Not Respecting Boundaries & Professionalism

Have you ever been somewhere public, like a train or bus or library or grocery store, and someone just randomly comes up to you and starts talking?  Like, not even crazy people telling you  about how President Roosevelt was their grand-uncle, just random people asking you about the book you're reading, where you got your shoes, is that brand of cereal in your cart tasty, or other random shit about you/what you're doing?

That is some weird shit when it happens.  I don't know about all of you, but when I'm out in public, alone, I mind my own goddamn business.  If I'm in line for something, or walking somewhere, or sitting reading, or doing anything out in the real world, chances are good that aforementioned thing is the only thing I'm thinking about, and am not trying to invite others to join in or make comments about it.  And based on said assumption, I do not try to join in or make comments about things other people are doing... well, I don't make comments out loud, to them... just to myself, in my head... because I'm a snarky, judgemental person who thinks mean things about other people.  BUT, at least I'm polite enough to keep that all internal.

Now, there's an extra level of weirdness, and some attending social constructs, that apply in a lot of these situations that a lot of male readers may be unaware of.  When a man approaches a woman in public, unsolicited, when woman is minding her own business, and starts talking to her, shit gets awkward.   There are plenty of guys out there who have entitlement issues, and this kind of behavior is one of the more public, and potentially scary varieties.  Here's a really good post about it from CaptainAwkward, which is actually what got me writing about this topic.

This whole issue of Entitlement and Male Privilege is serious business in Real Life, one of those BigTime sociology issues that we all need to work on expanding awareness and understanding of so that society as a whole can make positive progress, and life for everyone can be better.  What makes this relevant to this blog, and my reason for writing about it, is that the very nature of The Club makes it very very treacherous to deal with this issue at work.  BUT, deal with it is something that you must, if you want to maintain control over how things go at work, if you want to have a say in your relationships with customers, and you want to dictate how you make money.

To boil it down, in Real Life, when someone invades your space and starts trying to trap you into a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't conversation, ignores your boundaries, and makes you feel uncomfortable, you can fight the socially programmed response and ignore them, tell them to fuck off, leave, or similar options of disengagement.  At The Club, however, it's hard to do that because, you know, talking to an asshole who does things like that is your job.  So, on the downside, it's hard to disengage assholes who don't respect your boundaries while working.  On the plus side, you can use the Club's nature, and your respective place within it, to counteract the self-entitled behavior on the front end, before it even becomes a problem.

When we're talking about customers at The Club, we have to think about societal and behavioral norms, specifically those that still apply when inside The Club, and those that do not... and those that do but customers think do not.  The Club, when run correctly, is a place of fantasy, a refuge where men (and women who are so inclined) can be entertained by and socialize with beautiful sexy ladies, free from  the moralistic judgements of our society, where the customer can enjoy said sexy ladies and not feel like a creep or asshole for doing so.  Furthermore, when run correctly, The Club is a safe place for dancers to work, where fear of physical and sexual assault is minimized (that fear, unfortunately, will never go away entirely, no matter how many cameras and bouncers there are.  Nor should it, to be honest.)  Our customers walk in the door and immediately feel entitled to be paid attention to, which, actually, is a reasonable expectation when walking into a business as a customer.  How much attention, and what form that takes, is another matter entirely.  When a customer wants attention, gets it, then pays for it (from the bartender, for drinks.  Or from a dancer, for boobies in his face,) things are operating as they should.  When there is a clear mechanism at work for monetary exchange based on goods and services, things run smoothly.  

Unfortunately, that is not how real life works.  People in our society currently have a shit-ton of entitlement issues, and they carry over to The Club.  An asshole, who has unrealistic expectations of his own self-worth, who undervalues a dancer's inherent worth, and who feels an unwarranted sense of entitlement to attention quickly gums up a smoothly running club.  You, as a human being, have boundaries in place, regarding what is and is not appropriate conversation, appropriate physical contact, appropriate payment, and appropriate behavior, that applies to all other human beings.  This can sometimes seem like it is in conflict with what is expected of you at work, as it sometimes seems like you may well have to compromise your boundaries in order to make money.  And that perceived conflict all stems from the Entitled Asshole. 

The Entitled Asshole is manipulative, and uses your primary motivation at work (to make money) to ignore your boundaries, to slowly creep past them, to the point where you are saying and doing things you really REALLY don't want to yet you feel like you have to or you'll lose this customer and his money.  And these days, since money doesn't grow on trees anymore, any amount of money you let get away feels like a stupid waste.  Like, "stupid me, why did I let that guy walk out of here without doing dances?  So what if he was making me really uncomfortable and may have done something way past 'OK', it wouldn't have been forever, AND I would have more money that I have now."  That kind of self talk is EXACTLY what Entitled Asshole wants to inspire.  He gains in manipulative strength by making you second-guess yourself, by making you doubt your own boundaries and willingness to cross them, and thus doubting your own self-worth.  He holds out promise of money (or threat of no money,) then sits back and lets you erode yourself until you come to the point that he wants you at.  And the real shitty bit, ESPECIALLY with long term, regular customers, is that with this kind of Asshole, it's never enough.  Over time, that level of what they want, that bar of your own self-worth, will just be continually lowered and lowered and lowered, until either A) he gets what he ultimately wants (and with Entitled Assholes, that's usually some straight-up, no ambiguity Sex Act) or B) you FINALLY hit your limit and tell him no, probably losing him as a customer (but at that point you don't care because, GOD, what a douche!)

The period of time and level to which standards drop is variable yet correlated.  A customer you've only known for an hour or so may manipulate a $20 dance into $30 for two dances, or an extra $100 bucks to let him get super handsy in the VIP, whereas a customer you've known for years and who has spent lots of money on you in the past may manipulate towards meeting up for lunch or dinner or shopping trips outside the club, with the expectation of having sex.

Another type of Entitled Asshole, or rather subtype, is what I'll call the "Something-For-Nothing Asshole."  This Asshole is not a regular, but rather a party goer, usually for a bachelor or birthday party, a tourist, someone who does not spend time in strip clubs regularly and accordingly is not particularly aware of rules and etiquette, and more importantly of boundaries.  (This stems more from ignorance than creepy maliciousness, generally speaking, but as a sidenote, Normal Guy Assholes who ignore your boundaries are just as bad as any other Entitled Asshole, because they probably have very little regard for women and their boundaries outside The Club.)  The Something-For-Nothing Asshole is the guy who tries to touch your vagina with a dollar when you're on stage, who wants a free lapdance because it's his birthday, or whatever other douchey shit we can all give a million examples of.  This kind, thankfully, is much easier to deal with, especially if you have good bouncers/managers.  Ignore the troll, and they generally go away.

Generally speaking, both the Regular Entitled Asshole and the Something-For-Nothing Asshole can be dealt with in the same manner.  And it's gonna sound simple, and thus impractical, but the solution to dealing with Entitled Assholes is to Proactively Enforce Your Boundaries.  And I don't mean laying out an ultimatum or reading them the Riot Act.  Rather, by your actions and words, from the moment you are out on the floor to the moment you start interacting with the customer, you make it abundantly, explicitly clear that you are here to do a job,  like in any other professional/customer relationship.  For you see, that is exactly what you are at The Club to do, your job.  

The professional dancer is there to make money, and most customers know and respect this.  It doesn't stop the professional from chatting with customers, being friendly and flirty, nor does it stop them from genuinely enjoying aspects of work (that they actually enjoy.)  The professional does, however, clearly delineate things as Work and Not-Work.  And when with a customer things start to drift from Work to Not-Work, the professional quickly changes course.  And the customer is usually respectful of that, because he acknowledges that the professional is there to do her job, not to make Real Life friends or find a boyfriend or a One Night Stand.

It may sound like I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'm really trying to leave no vagueness about what a professional dancer is and does, because a lot of Entitled Asshole behavior is predicated on a Lack of Professionalism.  When a dancer acts more like a Chick Who Is Hanging Out (and just so happens to get naked) than a capital D DANCER, customers will treat her like a Chick Who Is Hanging Out and not like a DANCER.  A Professional Dancer Proactively Enforces Her Boundaries by acting like a Professional.  A Chick Who Is Hanging Out does not.

At a bar or nightclub, there is the expectation in the mind of men that there will be some females present who are actually down to go home with a guy, whom they may like to date or just hook up with.  And in the setting of a bar or nightclub, such an expectation of possibly meeting a member of the opposite sex for whom consensual sexual and/or romantic liaisons is totally reasonable and acceptable.  The expectation for same at a Strip Club, however, is not.  So when a customer, Entitled Asshole or not, encounters a dancer who is acting like a Chick Who Is Hanging out, there will be confusion as to whether or not boundaries are being enforced.  A Chick Who Is Hanging Out at a bar/nightclub may actually be looking for a friend/hookup/boyfriend, and so when a Chick Who Is Hanging Out is encountered at The Club, it's not inconceivable that a customer would think they are looking for a friend/hookup/boyfriend.  (And if you ARE working at The Club and looking for one of those things, KNOCK IT OFF!  That shit is unprofessional, and also, EWW, strip club customers are gross.)

When an Entitled Asshole starts to go into his negotiation tactics, he is doing so because he thinks that you are willing to negotiate, that there are no firm boundaries in place, because he isn't thinking of you as a professional who is at their job.  He is exercising his male privilege to get what he wants, and he only needs to find the magic combination of words, body language, innuendo and money to achieve that.  The dancer becomes a puzzle, a game to beat, to solve.  Its the same bullshit that Pickup Artists subscribe to, where women are riddles, not people.  What the Entitled Asshole does not want to negotiate with is the Professional DANCER with a capital D.  The Professional has strict limits on their behavior, their work persona is constructed to allow them to engage and disengage with customers with a minimal amount of effort and unpleasantness, and easily partitions and compartmentalizes Work Stuff and Not-Work Stuff.  In plainer English, the Professional is or is not going to let the customer get what they want, and that determination has been made ahead of time, regardless of what the customer says or does.  The choice is made by the Dancer, not the customer.

Finally, there's nothing you can do to alter your customers.  You cannot change their upbringings, their life experiences, their philosophies or their emotions.  What you CAN control, however, is your response to their behavior towards you.  You can do this constructively by Proactively Enforcing Your Boundaries with them, from the get go, acting like a Professional.  You can do this reactively, disengaging them when your boundaries are crossed, and hoping they will connect Cause and Effect.  Or you can do this passively, by letting the Bouncers/Management/Someone Else step in and stop whatever is happening.  Obviously, being told to STOP is an unpleasant thing, and most customers won't like that very much at all, so being able to avoid that in the first place is a good thing.

So, while we work on a societal level to change the perception of Women's responsibilities and roles, and the expectation that Men should be aggressive in getting what they want while women should be "nice" and accommodating and shouldn't rock the boat, you as a Dancer have to deal with the current state of affairs as they are now.  And if you want to maintain any sense of dignity while still making money, you will need to learn to Proactively Enforce Your Boundaries.  Act like a professional, and you will be a Professional.  And that's what we'll talk about next time.