Gallery Carre
Lapdancer: An interview with photographer Juliana Beasley
Feb 15th, 2006 by Audacia Ray
The Modernist: I always found the most disconcerting side-effect of sex work was feeling my dancer’s persona slip into other parts of my life. As a phone sex operator, I usually took calls as a barely legal cutie eternally in or out of tiny cherry-print panties. For hours after leaving the office, I was inadvertently baby-talking to grocers or my cabdrivers. Even my inner monologue had regressed. To add to my confusion, everyone was being really sweet to me - much sweeter than usual. After a few days, I quit. I had to. It was really fucking with my identity.
Juliana Beasley: Dancing can be an identity fucker. I was lucky because I started dancing at 24, when I had my identity fully in place. Playing a part for 8 hours 4-6 nights a week, infiltrates every aspect of your life. I told customers that I was younger. I played the starving student or innocent little girl because you can really only play highly stereotyped roles as a stripper.
Your job is to be a cartoon but there is a lot of room for individuality, much more than in phone sex or clerical work.
I always make comparisons between stripping and other professions because these analogies make it more accessible to people who might be curious about stripping but disinclined to take it seriously because of the stigma. I used to tell a boyfriend who didn’t understand, that stripping was just being in a musical. Every night I played a stripper in a musical.
I am sure you were very convincing. Do you feel dancing gave you skills you might not have acquired in a “straight” job?
If anything, working gave me the opportunity to be around a lot of different kinds of people. Just going from school to an office would have limited me.
Stripping can be tedious but thankfully at least it is lively. Being an office hermit, hibernating in a cubical is often more debasing and emotional draining than stripping.
There are lots of begrudged dancers who resent the clients and regret their choices, for me it was really a learning experience. I had some ugly moments, but I learned to realise that people are certain ways at certain times in their lives and it is important to be accepting.
I believe that guy looks a little embarressed… or maybe confused. lol.