I explain that I am in my third year at Barnard College and am a Women’s Studies major, and that I have always found adult entertainment to be a fascinating subject. I told her I was thinking of doing my senior thesis on women who work in the industry. (A mutual friend who had also gone to Barnard had given me Alex’s number when I expressed an interest in my project last semester. Alex knew about me from this friend and had agreed to meet with me, although it was apparent that she wasn’t sure exactly what it was I wanted from her.)
“Have you ever thought of stripping yourself?” she asked me with a wry smirk.
“Well, yes… but I’ve always been concerned about what my parents would think, what my boyfriend would think, my friends… that sort of thing. Sometimes I wish all that didn’t matter, but it does, and, well, that’s my reality right now. God knows, what if someday I go to law school and decide I want to run for President or some other public office?”
“As if politicians have nothing to hide,” Alex blurted abruptly. “Politicians never inhale. Don’t forget that,” she added sarcastically. “Everyone has secrets, things he or she feels a need to keep under wraps. Personally, I think it’s all an unfortunate state of affairs. Secrecy breeds shame, in my humble opinion.”
I’m not sure exactly what Alex is getting at, but I find what she says interesting nonetheless.
“Have another cup of tea,” Alex encourages. “Red Zinger or Orange Pekoe?”
“I’m fine, really. Thanks,” I respond. Tea makes me pee. I don’t want to have to keep rushing to the bathroom every minute while I’m here; I have questions to ask and information to garner.
Alex finally takes the turbanesque white towel off her hair and a cascade of gorgeous, exquisite, multi-hued, blondish brown hair, still damp, tumbles down between her shoulder blades to the small of her back. Botticelli’s Venus de Milo in a bathrobe. She excuses herself briefly, exits the room, and returns in a translucent, ankle-length, white lace, spaghetti-strapped getup. Not much is left to the imagination in this outfit. I find myself wishing I could feel as comfortable wearing something like that as it seems like she feels wearing it. The way she floated back into the room, she must have thought nothing of it. I would give my right arm to feel comfortable in a sheer, lacy nothing, alone in my own home, not to mention in the presence of someone else. Suddenly I feel terribly repressed. And depressed.
I realize I must get to the matters at hand if I am to get on with this project. I’ll deal with my pushed buttons later.
We chat for some time, about this, that, and the other thing, and finally decide how we can collaborate on this project together most effectively. We agree that the subject of adult entertainment in its entirety is far and away too vast to tackle in a single undertaking, so we decide to focus specifically on topless dancers and dancing. After all, that’s Alex’s forte anyway. “People all have their particular fantasies,” she tells me. “Topless dancing was mine. Nude dancing and porno flicks were not.”
The one thing which strikes me about our discussion and her attitude today is that she seems very positive about her dancing. She speaks about it with a certain pride, a confidence. It almost borders on bragging; it’s as if she feels she does something which only a handful of privileged women do, or have the courage to do, the balls to do. I don’t get it, and I’m not sure I want to get it. I find myself fascinated and repelled simultaneously. I’m getting that same uncomfortable feeling in my gut that I had when I was waiting for Alex to answer the door. For the life of me, I don’t understand why I am attracted to something that obviously bothers me so much. I realize that this is a great deal more than just a project for school. This is about serious self-examination, about attitudes, cultural dictates, men and women, men and men, women and women, power differentials, and all sorts of things. Fantasy, societal acceptability… my mind begins to race. I’ll have time to osmosize this, and time I’ll need.
Alex tells me she keeps a diary and writes an entry in it after each of her dancing shifts. She also has amassed a number of audio cassettes containing verbal entries, used on days she felt too tired to write but felt she had something to say nonetheless. I ask her if she would mind sharing with me some of her thoughts, feelings, and discoveries collected in her diary. She seems surprisingly relieved, even touched, to have someone take such an intent interest in them, someone with which she can share some of her insights into this world.
“I think people in general have a serious misconception of what this whole thing is about,” Alex said abruptly. “It’s a lot more involved and complex than most people give it credit for. If one chooses to take a careful and complete look through the rough and condemned keyhole into this world, what you find you’re really looking at is a microcosm of the human condition.”
Alex agrees to put her diary in some semblance of order and transcribe her tapes for me. We both think that this will be the best and easiest way of going about this project. The following chapters are her story in her own words: what originally caused her to decide to dance exotically in order to fulfill a ten-year fantasy, what she discovered and uncovered as a dancer in the establishments in which she chose to dance, and finally, the turn of events which transpired that led her to enroll in graduate school in order to acquire a Master’s degree as a marriage counselor and family therapist.
“I doubt I would have ever gone back to school to be a psychotherapist if it hadn’t been for dancing,” she said. “Some people told me nothing positive could possibly come from stripping, that I was throwing my life away. How wrong they apparently were.”
Time’s been passing and I need to get on with the various errands of the day.
“I hope you feel like you got what you came for,” Alex says sincerely as she walks me to the door, her diaphanous, floor-length lingerie trailing behind her.
“I do,” I said with a smile, turned and shook her hand firmly, and walked down the hill, past the glorious, picturesque floral and arboreal arrangements of the Hollywood Hills to my car.
