With most things in life, there is clear direction’s and lot’s of support in achieving nearly anything you would like.
For instance, If you wanted to become a doctor, you have access to degrees, mentors, books, videos, community’s and online courses.
However when I wanted to learn the art of male stripping, I had literally nothing to help me. No videos, no teachers, no articles and no idea.
This is one of the reason’s why I have decided to found Male Stripper Academy, to help inform and educate new prospects in the art of male stripping.
To help guide you on the right path to creating a successful career as a male stripper, I will share with you the story of how I became a male stripper (hint – it wasn’t easy!).
Hopefully you can learn something from my story and apply what I did, to your own adventure.
In the beginning:
“As It started to rain I thought, my night couldn’t get any worse”.
It was 1.30am in the morning, in England, an icy cold night (like every night) and I had finally left work at the pub after finishing my shift.
I worked at ‘Ye Olde Black Horse’ In Rottingdean which was 10km from where I lived in Brighton at the time.
Originally from Australia, I decided the live and work in England when I turned 18 to, as I put it, “live life to the fullest”. In reality my life was not full at all. In fact it was far from it.
I was getting paid a miserable 6 pounds per hour working as a bar tender, dealing with drunk abusive customers, washing dishes and cleaning toilets.
I jumped on my bike and rode 10km home in the freezing cold wind, only to get up the next morning and do it all again. This was my life 6 days a week, with 1 day off. I didn’t dream of spending money on a buss pass because I wasn’t making enough to have that luxury.
As It started to rain I thought, “my night couldn’t get any worse”. I was riding home, soaking wet, and realised I had to do something drastic to change my life. Because I knew I couldn’t keep living like this.
The Idea:
“After I read that article it changed everything for me.”
The next day, a customer left a magazine on the bar. It was a ‘woman’s daily’ issue, I was so bored that I decided to flip through the pages, when I suddenly stopped at the middle page.
I saw a row of tanned, muscular men dressed as cowboys smiling and waving to a crowd of screaming women from a stage. They looked like they were having the time of their life.
The author interviewed a group of male strippers to give the female readers an insight into their life style.
After I read that article it changed everything for me. They spoke about all the women they met, the attention they receive, the money they make, the fun they have on stage and all the places they have travelled to for free! It was all too good to be true, and I knew right then that this was what I wanted to do.
I come from an athletic background of boxing, so I knew I was ripped and had the abs, but I wasn’t sure If I had enough muscle size (these guys in the magazine were BIG).
The phone calls:
It didn’t take me long to realise the was nothing online that was going to help me achieve my goals, so I decided I needed to apply in person with a local male strip show. My dad always taught me that the best way to apply for a job is a face-to-face interview.
So I borrowed my house mate’s laptop and Googled my local male strip show ‘The Adonis Cabaret’. I must have called them 3 times a day for 2 weeks straight.
Every time I spoke to somebody, they told me to email them my details and pictures, and they would get back to me shortly. However I never got an email back, so I kept ringing, I kept persisting and I never gave up.
Eventually they gave in, and told me to meet the manager outside the club on Saturday night at 6pm. I was told he would introduce me to everyone and then I could watch the show to see whats required. I was ecstatic and jumped on the opportunity immediately.
The show:
I kept thinking “how can this even be classified as work?”
I was ready and waiting at 6pm, when an expensive convertible car pulled up out the front.
2 Huge guys stepped out of the car, they were dressed in expensive clothes, and even people passing by on the street were double taking to check them out.
“Are you Tommy?” one of them said.
“yeah, sure am” I replied nervously.
“Cool, we were told to meet you here and show you the ropes, follow me”.
I followed them downstairs into the club, they introduced me to the DJ “Marky” and then showed me the change room’s backstage.
When the girls started pouring into the club, I stood at the back of the room and watched the show unfold. As the strippers appeared on stage, I kept thinking “how can this even be classified as work?” They were smiling having fun and being cheeky with women who, given the opportunity, would go home with them in a second (a large majority at least..)
I learnt a lot that night about how male stripping works and what to do on stage. I was watching there every move, looking at the tiniest of details from the costumes to the dance choreography.
I couldn’t believe how excited the women were to get near the men, to touch their body and giggle in excitement, It was everything I wanted as a young single guy.
Nearing the end of the show, during a ‘lap dance’ game, the host grabbed the microphone and proclaimed to the audience that all the ‘Bride’s-to-be & birthday girls in the room HAD to jump up on stage and line up to give 2 male strippers a lap dance for a special prize.
One of the strippers I met before the show happily appeared on stage, however he was alone. It was then that I realised that the host was looking across the room directly at me with a piercing gaze, He boomed over the mic “should we get our new guy Tommy on stage to join us?”, “Yes!” Screamed the audience of girls, and In that moment I knew what I had to do.
I believe many strip shows put the new guys on the spot straight away to see if they have the courage to jump on stage without any preparation. It’s a bit of a daunting thought, but once I stepped on the stage I knew I was showing them that I was keen and ready to learn.
The host questioned the audience again, “should we get Tommy to take his shirt off?”, “Yes!” the girls screamed back to my amazement. At that point in my life I’ve never had a girl want me to take my top off let alone a room of 200 women.
The confidence and rush I felt when I head them screaming and cheering as I took my top off was the moment I completely feel in love with this type of entertaining.
Very rarely do you ever find a type of entertainment job where the audience literally LOVES you this much! It’s a very privileged job to have.
After the show finished, the manager came up to me and said, “you were great tonight, but we have 1 problem. You’re not big enough, we need you to have bigger muscles”.
That comment crushed me at the time, but it motivated me to improve myself and put in the hard work.
Just as I was leaving the show owner dropped by to see how everything was going.
I introduced myself, and had a little chat with him. He could see I was very interested in working for him, and enjoyed my enthusiasm.
“What are you doing in a couple of months time for halloween?’ He asked me. I had nothing planned, and even if i did, I was going to cancel it to be wherever he was.
“I’m not doing anything” I replied.
“I’m hosting a party at my house, you should come” He shook my hand, gave me his address, jumped into his brand new Jaguar and drove away.
Putting in the work:
“I decided upon a ‘construction worker’ themed routine”
I promised myself 1 thing, that I was going to put on HEAPS of muscle and completely blow them away with my body transformation when I attend the party.
So for the next 2 months I put my head down and got to work. I put my alarm on 2 hours earlier so I could ride to the gym and exercise before work. Any money I managed to save, I spent on protein powders and insane amounts of chicken breast’s.
Lifting heavy weight became my main focus, and before I knew it, I was starting to put on some serious muscle size. My shoulders were rounding out, my chest started to protrude (It never did that before) and my arms started to bulge with veins.
I also knew that, whilst I couldn’t immediately join the strip show, I should at least try to get representation from a male stripper agency online. That was In the meantime, I could build up my experience doing ‘strip a grams’ (private party bookings).
I had an old Cannon digital camera in my travel bag, and whilst It wasn’t much I had to do everything in my power to give myself the best possible chance of receiving work.
My flat mate had the task of taking some fitness style pictures of me in the backyard, I took my top off and posed the best I could, mimicking the ‘Mens Fitness’ magazine cover models.
The photo’s weren’t much at all, but they were enough to get me represented by an agency. Once I had the wheels in motion I knew I needed to get a routine organised, to use at the private party’s. I couldn’t just arrive on the night and make it all up on the spot, that’s a recipe for disaster.
I remembered what I saw the male strippers do on stage that night, and tried my best to replicate it with my own twist. I decided upon a ‘construction worker’ themed routine, because it was relatively easy to get all the necessary parts of the costume.
Next task was to create my mix of music. I didn’t have a computer so I used to ride my bike Brighton University down the road, and pretend I was a student. I would walk into the library and use their ‘Mac’ desktop computers to download and edit my music. I made my music using “Garageband’ which is a free program with Mac computers. And to this day I still use that program, you don’t need anything fancy, only the basic’s.
My first private show:
“being my first show I was nervous and not entirely sure about myself.”
I didn’t do many private booking before I stepped on stage, but I will tell you about my first booking, because I did so many things wrong, and I believe you can learn a lot about someone else’s mistakes.
Firstly, In the UK, all the male strippers use ‘cock pumps’ to help blood flow to the penis, and then use tight rubber bands to trap the blood. This gives your penis the illusion of being large, due to the fact that it’s full with blood and kept at a semi erection.
Now I heard of this happening backstage at the strip show, so I decided to purchase one and use it for my private booking. Well, that was my first mistake, because I had no idea how to use it.
My rubber bands were too thin (felt like it was cutting my skin) and I didn’t think about how I was going to remove the rubber bands. I should of had a pair of scissor’s with me, but alas after my private booking I was struggling for quite some time to snap the rubber bands off with my hands in the change room. It was very unpleasant.
So my first booking was for a ‘Ann Summers’ party in a private room in a small pub. ‘Ann Summers’ is the same business model as Tupperware, but instead of selling Tupperware at a party, they sell lingerie and sex toys. It’s very common for the organiser’s to have a male stripper to perform at some point.
There was only about 8-10 girls in the room however being my first show I was nervous and not entirely sure about myself.
I walked into the room dressed as a builder, and began my routine. My awkward dancing and lack of acknowledging any of the girls at the beginning didn’t make for a good first impression. This was different to a stage show, It was more intimate and I had to make the girls excited.
I was confident enough to make proper eye contact with any of the girls and I kept looking at the ground when dancing.
Because of my nerves, I got my timing all wrong and was lost during my routine, there would be moments where I would forget crucial part’s of my show.
Just when I thought my routine couldn’t get any worse, I remembered how I had gotten to this point. Everybody I had met loved my enthusiasm, and energy.
I remember thinking, If I apply the same energy and excitement to my show, I might just save it.
So for the rest of the routine, I basically abandoned what I had pre-organised and did what I felt the girls wanted and what was expected of me.
Turn’s out, as long as you have a great attitude, lot’s of energy and are heaps of fun, that will be enough to make everyone happy with your show.
I couldn’t believe it when a girl walked up to me as I was leaving and asked me to sign her beast! I did so many things wrong during that show, but failing to be a fun exciting person wasn’t one of them.
How I finally got in:
“Out of nowhere I felt a huge rush of heat sweep over my body.”
The day of Halloween finally came, and I felt confident in putting myself forward again for a spot on stage. I raided my flat mates costume bag and dressed up as ‘Dexter’ from the TV series.
I was walking down the street towards his huge house, when I noticed there was a crowd of people out the front gate. He had his giant gates wide open and a barrier across the drive way so people walking by could see into his front yard but not enter.
As I pushed my way to the front, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I thought “this guy must host the most insane party’s in Brighton!”. There was a smashed up car in front yard, made to look like it was driven into the garage door (I later learnt It was a prop car for movie sets) and had fake dead bodies lay next to it with fake blood everywhere.
The front of the house looked like a U2 concert with green, red and blue flashing lights all over every inch of the bricks.
There was a life sized vampire coffin propped upright in which people could line up and get a photo themselves inside.
He had covered all the plants in fake spiderwebs, and there was skeletons hanging from the tree’s. Around the front door was hand carved pumpkins, illuminated from the inside with candle’s, not to mention the smoke machine on full blast, creating a creepy atmosphere mixed with the green lights as the mist moved across the front yard.
Rock music was playing loudly from huge amplifier speaker and the people passing by were draw into this movie set experience.
Standing on top of the wrecked car was the show owner, he was dressed as a rockstar vampire, covered in leather.
To further grab everyones attention, he was carrying a large stick, purposely set on fire, and was staring into the crowd with a manic smile.
Out of nowhere I felt a huge rush of heat sweep over my body. I looked across to see him breathing fire by spitting a flammable solution from his mouth. It was Incredible, I’ve never seen anyone take entertaining people, in any form, so seriously.
I stepped under the barrier and I heard a voice shout “Hey! What are you doing?”, I looked around and realised that he had hired a gigantic scary looking security guard (dress as a zombie) to keep his party safe from unwanted guest’s.
I was just about to explain myself when I heard a voice shout “It’s ok! I invited him, he’s with me!”, I looked back around and the boss man was giving me the thumbs up on top of the car. “Thanks for coming!” He said. “I’ll see you inside”, he pointed to the front door covered in fake spiders.
I won’t go into detail about the party, but what I will tell you Is that everybody that was involved with the show was there, plus heaps of HOT women. The manager and owner were impressed with my body transformation and over many beers and shots, they decided to give me a chance! I was told to be at the show next Saturday night at 6pm sharp, for my first night working as a stripper.
My first fews weeks I was working as a backup dancer, learning the basic’s and understanding how the show structure worked.
During the week I was sent to the show choreographer’s house to have a routine professionally made for me. It was an ‘Aussie’ style theme, using iconic Australian songs mixed with a little bit of Magic Mike. I couldn’t have been happier.
I quit my job as a bartender, and never looked back. I was now enjoying ample free time, and plenty of money to live life on my own terms. I saved up cash for a motorbike (to travel to my private bookings) and even booked a few holidays around Europe. My dream of what I i wanted to achieve when living overseas had become reality.
From here on, the rest is history. It’s my story of how I transitioned from a terribly broke, shy and skinny boy – to a confident, muscular and financially happy man.
I’ve learnt many life lesson’s form my job as a male stripper, and I believe the self confidence it’s given me has helped me achieve things In my life i wouldn’t have otherwise.
Every male strippers story is unique and different, and I guarantee you they will all be interesting, this is just my story, and I hope you enjoyed it.
