1. I HATE YOU SO MUCH. PLEASE DIE.

“It makes me feel sick. A lot of the time I try to imagine they’re not there or something but part of it is making them feel special. Looking into their eyes is really important. I hate having to do that because I hate them all. I always have thoughts like ‘I hate you so much. Please die.” While I’m kneeling in front of them, smiling and staring into their eyes.”

—June

2. I HATE EVERY CUSTOMER I SEE

“I hate every customer I see….Some guy at the club started rubbing my crotch through my panties last night. I said, ‘You can’t do that.” He said, ‘Why not?” I said, ‘Because I don’t want you to.” He looked shocked. Like… dancers aren’t just walking sex dolls? We actually have wants? The recurring theme seems to be that no matter where I go, men treat me like I’m theirs….I’m so tired of being touched and smirked at and catcalled like my body was made specifically for them to enjoy. I hate them all so much.”

—Lily

3. THE MEN WERE SO SCUZZY

“I danced in 2002 & I HATED it. The men were so scuzzy in there but generally, the women don’t mind. If they are stupid enough to hand us their $ for NOT getting laid, then that’s cool. I have never been shy about nudity, but when the OLD men or the ones who are in strip clubs for a reason (BUTT-UGLY!) & want a lap dance…UGH!! That was the most degrading money I ever made & the hardest. It’s not easy to pretend that you are turned on by some fat-ass loser wanting a lap dance, but that is the only way to make $ as a stripper….I didn’t hate the men. They were just being men…I hated the job.”

—Anonymous

4. SHE’S CRITICIZING YOU, LAUGHING AT YOU, MOCKING YOU

“If you’ve ever given money to a stripper, you’ve probably given money to a girl or woman who has spent the last 20 minutes laughing at you, either with the other girls or on the inside. You buy a lap dance and inside she’s criticizing you, laughing at you, mocking you. She’s mocking what you’re wearing, how you’re speaking and everything about you. When a man would pay me to give him a lap dance I would spend the entire time internally laughing at his breath, his pimples, his fat belly, anything and everything I could. These women hate you, and no amount of money you can give them will make them like you any more.…So, while we may be thinking about how disgusting your teeth are, how horrible your breath is, what a stupid shirt you’re wearing and how we’d like to run a cheese grater over your smug face, we’re smiling and looking at you through submissive eyes as we robotically rub our bodies over yours.”

—BB

5. HE SMELLED LIKE ONIONS

“I had this one guy who really stunk. He was a college boy. He didn’t wear no deodorant. He was sweating nasty. He smelled like onions. I was in there an hour with him and I had to deal with that smell for so long. I kept, like, rubbing my nose trying to give little keys like, you need deodorant. It was horrible.”

—Asia

6. IT MADE ME REALIZE JUST HOW PATHETIC MEN ARE

“I did it and it made me realize just how pathetic men are. I don’t hate them, I just hate that they come get lap dances and watch naked women dance and go home to their wives and lie about it.”

—Anonymous

7. BALDING, SLIGHTLY CHUBBY, SMALL DICK RUBBING INTO MY ASS

“Girl, your man owes me 60 dollars. About your man: white, early 30s, balding, slightly chubby, suited, small dick rubbing into my ass. Your typical strip club patron….I gave him five lap dances before he claimed he did not know they were 20$ per dance, then bolted without paying me.”

—JJ

8. I USED TO HATE EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER FOR BEING MALE

“Many of the strippers I know hate men and want to use them and unfortunately this is the outlet, one which is not ultimately powerful for women….I used to hate every single customer for being male and being in a place which uses and ranks women, but now I see individual stories and I can’t hate every single customer, especially when they tell me they know they are messed-up inside.”

—Amy

9. ANGER AND FRUSTRATION

“There is a common belief amongst society that strippers hate men….The more common and specific scenario in which strippers can be guilty of disliking men, are quiet nights, or nights the club is swarming with men who are only interested in swigging on alcohol and being boisterous with their other drunk mates. The temporary, situational anger and frustration that derives from such nights can be quite intense. The hopelessness that is felt on one of those shitty nights can be enough to make me want to quit, within minutes an interesting, not-too-drunk-and-irritating customer who wants to pay heaps of money to hang out can wipe away that feeling. The trick is to be patient and see men as individuals, not a whole.”

—Madison

10. I’M A FEMALE MISOGYNIST

“No, I don’t hate men. A few of them annoy me, but that’s the job. I don’t speak for all dancers but I can tell you that I’m a female misogynist. After dealing with so much bullshit from the uterine sector I will not even go near one. They are 100x more handsy and entitled than the most inebriated male customer. Just not worth the money. You wanna do us a favor, ditch the civilian vagina and come with your buddies ready to spend and have a good time. Note: there’s a .00001% group of female customers that are cool. Those are few, far between and greatly appreciated.”

—Anonymous

11. YOU’RE AN IDIOT, BUT I’M A SLUT, SO WHATEVER

“When I started working as a stripper, I’d look at the other strippers and be like, ‘Eww, look at all these crack whores.” But that feeling dissipates pretty quickly. But you do judge your colleagues at first, and the strippers judge the men who come in, and the men judge the strippers, and so everyone is judging everyone, which means that everyone is fronting. But the flip side is that no one cares because you’re never going to see each other again. It’s like, ‘You’re paying $12 for a Bud Light to see my tits, which means that you’re an idiot, but I’m a slut, so whatever.” So in a way it’s kind of liberating–everyone’s just working their shit out and getting drunk and hating each other.”

—Jacq

12. THE CUSTOMERS ARE THIS WHOLE OTHER SPECIES

“When people say, ‘Doesn’t stripping make you hate men?’ or stuff like that, to me the customers are not men; they’re this whole other species.”

—Rachel

13. STRIPPING IS A SOUL-SUCKING, DEGRADING JOB

“I feel that overall stripping is a soul-sucking, degrading job that will drain the life right out of you if you stay too long. I’ve danced four years now and I am so worn down—physically, emotionally, and mentally. I’ve been cursed at, groped, propositioned, had objects (such as quarters) thrown at me, shoved, humiliated, insulted, licked, bit, had my clothes literally ripped off me, been rated like a piece of steak by male and female patrons of the club, talked dirty to, stalked…I’ll just stop there for now. And they wonder why many dancers hate men?? Ha…I don’t hate them, but I have to admit my feelings about men…and even life…have changed greatly by being a stripper.”

—Andie

14. I STOPPED CARING ABOUT PEOPLE

“I now realize that lap dancing is one of the hardest things I ever did. I found it tough, soul-destroying, and it had begun to strip me of my humanity. I began to see everyone in terms of how much I could get out of them. I had begun to really hate men, to be bored in their company. I stopped caring about people around me because I was surrounded by this atmosphere of constant mistrust.”

—Anonymous