Q: How has being a stripper changed your attitude to men?
B: I don’t know if it has. When I’m at work I’m probably a little bit less understanding than I would have been when I first started. Less tolerant.
Q: So if they go past a line, you don’t put up with it any more?
B: Yes. When I’m out, it’s probably changed my attitude in that way. When I’m out I expect to have security guards at my beck and call. Like, ‘Him. Out!’ So I go to a nightclub and I expect to be able to say, ‘Get rid of him, please.’ And I think, ‘I can’t do that!’
Q: Sometimes you can. It depends what they’ve done.
B: Yeah, but this is for little things. If people say something that makes me feel like I am at work it annoys me, makes me angry. If they say something sleazy.
Q: But you don’t mind when you are at work because that’s the whole idea?
B: Well, I didn’t used to mind that. Whereas now, sometimes I’m tolerant of that at work, but often when I’m out it makes me feel like I am at work and I think, ‘I don’t need this. If you’re not paying me, you don’t have the right to be rude to me. I don’t need it. So it’s changed my attitude in that way. A man has to be very, very non-sleazy for me to be tolerant of him talking to me now.
A: And it’s ‘tolerant’. It’s not interesting any more. Conversations with people aren’t interesting any more. You’re going to tolerate it as long as you can before you fuck off. And it is like that. ‘Can I tolerate this, and how much longer can I?’
B: It’s true. Like when I met M he wasn’t sleazy. He was a dag. He was just a bit weird. And even then I was umming and ahhing. I was kind of interested but kind of defensive.
