Trixie Tales: The Stripper Blog — Installment 4
Okay, so I know it’s been a minute. I have lowkey been doing alot with a little bit per usual. I’m making ends meet, switching shit up, and making things work but there’s been an anger that has been gnawing at me that I’m trying to shake but I honestly think that pole work and practice might be the only thing that will help. Even hitting the jay isn’t hitting the same and THAT is some shit to note because I’m such a smoker. Lol. And normally weed can calm me down and cure everything but not these days so I have to take notice.
Really, I’ve been realizing that things take time. I’m naturally impatient but not for no reason. People tend to wait very long to give me my flowers and so to keep myself motivated I have to give them to myself but that’s a lot of multitasking to do for one bitch, and I’m honest about that.
The journey of self-love (especially when you are single and content with being so) is not what they tell you. All of it is work and “they” (idk who it is fr) are wildly dishonest about how much time and effort it takes to rework the narrative of yourself in your mind. You’re creating a different person than the person that you 1) thought you would be 2) were reared to be. You might be able to shake who your peoples thought you should be, but when will you shake who you thought you would be. That’s two different bitches to clear in a short amount of time. Lol. I’m working hard af on self-acceptance and it’s because I am somebody who normally identifies a goal and goes after it, taking everything to the chin.
I am no longer that girl. I’m not taking shit to the chin anymore just for the sake of reaching a goal and THAT is something that I have very little experience navigating. I was born into suffering and up until recently, really embraced it as a necessary part of every journey. I now know better, that it doesn’t always have to hurt and trying to differentiate between growing pains and externally inflicted pains is a mf task. As a black woman, when you take this approach — you have to be honest about the amount of “no” you have to hear but also the amount of “no” you have to give out.
When good enough is not enough. Then what?
When you are aiming for *best* at all times. Then what? Especially when no one around you seems to think you deserve it. There is only so much words of affirmation, yoga, and meditation can do for you in that regard. It always comes down to material conditions and so much of that shit, for black women is outside of our control.
Self-love can’t solve the issues in every journey and the reality is that material conditions or a lack thereof has profound effects on self-actualization and it’s annoying as fuck that community leaders and influencers are so dishonest about that.
It seems like I’ve been running this really impossible race against myself for the majority of my life and I’m not sure what it was about September, but ever since then I just kinda felt the deep deep urge to slow down. I was working too hard for crumbs and I was fucking over it. I realized what I brought to the table and I was over it. But now what? Like real shit. You love yourself. Now what?
Run? Fight? Yell? Kick? Scream?
It is often argued that people who take to these kinds of actions are having an issue with self-esteem but I actually think it’s the opposite. I think they do know that they deserve better than what they are being given and are without the tools or the resources to rectify the issue and so whatever manifests itself emotionally just does and whoever is in the crosshairs is just an unlucky bitch.
Having somebody fucked up IS a thing. And people are allowed to react. Even if it doesn’t make sense to those who do have the tools and resources not to react in violent ways. I’m not generally a fighter but the moments that I have put my hands on people there was no amount of education or training that could have rectified my feelings in those moments. I was all talked out. I had used every big word I could to try and mediate the situation and then it was just time for bitches to get they ass beat. I have Aries placements lol. I don’t like to be pushed and people try me because they don’t think that I can be pushed. But I’m not too good for the bullshit. Which is why I stay out of certain spaces because there is only so much explaining I’m going to do and I know that.
I’m so happy that I found books and affirmation in being good at school so I didn’t fight growing up. But had I not buried myself in reading, I would have been fucking people up because a lot of shit makes me mad. I didn’t learn that until I became an adult.
My whole life I’ve been super goal oriented. As in, I see it … I want it .. if it is achievable, I try to be the one to achieve it. Whatever “it” may be. I’m “it.” I’m the “it” bitch. But lately something happened that really rocked my core and made me think differently.
Lately in the club, it’s been coming up one way or another that I’m an educated stripper. In the locker room, even with clientele — niggas notice how intelligent I am, they notice the work that I do outside of stripping, and it’s just been really good to be recognized for who I am. Cute. But is it paying my bills? Yes and no. Lol.
I have an undergraduate degree and a post-graduate degree. And it’s no secret that before I did this, I was an educator myself. But something that has been coming up for me is just the fact that even though we act like it is, that shit ain’t everything for real. And it’s wild to watch as people inside one circle that I’m in, criticize and actively work against the people who I’m in another circle with.
I don’t choose to be one of my selves when I’m anywhere. I choose to be my whole self no matter where I go. My gifts make room for me, but I don’t have to take anything away from myself when it comes to my gifts. If it’s for me, then it’s for me. If it’s not, then it’s not and I’m okay with that.
I’m not too prideful though, to note that the constant rejection because you live in the grey eats at you. It’s one thing to be one an extreme end of the spectrum, but I’m not. I’m very clearly a whole bitch. I’m a whole person and the world does not like black sex workers whole. And we have to contend with that. Especially as movement workers who have rose-colored glasses about what Black liberation will look like.
Getting everyone to a place of self-love is lovely and that’s about the fuck it. I’m past that now.
I had a conversation with my therapist the other day about deciding to identify with or not identify with some sexual trauma that I experienced as a child. And through my tears I was explaining that I don’t want to tell anybody about it because I don’t want that to be the picture that they paint for why I’m a sex worker. It’s such lazy analysis and niggas will do it!
Sex work is legitimate work. It can also be extremely healing to take power back over a body that was overpowered constantly as a child. I don’t want people to grab onto my darkness and project more darkness onto it after EYE have made the executive decision to transmute the energy. People can kiss my entire ass. I know my why and I live in it. If I wanted it to be the story that I was touched and so now I do this work, that’s the story I would tell but it’s not because that’s not the truth and it’s irritating to think that people think it is.
It’s something that happened and I want to deal with it which is why I have a therapist. But sex work isn’t therapy. It’s my job. Dancing can be therapeutic and so can pole, but do not be mistaken. Work is work is work is work. And that’s what this has been. I’ve been working. Feeding my daughter, paying my bills. What I have not been doing is trying to use my profession as a healing agent for my trauma. That was what I was doing with teaching. Trying to embody and find comfort in the space that helped me escape my home life. Paying the education system back in blood by being who they asked me to be, rectifying it’s inability to actually serve folks by claiming that it saved and healed me. Wrong answer bub.
You see how wild that is? The respectable thing was the crutch. Not the hoe thing. I’m pretty. Niggas like to give me money. I’m sexy as a bitch and I can dance. Stripping is a culmination of all of my best attributes and the way I want to present to the world. Look at that.
I’m past a place of consistent and constant evaluation of my worthiness to exist in a space. I’ve done the work and I’m simply good enough — I’m better than a lot of bitches at what I do because I’m a natural seductress. I naturally brand myself very well, I’m a true performer, and I’m naturally creative.
Bitches have been copying and LOL at the idea that I didn’t notice. I don’t trip because I recognize that stripping is a collective job and it works best if you eat off each other, but I for damn sure notice. I’m good enough to do whatever it is that I want to do. That’s a new feeling, but it’s one that I’m looking forward to embracing. But I’m not in a space of trying to “build” a life as much as I am trying to “live” my life. I’m not on survive I’m on thrive. I know how to rub two nickels together but why the fuck would anybody want to be somewhere doing that?
The point of privilege is not to work more, it’s to work less and then to be able to direct your attention to other things to help more marginalized folks.
I’m working on it. I am.
