, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Speaker 2: 28:35

I I don't either, but it's not probably a good thing to say out loud. Yeah, but I mean that's the truth though.

Speaker 1: 28:42

I like the truth. I I like it when things are unfiltered. We don't have to worry about being politically correct and we can just state how we feel. You like a girl to look good in a bikini. Okay, so what? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:52

And uh that's what the stripping does teach you how to be brutally honest because you get it back. You know, on your best day, you'll go to a club and there's gonna be someone that tells you, you know, you need bigger arms or you should do this with your hair. You're judged every day you go to work. And for a lot of guys, that throws them out of the business. You know, they're doing everything they can to do, and they still can't be the it man until you just can go up on a stage and say, you don't care. They can think what they want, they can say what they want. I'm not basing my reactions on their reaction.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Did it start to wear you down emotionally, mentally?

Speaker 2: 29:30

No, it just made me harder. You know, I uh if I could read a situation before I got there, I wouldn't even wait for it to happen. I would just react. Everything, every job I've done has happened a hundred times. You know, nothing's like, oh, this is a surprise. It's a surprise once, and then it's gonna happen again and again and again. So everything is a pattern. And so I felt like I was just on autopilot. A good thing for me would be if I got to strip in a city that had maybe a nice museum or you know, a landmark or something I haven't seen before. I almost took stripping as a joke and would make fun of it. You know, I had one time I remember I put on like four costumes in a row because it was this big serious dance off. And so they're getting all excited when you take the shirt off, and I had another shirt on. And I was just jacking with the crowd. And I would get more fun just messing with the guys backstage and messing with people in the audience than taking it serious because they took it too serious.

Speaker 1: 30:31

Was there a moment that you said, you know what, I'm done with this? This isn't for me.

Speaker 2: 30:37

Yeah, it it wasn't one moment, it was about half a dozen moments. I I phased out. I was in a city on a tour and I was on my way home, had a few cities left. And I remember I showed up to this gig and I was a little bit late. I went backstage, and all the guys there, they had my name at the very top of the list, which which I thought was funny. And they were all guys, new guys, probably half my age, and they weren't even wearing boots. You know, some of them had tennis shoes on and stuff. It reminded me like on day one when I was that guy. I went in the dressing room, I looked at the list, and then I went to the bar and I got a pen. I came back and I crossed out their names and I put my name on the bottom. All of a sudden they quit talking, but they weren't gonna do anything about it. I thought, man, this is awkward. And then I was out on stage and I was about halfway through my set. I mean, I was in the middle of the stage. I think it was on my Metallica song, about halfway through, and it just it was like a flash of lightning just hit me. Like, I don't want to be here. Like, I don't even know why I'm here. I I felt like I should be the owner of the bar instead of being on stage. I felt too old. I just it just felt wrong. And so I made that my last tour, and then I had my strippergrams and a couple club dancings and stuff, and I started tapering those off. What's weird is you you just quit going to work. Nobody calls you and asks you where you are. Nobody says, you know, thanks for spending all the time for my company and helping us out. No agents, thank you. You just don't make a call to get booked, and that's the end of it. It ends so abruptly.

Speaker 1: 32:08

What was the shift that for you was just the end?

Speaker 2: 32:12

I felt like I should be more than a stripper, especially for my age. I was in my 40s, but I didn't look my age, you know, I looked in my 30s. And every now and then I would have a, you know, I was dancing for some people sometimes that man, she could be my daughter. That's kind of weird. Or you'd show up and, you know, maybe the parents are there and their their kids are having their their girls are having this party, and you know, like, oh, I should be hanging with parents. It just felt weird dancing for people that much younger than me at one point. And then all my friends had left. You know, I'll have friends for five or six years and they leave the business slowly, you know, one, two at a time. But on the last tour, I was showing up at gigs and I didn't know anyone. It was all new guys, and they they didn't strip, they danced like club dancing. So it was a whole shift in the in the market and the way it worked and everything, and I didn't like it at all.

Speaker 1: 33:07

It just felt maybe at odds with the person that you had become.

Speaker 2: 33:12

Yes, I felt I felt I should be doing something better than what I was doing. I thought, you know, this was fine years ago, but I'm not turning into anything else. I almost felt embarrassed to be in the last show. I thought I I shouldn't be up here. Thank gosh for lights and loud music. You evolved. I did, and I was almost mad at myself for not evolving earlier, and then it felt really weird on stage because I didn't feel like I was in control of the stage. I feel like, oh, I gotta get out of here. Like these people are gonna know that I'm fake now. Uh you know, they don't know anything, but I felt that way.

Speaker 1: 33:56

What about if one of your friends' sons or daughters wanted to get into that industry or dabble in it?

Speaker 2: 34:02

No, no one should do this. No one should be a stripper. It's gonna change your outlook on life and the way you see things, and it's gonna give you a lot of memories that you probably don't need to live with all at one time. You see a lot of stuff in a in a small period of time, and that's a lot to take in. I mean, I've had three guns pulled on me. No one should have a gun pulled on them. You know, I've had boyfriends wanting to beat me up often. That shouldn't happen. You know, the violence and the drugs, you shouldn't have to experience and see all that. There's a reason, you know, that's illegal and it's a crime. But you're in a crime area. When people go into a bar, they just think, ha ha ha, you know, we're having fun drinking. Well, you've got drug dealers in there, you have a few pimps, you've got hookers, you've got just thieves, you've got bad guys, you've got people that'll follow you home and jack with you. There's a lot of bad people in these clubs.

Speaker 1: 34:59

What's the biggest lesson you learned about yourself and who you are?

Speaker 2: 35:05

What I walk away with is, you know, no matter how successful another man is or what he's done or anything like that, I'm still his equal. He can be successful. That does not make him better than me. I've seen successful people in the bars be total drunks. I've seen him molest women, successful people do that. To me, that doesn't make a good man. And I feel I have more empathy toward people because of everything I've seen, but I also am not intimidated by men, you know, a guy trying to showboat and show himself off. I'm very amused and sometimes embarrassed by uh the acts of my fellow man, even from their moves at trying to pick up a woman to I mean everything. I was like, oh, you guys, you have no idea. So it's just little stuff that guys do and they think, you know, the women, if I do this, women want me. No, they don't. You know, like all guys think if I go to the gym and just get big, women will want me. That's not that's a small part of it, you know. It doesn't quite work that way. There's more to it. You know, I saw a lot of guys, you know, they're taking the steroids and getting big. Is that really what they wanted to do? You know, or are they doing it because you know you're around all your peers and all these men, and that's what you're supposed to do. And so I think a lot of the dancers do what they think they're supposed to do, and then they get out of the business and they're a totally different person.

Speaker 1: 36:32

It must change you in a way.

Speaker 2: 36:34

It does, but I feel like I'm the same person as when I started. You know, yeah, I'm not as shy, I'm more forward, more this or that, but deep down I'm still the sense, you know, I'm still gonna pet the dog and you know, hold the door open and all that stuff. And uh a lot of the guys, you see them when they're at work, they're one guy, and then after work, they're another guy. Well, which is it? You know, are you letting the work then the crowd dictate your behavior? I I don't like that. And most men do that, and I think that's weak.

Speaker 1: 37:02

How the ego dictates so much of a man's behavior is very fascinating.

Speaker 2: 37:09

I think it's amusing myself, and I would play to it. If I was gonna get in an altercation with the guy, I would never use my fist. I would use an open hand to embarrass him in front of his friends because of the ego thing. And I would use it against them. I was like, if you guys want to play this game, I'm gonna go to the extreme and play the game. Well, most guys don't want to go to the extreme, they just want to kind of fake it so they look cool.

Speaker 1: 37:33

Do you keep in contact with any of your your former coworkers?

Speaker 2: 37:38

Two. One of them lives down the street from me, seven miles.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Just two out of what, thousands?

Speaker 2: 37:44

Thousands. After two or three years, most guys drop out. I would still do it again. I would do it a little differently. Not a lot, but differently, but I would never advise anyone else to do it.

Speaker 1: 37:55

How would you do it differently?

Speaker 2: 37:57

I would travel more, I would have expanded my travel distances, uh, obviously save more money. I would have had more fun than I did. To me, like, oh, I'm going to work to go dance for two hours for 200 women. Why is the term work even in that sentence? Right? There's guys that would kill for that. But to us it was work.

Speaker 1: 38:20

Where can I buy your book?

Speaker 2: 38:22

Oh, at strippedthebook.com. If you go there, you can read the prologue actually for free. It's written up there. And there'll be links there that'll take you to get the book.

Speaker 1: 38:31

Amazon, all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 38:33

Yes, Amazon, Kindle, Spotify, iTunes.

Speaker 1: 38:39

I love bold, unique voices. The provocative, the dark, the titillating. We all have a hidden truth. Each and every one of us. What are you feeling? Talk to me. If you're enjoying this podcast, click the subscribe button. If you have a similar experience you'd like to share, drop me an email or a DM @ openheartshiddentruths.