1. You’re probably not the whole package, but you’re going to have to become the whole package — fast. Everybody deals with different challenges that they have to overcome. Personally I didn’t have a background in dancing at all. So I struggled a little bit, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Some people don’t have the body and shape that they want, so they have to deal with working out and getting the body they want. Others have to change their diet. Some people don’t have the personality for it. I didn’t really have the personality to be a male entertainer at the start so I had to kind of create a persona that was more of an entertainer.
2. Your personality is (almost) as important as your body. You get a huge amount of social interaction, and it’s very easy to get quick immediate feedback because it’s based off of how much money you get. So if you’re doing something wrong, it will reflect in the amount of income you get. It’s a very powerful motivation if you’re shy, you say, “OK, well, what are the subjects that women would want to talk about and how can I learn about these subjects to use to carry on a conversation?” Being an introvert, I just had to be a little more social, I had to loosen up a bit, and it was great. Working as a male dancer allowed me to flourish into somebody who I enjoyed being, someone who is more social, versus someone who wasn’t as socially comfortable very easily.
3. For a guy, stripping is not easy money. We are contractors so we don’t get a wage. We get tips and that is completely it. If you’re female, you can start working and make $400 to $500 a night. If you’re a man, you might make $300 to $400 a week for the first few months. And we do much more involved acts, not to say we work harder. It’s just a difference.
In an ideal world, we would have plenty of girls there tipping, but if there aren’t a lot of girls there and I’m not making a lot of money, I know I could be making more. I could have called people and said, “Hey, why don’t you come in and see me?” or I could have done my homework weeks in advance and cultivated a relationship with different people who would continually come in and support me to ensure that I don’t have that slow night ever. You have to build relationships and text people to ensure you make the numbers you need to make to pay your bills. So this job is not a “oh, you show up to work, you do your job, then you leave and make a lot of money” job. It’s not even a little bit like that.
4. So a lot of male strippers have other jobs too. I’m also an author, a model, an actor, so I have plenty of bad nights, but it’s of my own choosing and it doesn’t really bother me. We have a lot of guys who will personally train girls. Guys that will give them discounted time if they come in to the shows. It’s another job, but it’s also good for getting clients.
5. You can’t try to please every woman in the club. You quickly learn the people who like you. Not that you don’t take care of the other women, it’s just that everyone has their taste and that’s absolutely OK. It’s important to embrace that and not focus on the fact that you’re not getting attention from another girl you might be interested in but she’s already interested in somebody else. If a woman doesn’t like me best, then it’s not even worth wasting my time on because no matter what I do, she will still like that other guy more than me. I usually cater to women who are more serious. Typically an older crowd. And women who are financially better off and want someone who is more intellectually stimulating.
6. Get to know your clients. Hang out where they hang out. Text them when you’re not working. You can specifically bring people into the club who you think are your type. Depending on who your clientele is, you might go to a strip club, but if you’re someone who caters more to the upper-middle class and caters toward middle-age women, like me, you may go to a wine bar and sit and chat with people there.
7. You better make friends with the other guys — they’re not the competition. It’s easy to feel like you’re competing for tips, but it works a lot better if you’re cool with the other guys. Everyone has a different type, and if someone you’re friends with gets a client who’s into your type, he’ll hook you up.
8. But some guys will try to steal your clients. Sometimes you’ll be texting a girl to come by, but then some other guy will be like, “Let’s grab dinner before work,” and then she’s going to come in and get some dances from him, not you, and then there goes your money. There are guys who don’t step on anybody’s toes, and then you have the guys who step on everybody’s toes. We’re all friends with each other, but in the end, it’s cutthroat.
9. It’s easy to get carried away and sleep with a bunch of women. Don’t do it. Every guy when they start is like a kid in a candy shop. I was no exception. A lot of women have negative sexual interactions in life, so when they go to a place like this and they see that they stand a chance of having a sexual interaction, it’s rather enticing. But you have to think from a working perspective and realize that to do, you’re probably also not going to continue to get money from that person because you’re taking that fantasy away. Don’t get me wrong, you build relationships. But I don’t want someone to believe there is a romantic relationship between us when there’s not. Clients sometimes misconstrue that the nature of your attention and that you’re just being nice to them.
