Stripped Awake

October 8th, 2025 Kaylee King

Working in the commercialized sex industry taught me everything I know to be true about human behavior. 

I explored desire, pleasure, and delight; danced with greed and lust, and learned about all the ways people love, the way they want it but can’t seem to find it, or reach for it then back away. 

In the biz, there’s a phrase that goes around, typically spoken from the lips of a veteran dancer with a blasé attitude, sucking on a cigarette,

 “Once a stripper, always a stripper”

Because whether it’s been three weeks since you hung up your heels, or three years, no one will ever let you forget it.  In my younger years, I was so clueless. I was working at a place in the valley when I first heard that phrase– me and the other dancer were on the patio which was adjacent to the dressing room. She had just finished telling me about how she started a business and  published a book, but that she always ends up back here. She looked defeated. She was chainsmoking cigarettes.

Yeah right, not me, I’m gonna get out of this place. 

I now fully understand the true meaning of that phrase for me. ‘Once a stripper, always a stripper’ means my confidence to do what few people can bring themselves to ever do, triggers their own insecurities. And using it to propel me into business, pay for school, and leverage clientele ruffles the feathers of those who didn’t actually want to see me do well. 

If you want things to be different, you have to start doing things differently, or everything will always be the same. Since I was a dancer for so long, most people in my life had a very fixed perspective of who they thought I was.  I defined myself by it, so others defined me by it. 

As I mentally started to pull away from the job, I began to really picture what life would look like without it. Eight years is a long-ass time to do anything, especially in your twenties. I honor  the fact that I effectively grew up in the industry. It’s still a bit shocking to me.  It undoubtedly shaped my world view and perspectives on people, sex, gender, money, connection, and relationships in unique ways. I have what feels like a heightened sense of awareness of what lies beneath the surface. I hear what people aren’t saying. I’m tuned into the needs and desires of others in a way that I can’t turn off, though it seems to be fading naturally over time. 

I embrace this and feel grateful to have such a unique perspective on humanity.

 I was prepared for quitting the club to shake everything up, but not like this. The general reaction from my family when I first shared that I was quitting stripping, was sheer confusion.  It was kind of comical. Like, what do you mean you’re quitting? You’re gonna start keeping your clothes on now?

 I wasn’t just done with the club. I was done with anyone who wasn’t supportive of me or wasn’t a positive influence in my life. I took a step back from everyone, stopped answering messages, as I quietly studied and passed classes. I kept my head down and observed, and became okay with stepping into the version of myself that I was still creating peacefully in my little cacoon. This was probably the most exciting phase of my life thus far, and the only thing I can relate it to would be being pregnant. I have never experienced pregnancy myself, but this is what I imagine pregnancy would feel like. 

My 8 months off from working brought me clarity. “Once a stripper always a stripper”  indeed, but we are created, not born. 

Not all, but most, girls in the commercialized sex industry have stories of their parents abandoning them and being sexually objectified in early childhood.  The road into that way of life is long and winding.

What the world needs less of, is men who need sex-workers. 

What the world needs less of, is aggressive men, misogynistic perspectives, and objectification of women in society.