Throughout her career as a stripper, Sarah Tressler has danced for men who wore ladies underwear, accidentally set her hair on fire while leaning backward toward a group of hopefully big tippers, and learned the words to every Nickelback song against her will.
In the process, she went from earning $7.25 an hour at Starbucks to more than $100 an hour, improving her grades at college and developing a confidence she had previously lacked in the process.
In her new book, a collection of entries from her blog of the same name, Tressler offers an inside look at the ups and downs of her naked trade, telling of customers that sometimes yank her hair or sniff her armpits, while also recalling how training herself to tell men “no” in clubs fostered her ability to do so in everyday life.
Tressler, 30, who has a masters degree in journalism from NYU and served briefly as a society reporter for the Houston Chronicle, came to public notice in March when the paper fired her after learning of her other occupation (she has since filed a discrimination complaint against the paper, with Gloria Allred representing her).
While making it clear that she strips solely for the money, her experiences bring up the question of whether any cash is worth her more disheartening experiences.
As one might expect, men sometimes reward her for shedding her clothes by all but declaring their eternal love, as with the gray-haired Japanese man who played cheerleader during her dance for him, alternating his screams of “Take it off!” and “You make me so hot!” with the battle cry, “Sarah number one!”
And then there are the drunks, such as the guy who pulled her onto his lap and then spent minutes trying to light his cigarette with a fake, battery-operated candle. When another dancer tossed one of the candles right at him, the man leaped out of his chair “like an electrocuted cat,” causing Tressler to giggle so hard that she hit the floor.
Another time, a customer not only matched her dance moves as she writhed on stage, but then tried to choreograph her moves, shouting directions at her over the music. “And,” she adds, “he didn’t tip.”
Some customers get more intrusive, such as the man who, after holding her hand, suddenly “sucked” her finger into his mouth like he was “using it to brush his teeth,” causing Tressler to think about how many potentially gross things she had touched in the club that night. “Even just the wall in the dance booth is probably covered with hepatitis.”
Tressler has developed methods for dealing with problem customers, such as the smallish Indian man who got a bit too physically aggressive while she gave him a dance, and got a lap full of pain in return when she “straddled him between my knees” and “slammed into his lap repeatedly, as hard as I could, over and over.” The man, in agony, shrieked, “I’m a thin man! I’m a thin man!” and Tressler got her fee from her “visibly shaken” customer after just half a song.
Then there are times when she finds herself in the awkward position of having to comfort customers in more emotional ways.
After being refused for several dances from a man who mentioned that Tressler was his daughter’s age, the man relented. But when he mentioned his recent divorce several times, Tressler realized that his reticence had nothing to do with his daughter, and said, “You’re not over your divorce.”
The man began sobbing so hard that his shoulders shook, opening up about how he’d been married for 25 years and destroyed his marriage by having an affair.
Another time, she approached one of her regulars to ask the innocuous, “How’s it going?” only to hear, “They’re unplugging my mom today” — causing her to wonder, “Isn’t this the one time in your life that you shouldn’t be listening to Lil Wayne’s version of ‘On Fire’ while a chick with fake t – – s windmills her legs around on a stage?”
And then there are the customers who are downright freakish, as with the big-breasted blonde in the low-cut top who tipped her, then revealed that she was there with her husband and stepson, repeatedly yelling at Tressler, “My stepson is hot! . . . My stepson is hot!”
Tressler makes her co-workers out to be a quirky bunch as well.
Speaking of her “drunk sweethearts” (“Sweethearts who will cut a b – – – – if necessary,” she writes, “but sweethearts nonetheless”), Tressler recalls the co-worker who saw a Patriots game on TV and said, “New England? I thought we just played the United States?”
Or, in a sadder tale, the woman who strutted around on heels, hustling a buck while clearly with child. “I would have tipped her out of sympathy, but I was afraid a tiny hand would have reached out [of her] and grabbed the bills right off the stage,” she writes. “That baby’s gonna come out dipping Skoal and dancing to ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’ ”
In the book’s one non-stripping tale, Tressler recalls her several-night stand with Jeremy Piven, whom she met while interviewing him as an intern for Us Weekly. She found herself at his apartment that night. When she started making conversation, Piven cut her off with, “I’m working on a very emotionally exhausting show right now, and I really need something more nurturing, so if you’re looking for someone to spar with, we can put you right back out on the street.”
It sounds harsh, but then Tressler’s philosophy is pretty much the same. She has no illusion about what she does for a living, and it’s not conversation or nurturing.
“Strippers work at strip clubs. And they have bills,” she writes. “So please be considerate and bring a wad to share.”