JP: What are the laws like regarding stripping in California?
RZ: In California, they're really, really strict. I don't know if they've changed now, but, I mean obviously now you can't smoke anywhere. But in California, you could have nude places without alcohol. If you had alcohol, you had topless places. The difference between Los Angeles and San Francisco had to do with the pay. I danced in Los Angeles for about three months, and they would basically give you a paycheck. They would charge you percentages—they would take a third of your money for however much you danced, and then they'd pay you five bucks an hour. In San Francisco they didn't do that at all, you just worked for tips, and then you paid the house. And in both places, it was the same thing: you couldn't touch the girls. Most of the time you had to stay behind the pole, but that could be flexible. You couldn't touch yourself in certain places. You couldn't touch yourself on the inside of your thigh. That's pretty much how it is nationwide.
JP: How did that change when you moved to New Orleans?
RZ: New Orleans was really weird. In a lot of ways it was a lot more corrupt. There was a lot of prostitution there, etc.—not that there wasn't any in California, but in New Orleans it was much more blatant. There was technically no lap dancing allowed.
JP: No lap dancing allowed in New Orleans?
RZ: Yes. Technically, we had to be up on a pedestal—it was sort of like a pedestal, they would give you these things that looked like hat boxes, and you'd have to dance on top of them. You could not come into contact with a customer at all. Now, there are some places in San Francisco that have that, but in Louisiana, this was the only way you could dance for somebody in most of the places. Don't get me wrong, they had lap dancing booths regardless. They had private booths where god-knows-what went on. But in all the places I worked, technically you could not do lap dances. Friction laws. They call it friction in Florida, friction dancing, but other places they call it lap dancing.
JP: How did the different laws effect you?
RZ: I just hated the technicalities, you know, I just wanted to say, whatever, dance, but don't be a complete whore, I don't know, have a little bit of self-respect, don't do anything that's going to get us arrested, don't be blatant and give out a blowjob, you know, jerk somebody off, but I guess we had to be technical because there's always someone trying to get out of the technicality, you know, "technically I didn't touch him there," but, I don't know, for the most part, just dancing, they didn't effect me, except the lap dancing thing, because I was used to it in California, and when I went to Louisiana they were like, "Well, we don't do them." But then you could go dance for a customer in the booth, and what was I going to do in the booth? It was so stupid. And of course you could dance in front of their faces at the bar. So, you know, there were a lot of dumb technicalities, but they have them everywhere.
The technicalities are there for a reason; if someone's trying to screw with you, you can say, "this person did X, Y, Z, and technically, he should be thrown out of the club." So, I guess that they're supposed to be there for your safety, but I'm really not sure, because there are still a lot of assholes, men who go to clubs to act like jerks, and make the dancers feel uncomfortable. Not that the women don't do the same thing.
JP: The women customers?
RZ: Women customers can be worse than the male customers. They feel that they are privileged to more. They feel that they are allowed to touch you. My worst experiences were pretty consistently women; they're always harder to handle than men. They were more grabby. They thought the rules excluded them.
JP: What do you say to people who say that the industry exploits women?
RZ: Well, I'd say the women definitely exploit themselves. I'd say that the industry does exploit women. But I also say that women go in there exploiting themselves, and if they think that they aren't, they're really, really naive. I mean, I went in there knowing, to a certain degree, that I was exploiting myself, that I was being an exhibitionist. I knew that I wanted to be looked at; I knew that very much. And I think if you go in there and think that you aren't being exploited, and that you aren't exploiting yourself, you're really fooling yourself.
Most of the time, it's men who are running the places, and it's men who want to regulate the way the women look, the way the women act, the way the women speak. Is it in the laws, a little bit? I guess they can use the laws to their own advantage, and act a specific way in order to appease a certain clientele. It's definitely exploitive work. Absolutely. But then, a lot of work is. This is just more blatant.
JP: Do you think it's abusive?
RZ: I think there's a lot of condescension, in certain clubs more than others. I can't speak for all clubs. They are abusive in the way that they handle women's money. I think the only thing women should be paying the clubs for is the DJ that plays their music, and paying a rent for the night. If you are an independent contractor, and dancers supposedly are, you're supposed to be able to make your own rules. You're supposed to be able to leave when you want to leave, and come in when you want to come in. It's very, very tight for women doing this kind of work. Clubs give women a lot of restrictions. They get fined for being late, they get fined for being late up to the stage. Again, this is not all clubs. This is just a couple of the clubs I worked for that called themselves upscale.
I think that can be abusive. I think some clubs instigate a lot of competition between the women. I think that it becomes an abusive business when you foster a lot of competition between the women, and competition between women can be really fierce. It can get really ugly. The only place I worked for that wasn't like that was Gigi's. It was run by a woman, it was laid back, and the women helped each other. We had a little basket and we would collect tips for each other. There was never any friction, I mean any bad friction, until later, when they got women doing other things. I guess that can be expected anywhere.
JP: This isn't really the kind of magazine in which we say "other things."
RZ: Providing other services?
JP: Why did that cause additional friction?
RZ: Why do they call it friction?
JP: No, why did the providing of other services cause additional tension between the women?
RZ: Because there's more competition. They're supposed to be making money off the customer. And it's not like waiting tables. You don't have stations or sections; you don't have tables that are exclusively your responsibility. Everyone who walks into a strip club is sort of fresh meat. And these women are working for tips exclusively, and they have to pay a lot of fees. So the more they can squeeze out of somebody, the better, obviously. I mean, a lot of times you'll come up to a customer after he's been with somebody for an hour, and you'll find that he's just been completely cleaned out; he doesn't have a penny left and doesn't want to spend any more money, but he's still there, not wanting to go home yet.
I think they do this on purpose to get the women to work extra hard. If it was all laid back, and everybody was assigned a certain section, than you would not find that kind of competition among the women. Once you kind of increase the insecurity of the women, then you get a competitive edge. And once you get the competitive edge, and things get a little interesting, you get women a little more desperate to put on a little more makeup, do things a little more outrageously on the stage. And I hate to say it, but that generates business. That kind of conflict, it adds an edge to the place. You've got women competing for the man, and it makes the man feel better—it's good for business.
