God, I love feminism.
There's a woman named Tara who is my age, and she calls herself a Hobo Stripper. And, she is. She lives in an Astro van that she converted with her dog, Bro. She's from Alaska and drives around, stripping for cash and writing about it. She's fairly spiritual about the earth, herbs and her connection, which may be too much for some, but overall, the writing is great, the stories are awesome and her insights into stripping is pretty freaking cool.
I've never been to a strip club and always avoided it because of the anxiety of feeling bad for the girls or something (and my lack of interest in the activity itself, but that's not what we're talking about), but now I feel like I had it all wrong. Some girls will be unhappy, but same with any profession. The thing I never realized is that some girls are happy, just like other professions. It's a good read.
I love that she is happy, lives in her van along and makes it work for her. I like the idea that people are nomadic intrinsically, it appeals to my sense of wonder, even if it doesn't feel like much of a reality. I wonder what it's like to be free like she is. An independent contractor with business opportunities all over. She's good at what she does and she goes and lives in national parks whenever she wants. It seems like it's the beautiful end we all want: doing what you love, living well on your own terms and taking holidays whenever you want. That are all camping.
Well, that may just be me.
4 comments:
I read a couple of entries - interesting, for sure and not a point of view that normally gets much mainstream publicity. My concern... What it would be like to have someone with a lifestyle like that be your parent?
The world is an interesting place full of interesting people.
Yeah, there really doesn't seem to be that many people truly living outside of mainstream constructs for work/play and writing about it.
Do you mean if she had a child while living this lifestyle, or having lived this lifestyle?
I was originally thinking 'while living'. But now that you mention it, 'having lived' would be somewhat worrisome as well. I mean, making the transition from hobo stripper to responsible parent and female role model seems like it would be a difficult one to make. That on top of the fact that career-wise I would expect stripper income to decrease fairly significantly with age (and physical effects of having a baby? I'm not exactly an expert on strippers.) and there aren't very many mainstream jobs that I know of where a basic education and years of stripping experience will get you to the top of the resume pile.
Then again, I'm sure it has happened before that a career stripper has made the transition. Maybe it's the addition of the hobo element that makes it seem so difficult to me.
interesting.
I think she's got an advanced degree? And job experience advocating for children and a couple other careers. I htink she's checked out of the "mainstream" forever and would never want or need to transition. As an aside, she wrote that you can be 200 pounds plus and strip successfully, so long as you aren't planning on upscale clubs in New York! So maybe there's a market for gramma strippers!?
What made me interested in her and the other stripper blogs she links to is that these women all pay taxes and have investments and savings, and many of them have advanced degreees and professions including engineers and lawyers. They are smart and understand the nature of their business well (as well as future inplications), which is what I never gave them credit for before.
I think if she ever wanted to have kids, her first instinct would not be to try and join the corporate world in any way, she's planned things out so she never has to. I don't feel like she attaches value to that lifestyle, which may be due to her life growing up on a trapline in Alaska, or something else, I don't know. But I think she's banking hard on her travels and she has an investment scheme she wrote about somewhere, and her living expenses are pretty low! Which is the part where I'm pretty darn impressed.
Also, I don't really agree with the idea that you can't be a stripper and a good female role model. I understand that there is a stigma out there, and the media never seeks out the smart ones to talk to or dramatize, but I think having an intelligent thoughtful mom in whatever profession will benefit a child, and could be a good role model. Afterall, imagine how supportive she'd be in helping her kids follow their stars.
Thanks for writing Alan, I'm always interested in your ideas!
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