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Thursday, April 29, 1993
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Big money attracts student to stripping
(Above) Tracy, backstage at the Flamingo, puts the finishing touches on her hair before her performance. (Right) Tracy styles her hair before a performance. Because her appearance is considered essential to her job, all her makeup and hair products are tax deductible. (Below) On stage, Tracy dances for the audience.
Continued from Page 1
This summer Tracy will continue dancing and plans to transfer from Missouri Western to KU, where she will major in political science.
1 *tracy* adjusts the lights on the left side of the stage. She turns them up to bright and switches the micro lights that chase each other in a circle around the back mirror from blue, pink and green to plain white.
After removing tins from her boot, Tracy Jones, a junior at Missouri Western College, counts her cash in the dressing room of the Flamingo Club.
one teens her arched back against the mirrored wall and begins grinding her hips to the slow music of the loud screeching guitar.
This is exactly what she has done for the last two years to pay her tuition and board. Tracy works part time at the Flamingo three days a week on a six-hour shift. On a good day she can make $200, $500, even $700. At a minimum she'll take home $16 an hour.
"Even on a bad day, I would at least go home with $100 dollars in my pocket," she says.
Last year, she filed income taxes and paid social security on about $25.000.
"When I'm dancing on stage that's when my personality shows," she says "It is my favorite part of the job."
The part of the job Tracy would rather avoid is the table dancing. During table dancing, sometimes called lap dancing, a舞者 circulates through the crowd, waiting for a man to ask for a dance. If the men don't ask, the舞者的 will offer.
A dancer may gyrate in front of the man, simply sit on his lap and wrap her legs around his waist and grind against him. A dancer allows a man to touch her on the hips and legs or, if the dancer doesn't care, the man can touch more.
"When you're table dancing you are almost at the will of the person you are dancing for." Tracy says "It is really difficult when you get a customer who is really handsy, and you spend most of your time just trying to fight him off. Mentally, this is the hardest part of the job."
Tracy has her limits. She won't let the men touch her breasts, and she will not sit on a man's lap. She does kneel on customers' laps though, and lets customers touch her hips and legs.
if they get too handsy, she takes matters into her own hands. Tracy hadn't been dancing long when she punched a customer.
"This guy I was dancing for was with a group of guys, and first off he tried to touch me," she says motioning to her breasts. "I asked him to stop, but he did it again. This time I politely asked him to stop or I was going to hit him. Well, he tried to touch me again and I just plowed him. He and his friends were real apologetic afterward."
Tracy charges $5 for each table dance. But tips can account to more, and dancers often get $20, $30, even $100 tucked into their G-strings.
Tracy will take money after the table dance. Other dancers aren't so trusting.
On stage Tracy skips the spaghetti straps of her cocktail dress off her shoulder as Jordan, another dancer, insists that a customer give her $3 before she starts dancing. He sits back in his chair and enjoys his beer and the woman who shifts her hips back and forth above his croch. Suddenly he slaps Jordan's behind.
they are supposed to accompany a woman again." she shouts and leaves in the middle of the song. The smell of state beer hangs on in the air.
It's not the part-time job that most mothers would want their daughters to have.
"My parents trust me." Tracy says. "They know that I'm not going to do anything wrong. They told me just to keep it a class act and 'as long as you stay in school and work real hard that's all that matters to us."
But Tracy's parents, her mother a data transcriber and her father a construction worker, knew that she was a topple dancer from the time she took the job.
what Tracy does is her own business, says her mother, Pam Jones.
dancer learns quickly
"My only problem with the job, is that kids are forced into this kind of situation," she says. "They can't make a living wage, and they have to resort to out-of-the-mainstream jobs to survive and make it through school."
just my panties on or sitting here at home," Tracy says. "I'm a lady, and that's what I try to present on stage."
As long as Tracy is content with what she does, then it is not up to her parents to push their values on her, Pam Jones says.
But her parents' values do have an effect on Tracy's dancing.
"My parents taught me to be a lady,
whether I'm standing on stage with
Tracy loosens the top of her dress. She holds the silver budge up with arms clamped against her body. She leans over and tenses a man in the front row. Smiling, she turns and unzips her dress, exposing her bare back.
"I always try to make eye contact with the men in the audience when I'm on stage," Tracy says. "I think it is important. If you look at them, they think you are interested and then they are more willing to tip later on if you do a dance for them."
Learning which men tip better and what it takes to get a tip is a skill each
"For the most part girls draw to older business types," she says. "We know to steer clear of the college boys. They don't have any real money to spend. From a money standpoint, you look for a suit."
The suits and regular customers are the ones who have paid Tracy's bills for the past two years.
for the person you need.
One night a regular customer sent Tracy to his truck to get $700 from an envelope containing $1,200.
"I know that he gave all that money to girls that night, and I'm sure he already had given out $300 before I went to his truck," she says.
"I've gotten to know a lot of people by working here," she says. "The men love to tell you their life story and to hear about mine. I get my biggest tips to hear by sitting and talking to them."
Tracy said she had developed a certain trust with her regular customers during the last two years.
she is putting herself through school.
Men are more inclined to tip her,
Tracy says, because they know that
"A lot of the guys know what my money is going for," she says. "There are some girls who are dragged-out alcoholics. The men know exactly where their money is going when they tip them. If they know you are doing something constructive with your money, they are more willing to give it to you. They have the money, and they feel they are helping you out. I really think it makes them feel good."
The silver dress slides down Tracy's body and falls to the floor. Dressed only in a black G-string, she grabs the pole, her leg around it and slides to the floor. Men in the crowd keep their eyes fixed on her. They don't shout or yell. They just watch, except those who are having their own tap dance.
Twelve dancers entertain 12 men while Tracy dances. A dozen pairs of breasts protrude above the crowd. Men in various stages of pleasure enjoy as they pay.
Money dictates the amount of body contact the customer will receive
"If a man is going to pay more, you'll do a little more for a tup. But I have my limits, Tracy says.
Other kids don't."
Other girls don't.
"There are girls who will crawl all over a man, bumping and grinding hurt, out letting them touch them all over. It is not worth it, crawling all over a man," she says.
Those girls don't make any more money than she does. Tracy savs.
Tracy says because of her goals of getting an education, owning her own home and having a family, she is different from most dancers.
"Girls who have danced for a long time, this is all they are ever going to do," she says. "They are the girls who work five days a week. This isn't an job that you can do on a daily basis. You just get mentally messed up. The girls who do that are so worn. They are so hard."
Working everyday, taking off their clothes and letting men paw them
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