If you’ve ever considered becoming a stripper — or if you’ve always believed that strippers earn thousands of dollars per night by “looking beautiful and doing nothing” (as one of my old ex-boyfriends once put it so brilliantly) — this article is for you.

Stripping is so much more than having a beautiful face and a fantastic physique. True, appearance is a requirement of our work; it is how we get recruited in the first place.

However, obtaining employment in a strip club is the simplest aspect of our profession as strippers. After you’ve been admitted, the hard job starts.

1. To succeed as a stripper, you must possess excellent interpersonal skills and be ready to work an irregular schedule.

Working from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. became my new normal. I said farewell to Friday night excursions with my pals – I was checking in to begin my shift as they were clinking glasses to toast the weekend. I sometimes worked the day shift to mix things up, but the club was quiet during lunch hours and I missed the frenzy of a wild Friday night, so I stuck to night shifts.

The greatest and worst aspects of being your own employer are that you control your own schedule.

Nobody will stop you from going home to sleep if you haven’t earned any money in six hours. Nobody will compel you to work, which may be difficult to adjust to if you are not naturally self-motivated.

2. To succeed as a stripper, you must have a business mentality and a long-term objective.

Are you working at the club to help finance your education? Purchase a home? How about laying a solid foundation for your future? How do you intend to track your earnings? Are you aware of anybody who can assist you in filing your taxes as an independent contractor?

Or are you making it up as you go along?

I highly advise against being one of those “I’m here to party and buy Louis Vuitton” strippers, but I’m not here to pass judgment. If you don’t have a long-term objective and aren’t spending wisely and saving the rest, you may work for five years earning $2500 every night and end up with nothing except a wardrobe full of luxury bags and high-end shoes.

3. You’ll need to exercise self-control and apply your best judgment in a potentially hazardous setting.

Consider a workplace where you have unrestricted access to free booze and drugs and where you sometimes run across real pimps, strippers and actual celebrities.

How can you say yes to achievement while saying no to potential damage disguised as a good time?

You must have a strong sense of self; you must understand what is essential to you and why you are here.

4. You must advocate for yourself – no one else will.

Customers will attempt to steal you, touch you inappropriately, bite you, lick you, slap you, or photograph you. And if you work in a club where management does not safeguard strippers, you are responsible for standing up and demanding that others respect your limits and pay you what you are owed.

5. You’ll need a thick skin (or the ability to rapidly grow one) to withstand rejection and criticism throughout each shift.

Customers that are inebriated or disrespectful will say nasty things to you. They’ll do it if you refuse to give them what they want. An arrogant client may refer to you as overweight in front of his friends and other strippers, and you’ll need to be strong enough to dust your shoulders, approach the next table, and confidently sell a dance. Click here to read about Steps to become a Gold Coast topless waitress.

Are you taking notes?

6. You also need to be comfortable with the heavy stuff.

At first, your mental health will suffer, perhaps for the duration of your stripper career, and anxiety will increase as you make the tough transition out of sex work. It was true for me.

Customers will utilize you as a therapist; they will dump all of their emotional baggage on you and then leave you to handle it on your own once your shift is over. If you don’t already have any pals in the adult entertainment industry, you’ll need to create one so you can discuss work. In this profession, having a support system is critical.

7. You will almost certainly have to lie to the people you care about about your work.

And it is not because you are ashamed to be a stripper; it is because this line of employment will make you an outcast. Individuals who know you (and those who do not) will judge you for your decision to pursue sex work. They’ll make assumptions about your personality, your interests, and your way of life.

If you’re not going to announce to everyone in your life that you’ve become a stripper, you’ll need a decent response to the question, “So, what do you do for work?”

I never informed my conservative parents that I began dancing after college, and it hurt me to lie to them about my “consulting” work whenever they inquired.

8. If you want to succeed as a stripper, be prepared for your personal relationships to suffer.

This is particularly true if sex work is not a frequent occurrence in your social group or family. How are your pals going to react to this news? How about your partner? Will you be accepted as a sex worker by your former classmates and colleagues?

Final thoughts

This profession will transform even the most innocent, naïve girl into a thick-skinned, no-nonsense seductress in a couple of months.

And, sure, this profession can rapidly jade someone – these are strippers who began dancing and are now refusing to date anybody who does not promise to pay their rent and then some. They are unable to disentangle money from genuine connections; they cannot look someone in the eye without seeing cash signs. It’s tragic. In this regard, you should learn to draw a distinction between your professional and personal life.