Strip clubs have had a profound influence on pop culture and fashion. Though due to white supremacy, puritanical and patriarchal ideologies; civilians are desperate to detach themselves from anything that links society to sex work. On one hand, civilians demonise strippers. Yet on the other hand, they want to dress like us. Many popular fashion brands are turning strip club outfits into a consumable trend. And while this may seem harmless, given the dangers that sex workers face on a day to day basis, there’s a problematic notion to fashion companies' dismissal and derision of the strip club culture that needs to be addressed.

Defining Strip Club Culture

When strippers speak up about the commercialisation of strip club club culture, we are often met with dismissive attitudes. We are accused of being gatekeepers or having a “victim complex”. People tell us it’s “not that deep” and to “let people wear what they want to wear, they aren’t hurting anyone.” We are also laughed at, while being told that “stripping isn’t a culture.”

Culture is defined as “the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.” Strippers are a marginalised group of people who have a rich, beautiful and diverse history. During the sexual revolution of 1960’s America, strip clubs were popping up throughout the world. Commonly referred to as “gentlemen clubs”, these strip clubs carried the essence of their burlesque lounge predecessors: dancers would begin their set in beautiful and lavish outfits, stripping as the song progressed. As censorship laws lessened their grip upon society, dancers had more freedom to wear more revealing outfits.

Modern strip club iconography is heavily associated with micro bikinis, stripper boots/heels, neon lingerie, fishnets and bodysuits. Stripper outfits aim to emphasise and bring attention to the key features of a dancer's body: breasts, ass and legs. Revealing outfits help to show off our bodies as we dance around poles, and our outfits also need to be easy to remove. Colours like neon pink, green and orange glow under the club lights, helping to bring attention towards the dancer.

But how did we get here? Just as Black strippers invented the modern style of stripper dance, they are also the pioneers of strip club culture as a whole, including the fashion. Strip club culture had (and continues to have) a profound influence on modern RNB and hip hop. Hip Hop historian Dart Adams states that “A lot of music was discovered in strip clubs. DJs would break new music and see how much money was made while it played. This led artists to create music that would sound good in strip clubs and not traditional clubs.” This influence extends to the visual aspect of hip hop. To this day, Snoop Dog hires strippers to pole dance on stage next to him during his concerts, bringing strip club fashion out of the clubs and onto a massive stage with thousands of civilian spectators. Black culture is once again a pioneer in music and fashion, and the Black strippers who helped to inspire this movement are all too often forgotten.

The Double Standard of Online Censorship

History has a way of repeating itself. We have returned to an era of censorship, only this time it’s taking place on the internet. Since FOSTA-SESTA was implemented in 2018, sex workers have been at the receiving end of online censorship. It is almost impossible for sex workers to promote our work on social media. We risk being shadowbanned, having our accounts suspended or deleted entirely; further alienating us from society and denying us an expansive means of income and community.

Many online boutique stores have Instagram pages that are drenched with photos of models in nightclub settings dressed in stripper boots and micro bikinis. Advertised as “Festival Fashion” yet laced with stripper culture (a popular online clothing boutique has an entire category on their site titled “Kink Wear: Shop Stripper and Bondage Clothing”). On first glance, these models could easily be mistaken as strippers. But these stores are safe from online censorship because they are not advertising the exchange of a sexual service, yet sex workers risk being deplatformed for “adult solicitation” just for posting a photo in a micro bikini. The double standard is whorephobic.

These online stores have extremely large followings, granting them a massive platform that they could use to raise awareness of the negative impacts online censorship is having on sex workers across the globe. There’s nothing stopping these companies from using their platforms to advocate and raise awareness of the harm online censorship is causing to a marginalised community. There’s also nothing stopping them from hiring strippers to model their stripper inspired clothing for them. They choose not to so that they can market their strip club inspired fashion to the masses, and avoid being associated with the very people they are taking inspiration from. By showing public support for the sex work community, they would risk being met with a negative response from Sex Work Exlusionary Radical Feminists (SWERFs) who may call to boycott the brand. And because sex workers are being censored, it’s a lot harder for us to speak out against brands who appropriate us without giving back to the sex work community. When you’re wearing our job as an accessory, your silence in the face of our injustice is dangerous. Silence is compliance.

Pole Fit #NotAStripper

Speaking of separating themselves from strippers; the pole fit community has a massive role to play in the commercialisation of strip club culture. In 2016, many pole fit dancers took to social media to declare themselves #NotAStripper. This separation from the origins of pole fit was fueled by whorephobia and reflects how people want to look like strippers, dance like strippers, but they don’t want the stigma, the consequences that they know comes with being a stripper. Online pole fit retailers lean into this separation from strippers, marketing their outfits as “Pole Fit Fashion”, while many of the outfits listed are straight out of the strip club.

As sex worker, pole instructor and activist Gemma Rose stated via her Instagram “Seeing this reel trend going found where civ polers cite the reason for lack of clothing being due to grip, and it is highly problematic. This is because it once again leaves the stigmatised workers who gifted civilians this art/sport out of the conversation. It continues to erase us and therefore reinforces the stigma around pole's inherent connection to sex work.”

This separation sends the message that it’s only ok to dance in skimpy outfits on a pole if you’re doing it as a means of fitness, not as a means of income. This adds to the whorephobic ideology SWERFs hold that strippers are an enemy of feminism and victims of the male gaze, whereas pole fit is empowering and a reclamation of femininity. It is yet another whorephobic double standard that reminds sex workers how much the general public hates us, yet they desperately want to consume us.

Increase of Price, Decline of Quality

While writing this article I saw a Tweet that summarises one of the major concerns that the appropriation of strip club fashion is contributing to: the inflation of the price of our work uniform. The tweet was a screenshot of a tight neon dress retailing for $2,000 with the caption stating:“For non-SWers, this is a $20 box dress, the cheapest form of stripper apparel there is.” Sex work writer Adrie Rose retweeted this post, adding: “I just think if the fashion industry is going to refocus itself on sex worker aesthetics, the clothes should meet sex worker standards and look…good.”

It’s already an investment to become a stripper, we have to purchase our own work outfits. So seeing one of the “cheapest forms of stripper apparel” being sold for $2,000 is shocking to say the least. If cheap neon dresses can be rebranded to the rich to match their income, what other strip club apparel will they target next? If the rich are willing to spend that much money on strip club fashion, we risk seeing the inflation of all aspects of our clothing to the point that we will no longer be able to afford our own work uniform.

Another staple of strip club fashion are our shoes. Designed to meet the physical demands of our job, stripper heels are a fundamental part of stripper’s work uniform. Prior to fame, Lady Gaga worked as a Go-Go dancer in New York strip clubs. You can see the strip club influence in her fashion, especially during the 2010’s where she would wear Pleaser Boots at red carpet events and in music videos. For her infamous 2021 Met Gala outfit, Kim Kardashian wore the dress Marilyn Monroe wore when singing “Happy Birthday, Mr President” alongside a pair of seven inch Pleasers. These two women have a profound influence on fashion, so it’s no wonder we’ve seen an increase in demand for Pleaser Heels from civilians. Online clothing boutiques were quick to catch on to this.

As a result of the demand for stripper shoes from civilians, the quality of Pleaser Heels have declined. I started stripping in 2018 where I remember a pair of Pleasers would last months. About a year into my stripping career, I noticed my Pleaser Heels would become scuffed and damaged within weeks of purchase. During pole dance competition season, many Pleaser Heels on Australian shoe supplier ShoeMe sell out.  I worry that we will see such a strong demand for stripper shoes from civilians that companies will be able to increase the prices, once again allowing the rich to flaunt their stripper shoes as a wealth signifier.

But Why Is This Problematic?

While these clothing brands who borrow from strip club culture may not be the root of the systemic hatred of sex workers, they’re appropriation of our aesthetics without giving us credit contributes to the dehumanising of sex workers. We are treated as an accessory, as a fun quirky trend to dip in and out of whenever it suits. This would be harmless if it weren’t for the fact that sex workers are a marginalised and heavily stigmatised community. Due to stigma and prejudice, sex workers are at a high risk of social isolation, hate crimes and police brutality. The stakes are even higher for sex workers of colour and trans sex workers, who experience whorephobia fueled by additional racism and transphobia.

While we live in fear, clothing stores are advertising strip club fashion, our fashion as a cool, edgy trend without acknowledging the harsh realities of the people whose livelihoods they are commercialising.  Civilians are able to cosplay as strippers, while many strippers are forced to live double lives. We wear our outfits with pride within the strip club, but once we leave the club we hide anything that could signal to our uber drivers or strangers on the street that we are strippers. We know that if people caught us in our stripper outfits outside of the club where we aren’t protected by the club's security, we risk being the target of whorephobic hate crimes.

Clothing stores market stripper fashion as “festival fashion”, pole fit clothing stores rebrand it as “pole fit fashion.” This contributes to the continuing erasure of sex workers as pioneers of fashion, pop culture and society. It’s stealing someone’s homework, slapping your name on it and getting all the praise while we’re disregarded. It’s seeing people celebrated for something that results in many sex workers being abused, arrested or even killed. It simply sucks.

So What’s The Solution?

The dehumanisation of strippers is what enables companies to be able to steal our fashion and rebrand it towards consumers with large disposable incomes. People don’t view strippers as  human beings who are working a job in order to survive capitalism. Stripping is a job, not a fashion trend. And unfortunately, being a stripper still comes with a lot of risks. So as long as the sex work industry remains heavily stigmatised and criminalised, there will be sex workers who have issues with the commercialisation of our clothing. And we should be allowed to talk about this without being told to “get over it,.” Perhaps to civilians it’s “not that deep,” but when you take into account the hatred sex workers are subjected to in our whorephobic society, it is very warranted for sex workers to harvest animosity towards seeing our fashion glamorised while our community is ostracised.  

If people want to look like strippers so badly, the least they could do is advocate to make our lives and work environments better. Be an ally, or take off our damn shoes.

CITATION:

Strip clubs – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Strippers Continue to Fuel Hip-Hop — Like Always - DJBooth