LUCY: In a way it's a sex industry, because you're selling women's bodies. But of course there's a line - either you're a dancer or a prostitute, you can't do both. But it does happen, although anyone who's found doing it is out. You can't have a lap-dancing club that's got prostitutes in it because then you're just a brothel. I've been offered obscene amounts of money. If you've got no morals or conscience then you could think "yeah, I'll do that."
TIA: It's not well known, it's not happening all the time, but Chinese whispers are rife in these places, and I definitely heard of it happening. It made me really angry because it's degrading all of us, it makes us seem like that's what the clubs are for. But the industry is getting worse, and the girls are making less and less money. So for some girls, first it was easy to dance, and then if someone’s offering them a quick £100 and they take it, obviously they're not seeing any other way. The problem is brothels more than lap-dancing clubs of course, but they definitely feed into each other. It's all part of the sex industry.
APRIL: It happens all the time. All the time. You can just make more money that way. I’ve worked in clubs where girls were quite open about it. Not to the management, because you’d be on the street in a second, but a lot of girls would meet guys after work. It’s all illegal of course, and I think it’s disgusting, but some girls are skint and just don’t give a shit.
LUCY: When I first started I asked other dancers what it was like. They were all really helpful and positive about the whole thing. A lot of them had been there for years, and no-one didn't want to be, no-one was there because they had to be. They were really happy. . But having said that, it can be quite a bitchy environment. If I was a new girl coming in, like any girl coming into a club, you're going to get the cliques.
TIA: I found that it was an extremely demoralizing environment. It really affects you mentally. People think you must get a real confidence boost to have all these guys paying to see you dance. For me it was the complete opposite, it actually ruined my confidence for a couple of years. There's just unbelievable, absolute pressure from the girls. On a weekend there can be between thirty and forty girls working a small club. They're so obsessive with how they look. They'd be asking each other "how much do you weigh? What size waist are you? Who did your boobs?" I didn't have a boob-job, but people assumed. It was horrible. People don't realise that side of it, how the girls are. It's a competition.
LUCY: I don't feel it's competitive. As long as I make what I want to make, I don't give a shit what anyone else makes. We all get on; we've got girls of all shapes and sizes, that range from very pretty to absolutely stunning. We've got girls that are married with kids, we've got girls that are gay, we've got girls doing law degrees, we've got girls who are full time dancers. There's no average demographic.
TIA: They take everyone on because the more girls the more money, they don't seem to think about the reputation of the club. I've seen some really horrendous girls come through, we were literally shocked. A lot of the time, because they weren't going to get dances for their looks, they were really pushy and bullied the guys into paying for dances. Those girls didn't usually last long, girls who had been there longer would complain to the managers, or regulars would complain; and the management would rather lose the girl than the custom. So they'd be gone.
Although strictly forbidden by law, dancers do sometimes make contact with the punters, taking "lap-dancing" literally. This is known as "dirty dancing".
LUCY: Dirty dancing is stuff like girls spreading their legs wide apart, where you see everything, grinding on guys' laps, putting boobs in their mouths and stuff. Girls who aren't exactly pretty or good dancers sometimes feel like they have to do it, if they're really struggling or it's been a bad week. I go mad when girls do that, because it just means guys expect more from what is a no contact dance. More and more guys are going to come in and try and touch and try and proposition, because they've had it off the girls before. It just makes it worse for themselves and everyone else.
APRIL: A lot of the guys come to expect it after a while. There’s so many clubs round here that you can literally walk round the corner and find somewhere else, maybe there they’ll turn a blind eye to the grinding. It all just adds to the pressure of it. The girls need to sell themselves to the men, and they know the men will want as much as they can get. It’s not the same everywhere of course. The big clubs are so famous now that they can’t get away with that sort of thing. But the rules are made to be broken, really. I don’t really think anyone cares. As long as nothing too crazy is going on, a lot of girls will just think “fuck it.”
