hang up those heels honey

this makes me angry

MORE slut-shaming and reinforcement of stigma. They always choose strippers for these reality TV shows about creating perfect little women, and then spend the duration of the show berating and humiliating and shaming a perfectly normal, lively young woman into being ashamed of herself.

And they choose them because it's "controversial" and "risque" and will get audiences watching. And of course reality TV shows manipulate certain behaviours out of people and cut and edit to create a persona standing in for the true individual. They choose people whose images they can craft to a certain stereotype. Like pro-wrestling, they have faces and heels. Strippers invariably become heels.

And no matter how much she may have loved her job, found empowerment and ownership and fun and freedom in it - she knows what she's expected to say. She's been transformed, she's been rescued, she's been delivered. She's seen the error of her ways and now she's going to toe the line, cross her legs and never, ever wear sequins again.

Oh god, that sounds so awful. I mean, crossing your legs is one thing (apply the right pressure and it can be fun, actually), but never wear sequins again?

Mitchell said she hoped to make a living "like a normal person" now.

Yes, because strippers are abnormal, beyond the fringes of society. Strippers are never mothers or students or artists or anyone who might live next door to you.
What is normality anyway? Why is it that stripping falls outside of it? Strippers pay rent/mortgages, have flat tyres, go shopping, schlub about in tracky-daks on days off. How is this not a normal life? Like any shift-worker they may work "odd" hours, but considering the degree to which stripping is integrated into the modern lifestyle, I don't understand why it's considered such an odd career option.

OH wait, I'm doing that thing again... that thing where I don't buy into societal sexphobia and misogyny. Right. Silly me.

"It's not something I want any more. I don't have any need to go back to stripping, I am happy with my studying and my new life."

If it is genuinely not something she wants - and notice that she says wants, which implies she wanted it before - then that is wholly her decision. I just hate to think she's had that wanting driven out of her by an exploitative system.
But I also note that she says "need" - to me this speaks of an association with brokenness, that a desire or need to strip is related to a fractured or abnormal personality. And this is so stigmatising, considering the huge variety of needs involved in people becoming strippers. Those needs are diminished and ignored by this attitude because it implies that "needs" can be fulfilled simply by living a "virtuous" life and having nothing to do with time constraints, mental health issues, money requirements, studying... none of the varying factors that really do contribute to a fulfilling life and that stripping can aid with.

It was after viewing video footage of herself behaving badly that the penny dropped for Mitchell.

Let me guess, one evening they got all the girls drunk and provoked them. After weeks and months of having "proper feminine behaviour" drummed into her, she was then put into a circle of judgement, forced to watch this footage whilst having horrible, damning words shouted into her ear.

Also, any "bad behaviour" of hers? Not related to stripping, actually. And the idea that it is, is just more othering BS.

You know, Gypsy Rose Lee was a lady too. There IS a gimmick in that shtick, Nicole. You should think about it.

It's my hope she's playing the system, saying what she knows they all want to hear (after all, who else of these ladies have appeared in the media recently?), and in a couple of months she'll land on the cover of FHM or something. I'll toast her when it happens.


(Holy cow, she could make so much money being the "feature dancer from Ladette to Lady! Nicole, c'mon!!! Every strip club in Australia would fall over themselves to have you on their stage! CAPITALISE, GIRL!)


On a side note... I don't always feel functional and I tend to avoid checking my work email when this is so. There's nothing more annoying than finally feeling up to logging back in and realising you just missed, by a couple of days, a hefty couple of job possibilities. Stupid brain.