Rather than feeling objectified by men at straight bars, go-go dancers at the Stonewall Inn find something empowering about dancing for other women

“I’m going to get naked as we chat,” Caitlyn informs me as she starts pulling off her shirt, rummaging around in a duffel bag for her go-go gear. “Sorry this room is so small. I have to share it with another dancer and a drag queen, and the drag queen leaves her stuff everywhere,” she says. She pulls a pair of fishnet tights out of her bag. “So what do you want to know?”

That’s a good question. It’s around 11pm on a Friday, and I’m perched on a chair in a changing room on the second floor of the Stonewall Inn in New York. I’m here to learn about the world of lesbian go-go dancing.

Caitlyn Seitz, who is maneuvering into fishnets in front of me, has been dancing here for the last three years, hyping up a largely gay-girl crowd at the popular Friday night Lesbo-a-Go-Go parties.

I’ve gone to a bunch of these parties and it has always struck me that the spectacle of a woman dancing half-naked for tips would, in a different context, be considered objectification. And yet, when a woman dances provocatively for other women – when you have lesbians exercising a female gaze – it intuitively feels far more equitable than a woman dancing for men. But is that really the case?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Me not defining myself is not me denying myself.’ Photograph: Rica Johnson

First, however, some go-go dancing 101. The most important takeaway of which is this: go-go dancing is not stripping. Rather, being a go-go dancer, Caitlyn explains, is like being a “a cheerleader in very, very, extra-minimal clothing”. Your job is to get people energized and dancing and, in exchange, they might tip you, tucking dollar bills into your extra-minimal clothing.

Caitlyn makes a decent amount of money: Stonewall pays a flat fee for her performances, and she can keep her tips. Nevertheless, she doesn’t do it for the money. When the 26-year-old moved to New York from Ohio after college, she started looking for go-go gigs because she thought the experience would hone her performance skills and help her singing career (she performs under the name Caiikie). She auditioned at some straight bars but ended up leaving midway through the process. “They just wanted me to stand on a box and be on display. I was looking to move around and make people excited to dance.” So she gave up on go-go dancing and got a desk job.

Then, one Friday night, Caitlyn was out at Stonewall with some friends. She was having a good time and found herself, as one does, up on stage under the spotlights, dancing in front on an appreciative crowd. The DJ asked if she was interested in auditioning as a go-go dancer; one thing led to another and she’s been dancing at Stonewall ever since. The DJ is now her girlfriend.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I feel like I can be more expressive.’ Photograph: Rica Johnson

So are you a lesbian then? I ask Caitlyn. I kinda hate myself for asking, because I find it incredibly boring when I’m asked the same thing. Labels are a convenient way for other people to define you (and they make describing people in articles a lot easier), but they’re a very limiting way to live your life.

Caitlyn is of the same mind. She doesn’t call herself a lesbian, or a cissexual bisexual, or pansexual, or gay, or straight, or queer, or whatever. “Me not defining myself is not me denying myself,” she shrugs. She just calls herself Caitlyn and says she’s in a “committed relationship with a woman” whenever anybody asks. And because she has big blonde hair and doesn’t exactly fit society’s view of what a lesbian looks like, she gets asked about her sexual orientation a lot. “People are curious. There is this stereotype of lesbians as carpenters just walking through the streets of New York City with their toolbelts on.”

Caitlyn is telling me this as she stands in front of the mirror, putting the final touches to her outfit – black fishnets, a black crop-top, black lace panties, and black boots. Caitlyn generally brings eight or nine outfits with her each evening to choose between (“They’re very small, so they fit in one bag”) and changes between each of her three sets.

If the crowd tips well, she rewards them by taking more clothes off. If not, she doesn’t bother. What she wears is up to her; there’s no uniform. “I was given very loose guidelines [by Stonewall],” she says. “They stressed that they wanted me to be comfortable. Not physically comfortable, but emotionally comfortable.”

I seize on this to ask if Caitlyn has ever felt emotionally uncomfortable when she’s been dancing. Has she ever felt objectified or violated? I feel like this interview has been a little too Kumbaya-My-Friend so far, and there must be some sort of gritty sex scandal I can uncover.

But it seems that women are, for the most part, fairly well behaved. “Oh sometimes people get a little handsy thinking that because I’m half naked then I’m just there for their pleasure, and they can have free reign of my butt,” Caitlyn says. “You know, sometimes they try and stick the dollar where they shouldn’t be sticking it. But I feel like I’m on an even playing field with everyone else. I don’t feel objectified. I feel empowered and excited because I get to express myself. At straight bars I feel like it’s more of a predatory environment.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest How does one tip a dancer, exactly? Photograph: Rica Johnson

At that moment the door to the changing room swings open, and the other dancer performing that night walks in. Crystelle, 26, just started dancing at Stonewall recently, she also go-go dances at a straight bar in Brooklyn. Like Caitlyn she prefers not to define as gay or straight; however she is currently in a heterosexual relationship and has never dated a woman.

The big difference between dancing for men versus dancing for women, Crystelle finds, is confidence. She feels a lot more confident when dancing for women: “Usually at a straight bar, I would just shake my ass a lot. A lot. The gay world is more accepting. I feel like I can be more expressive and explore a range of dance movements I wouldn’t normally do.”

The flip-side, however, is that she finds that women are far less confident than men when it comes to approaching her and tipping her. There’s a lot more giggling and uncertainty about whether what they’re doing is really OK, and where the dollar bill is supposed to go.

Both Crystelle and Caitlyn seem so confident and so comfortable that I’m a little in awe. Don’t you ever feel self-conscious when you’re dancing? I ask them. Haven’t there ever been any awkward moments?

“Well,” says Crystelle, “Once I did a really intense hair flip and my eyelash fell out.” Caitlyn thinks about it for a bit. “Hmm,” she says, “there was this one tampon incident. But I don’t know if I should talk about it. OK, I’ll talk about it ...”

Before she can get into the graphic detail, however, Grown Woman by Beyoncé begins to blare on the speakers and Caitlyn starts singing enthusiastically along. “That’s my cue!” she exclaims, and gets ready to head out on stage.