Strippers

“Up Next on the Pole”
By a black girl named Tracy Thompson

Lap dances are $20 at Sin City. The dancer walks over to where I am sitting and without saying a word aggressively presses her half naked body up against the male seated to my right. You barely notice her black lingerie. It blends in well with the dark atmosphere of the club. Black thick straps cross her buttocks, holding her underwear in place. She is a petite girl but high heeled, chunky soled shoes add about five inches to her height. She keeps her wads of cash in a small gold bag hanging from her hand. The man shoos her away.
“He told me to dance for you,” a voice yelled in my ear behind the music of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “New York.” Malani is her stage name, but while she began strip teasing for me, she introduced herself as Dava.
Sin City, a gentleman’s nightclub, is hidden in an industrial area in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx. Most of the strippers that dance here are Black and Hispanic. Thursday is amateur night. Only a 15-minute walk from Yankee stadium, the club is a popular post-game attraction for male baseball fans. Huge, authoritative bouncers dressed in all black guard the front door. “Do you work here,” a bouncer asked me, understandably confused as he checked my oversized backpack. “No, I said, “I’m meeting someone,” hoping to establish that I don’t frequent strip clubs. This was my second trip in one week. As I made my way past the security check and into the main room, I planted myself at the bar until Malani appeared wearing a blue and gold halter-top with matching tiny underwear. She sat beside me and comfortably began expressing herself to me. Feeling pressured by the bartender, I ordered two drinks, a Corona for me and a Long Island iced tea for her.
“Up next on the pole, Maaaaaalani, “ the unseen DJ bellows rhythmically over a microphone. “Lets do it Malani!”
“I gotta hustle a little bit,” says Malani, and climbs onto a small circular platform. The DJ awkwardly switches the music from R&B to old school Hip Hop, but this stripper doesn’t miss a beat. She immediately takes off her top and inches up the pole then spins around it acrobatically and slides down. She has been dancing for less than three minutes and already has approximately $20 under her feet. As men approach to stick bills in her black thong underwear, she widens her legs while humping the floor on her knees. Her astrological sign, Pisces, is tattooed on her lower back as well as black designs down the side of her body. As she twirls around the golden pole her expression is serene, undisturbed by being almost naked. A black thong covers her pelvic area but her breasts are fully exposed.
The 23-year-old exotic entertainer dances three nights a week from 6p.m. to 4a.m. and brings in, on a good night, between $1,000 and $1,500. Even on a bad night, Malani will still bank close to $500. She has been a dancer at Sin City for six months and loves the attention she gets on stage. The way she is expressing herself on the pole tonight shows how much she enjoys her line of work.
Malani’s short Panamanian frame is curved to perfection. An ex–high school cheerleader from Staten Island, she is now the mother of a one-year-old daughter. She wears long crinkled black hair. As our conversation continues around a circular table, she stares at my kinky afro. “ I love your hair, she says” “When I was pregnant I cut my perm out and I have been natural since.” Her current hairstyle is a lace front wig, popular with black women. Lace fronts, first used on cancer patients and naturally balding women, are wigs that have a small piece of lace mesh attached to the front of the head with glue, making it easier than a conventional weave to change hairstyles. On this night Malani wears her hair pulled tightly in a thin ponytail. “I used to work as a dental assistant, you know, making enough money to support myself.”
When Malani came off of maternity leave in 2008, her hours were cut and money became scarce. Her job as a dental assistant could not support her any longer. She refused to rely on public assistance and since she was no stranger to stripping, having danced previously at CityScapes on Long Island and at other spots, she went back into the business. “The fastest way to make money is to dance…so….”
The Yankees are leading in game 2 against the Phillies in the World Series, but no one is here because of the game. The dancers are plenty and nine tables are occupied, but only half of the girls are making money. Some dancers are calmly sitting at the bar eyeing down potential patrons. Others are standing in groups talking with one another, blending in with the fully dressed customers.
According to a New York City State law, dancing totally nude where alcohol is served is against the law. Only a woman’s breast can be revealed. “ Taking off your underwear in here is prostitution!” Malani said. “But some girls still sneak and do it.” In 1998, as a part of his “quality of life” initiatives, then Mayor Rudy Giuliani, tried to shutdown more than 50 strip clubs and adult video stores, due to their proximity to churches and schools. Giuliani at that time told the New York Times that his campaign was success. Among the 144 adult entertainment businesses that were operating in July 1999, 21 had voluntarily closed, 11 had been temporarily closed, 2 had been permanently closed, and 6 had transformed into different types of businesses.
Malani rejoins me for another drink. “I have to drink to make money,” she says. When I ask her why, she explains the importance of being under the influence of alcohol to dull her senses to the activities surrounding her at the club, especially when she is called into the club’s VIP room. She entertains privately here after her patrons agree to pay an extra $300 on top of the initial cost. Refraining from having sex with guys, she pleases them in other ways. “Some men go to VIP to do coke,” she explains. “You can tell the submissive men, they like to be hit, spit on, be slapped. All that shit,” “White men are the most submissive. Black men tell me my butt is not big enough.”
Malani leaves me again to search for patrons. She and Ocean, a long time friend who danced with her at CityScapes are making their rounds. They have caught the attention of two black men and with her back straight and legs crossed Malani is now sitting on the lap of one of the men, giggling in his face.
Some of the girls at Sin City are aggressive and belligerent. “The girls here hang in cliques, just like in high school. They are all catty,” says Malani. “The girl that makes the most money in a clique is usually the leader. She says her crew separates themselves from such drama – Asia, Apple, Pocahontas and Ocean. “The older women here are jealous of the younger girls, because we make all the money,” she says. Older women who have been at the club longer sometimes sneak and steal money from underneath the feet of the top girls, Malani says.
Malani agrees that dancers have a bad reputation. But in her opinion there is a significant difference between a dancer and a stripper. “A dancer is smart. She has skills and a stripper is the one who gets caught up in the lifestyle.” She feels totally separate from this lifestyle. It’s reputation, she says, comes from other strip joints like Mr. Wedges, also located in the Bronx, where the girls are outright freaks, letting men defile them in any way. “Sin City is classy,” she says. “That’s why I came here.”
At Sin City tonight Malani is the top girl, racking the most in dollars and hustling the hardest. There isn’t an idle moment for her. She understands how to cat walk the floor and seductively move her body while grinning in the face of men. The skill of pressuring men and women into spending their money is now second nature to her. My watch tells me it’s 8p.m. and with eight more hours ahead of her, the night for Malani has just begun.