I stripped once. Wait, don’t look at me like that… Story time.

I met a guy who became my friend. Let’s call him Rob. Rob was from Texas and he was wild. He was always down to party and had so much energy. He was almost too much for me at times. One night I went to his house in Hollywood to pre party before going out. Nothing out of the ordinary here. We’re drinking shots of vodka, talking and laughing. Then out of the blue he suggests we go check out this strip club down the street where they throw an amateur night every Wednesday. He tells me with such enthusiasm, “Anyone can enter the contest and the prize is a thousand dollars and you would for sure win!” “A thousand dollars?!” I think to myself. “For just dancing on stage?” I’m still pretty sober at this point and think, “There’s no way I’d ever strip.”

As the night went on the idea of entering a stripping contest became more and more appealing. It was something I had thought about before, but it was always just a fantasy, never something I would actively seek out. It’s at about vodka shot number four that Yllom started to make an appearance. This became my nickname after I’d have a few drinks. It’s my name spelled backwards. Super creative right? Yllom is my alternate personality, she’s the part of me that doesn’t remember. She’s literally her own person. Rob then tries one more time to convince me by saying he’ll have some of his friends there to cheer me on so I’ll be sure to win the prize while simultaneously pouring me another shot of vodka. We hold out our little shots of clear liquid and look into each other’s eyes and shoot it to the back of our throats. Boom! I’m finally there. I’m browning out, Yllom has officially taken the wheel.

Next thing I know I’m walking up to a strip club with Rob and his friend. There are bright pink and purple lights shaped like sexy woman flashing along the outside of the building. There are no windows to see inside. There is only one small door with a red velvet rope in front of it that leads into the strip club. We’re greeted by the bouncer who looks at me and asks, “Are you here for the amateur night?” “Hell yeah”, I respond. He unclips the red velvet rope and tells my friends to go inside and he points for me to go upstairs. I look at Rob and start to feel a little nervous. He nods his head at me and gives me a wink as if he were my parents telling me that my first day of school was going to fine and to just have a good time. “Be yourself, make some friends and the day will fly by.”

Now I’m walking up the cold dark stairs towards the dressing room, all alone. There are no lights which is making it hard to see the stairs underneath my feet and I’m sure all those shots of vodka I took with Rob aren’t helping. I finally reach the top of the staircase and see a door. I opened it and I’m blinded by fluorescent lights. There are girls everywhere, some are naked, others are getting dressed or doing their makeup; a couple girls are even painting their nails. There are tons of vanity mirrors with lights covering the room. There are full length mirrors and makeup mirrors. The lighting is so intense you can see every wrinkle on everyone’s face and the glue holding on everyone’s fake eyelashes. I’m dressed in my normal street clothes, with my bikini underneath and hardly any makeup on. My adrenaline is pumping so hard that I start to feel my sobriety coming back. I look at the door I just walked in through and I have this urge to just run out of it and back out onto Sunset Boulevard, and pretend like I was never here.

Just when I gathered the courage to break free of this cage, one of the girls with black hair and huge red lips looks at me and handed me a huge mason jar of clear liquid. I look at her confused. She says, “Drink this honey, it’ll make you feel better”. Boy was she right. Her and I passed it back and forth a few times while chatting about what it’s like for her being a stripper and a single mom. I felt my nerves start to calm and now I feel like all these girls around me are my new found friends. I was showing them a stretch they could do against a wall which could help with their flexibility and they thought it was cute that this would be my first time performing at a strip club.

I’ve now had quite a few gulps out of that mason jar full of clear liquid and thank god Yllom is back. My body is warm with liquid courage and I’m prancing around half naked surrounded by other half naked girls. One of the bouncers came upstairs to tell us that we will be starting soon. He told us to go to the DJ and tell him your stripper name and what song you want him to play when it’s your turn to dance. “Stripper name?” I don’t have a stripper name. But then through all the fog I had a moment of clarity. Remember in one of my previous blog posts I wrote about my friend Jason who filmed porn? He and his friend created a “porn name” for me: Sprinkle Sparkle.

I prance up to the DJ in my black bikini and I tell him my “stripper name”. I say, “Hi, my name is Sprinkle Sparkle.” He looks me up and down and smiles at me. He’s a middle-aged white guy with spiked hair, studded bracelets and tons of smile lines. I get the feeling he’s been working here for a long time. He then asks what song do I want him to play when it’s my turn to dance. “I have no idea,'' I respond. He tells me to look out at the crowd then decide what song might be best. So I open the drapes that lead out to the stage and I notice that the crowd is looking very colorful. There are white, black and asian people. I notice my friend Rob and his group of friends sitting right next to the stage. “Oh god” I thought to myself. “I’m going to make a fool out of myself.”

I look at the DJ and say, “Give me a second.” I ran back to the other strippers and ask to take one more swig of the mason jar as if I was consulting my manager before making the biggest decision of my life. I took such a huge gulp that I almost threw up. Now my body is not only feeling warm, but now I’m starting to feel numb. I can’t feel my legs or my nerves anymore, in fact, I can’t feel a damn thing. I ran back to the DJ and say, “Play the most ghetto shit you got.” Why did I say this you may be thinking? You’d have to ask Yllom because I haven't a clue.

Fast forward a few minutes. Now me and the other strippers are all lined up behind the stage. All of us dressed in heels, barely any clothing and some with way too much makeup. I’m pretty sure I was the only girl there with a huge smile on her face, swaying back and forth to the shitty strip club music. I’m towards the back of the line. There are about five girls ahead of me. As each one goes out on stage, I get to watch through a little sliver through the curtains. We each only have about a minute to do our dance and try and get as many dollar bills thrown at us as possible.

I remember a bit of advice Rob had given me before we entered the club. He said, “As soon as you get out on stage, get naked right away. Most of the girls take too long to get naked.” So this was my plan. I’ll have the most ghetto music playing, as soon as I step out onto the stage I’m going to take off my bikini and I’m going to have a blast. I patted myself on the back thinking I had a pretty solid plan.

There are only a couple of girls in front of me now. I start to feel that last gulp of clear liquid kick in. Yllom is unzipping Molly and stepping out onto the floor. The girl before me walks back through the curtain with a mountain of dollar bills in her arms. She looks like a brand new mother taking her infant home from the hospital for the first time with a tired, yet hopeful smile on her face. Yllom hears the DJ say, “Everyone welcome Sprinkle Sparkle to the stage!” This is where things get a little hazy. I remember stepping through the curtains and bright lights hitting my eyes which made me feel disoriented. I had a hard time seeing the stage and I could barely make out the stripper pole which was about ten feet in front of me. I blink my eyes a few times to get rid of the stars and I immediately take off my bikini top and my bottoms and start walking towards the pole waving at everyone. I think I look more like I’m performing at a beauty pageant than a strip club. I go right up to the pole and I have no idea what I did. I think to think I blocked this part out of my mind to save myself the embarrassment.

Next thing I remember is giving Rob a lap dance since he’s right next to the stage. He’s giving me a thumbs up and telling his friends to yell as loud as they can. The rest of the club is also clapping and yelling as loud as they could. I see flashes of dollar bills thrown towards my face and body. I have another flash of me crawling on all fours to an asian couple sitting next to the stage. I knock over one of their wine glasses and it shatters on part of the stage and I start dancing in it. Yes, I am now dancing in glass. The couple says, “No, no! There’s glass be careful”. I laugh and continue to give them a lap dance. They both tell me that I’m their favorite performer so far. I feel my head start to inflate and my confidence boost. I get up and finish my performance. The music stops and I’m just standing there naked. I look down and there is money all over the stage. For a split second I think someone is going to come out and help me pick up all the dollar bills but I quickly realize that that’s my job. Then, like a wild animal, I get down on my knees and start collecting all of my cash. I’m scooping it up into my arms trying not to lose a single dollar.

I grab my bikini and cash and start walking back off stage. I wave at the crowd like a queen waves at her people. I get back into the dressing room with all of the other strippers. I ask the one girl with the mason jar if I could have another sip and she just stared at me. I look around the dressing room and they're all looking me up and down like I did something wrong. I’m confused. “Why aren’t we friends anymore?” I'm starting to think that my performance may have been a success.

Now that the competition is over we all have to line up again. The girl with the loudest applause wins the prize. I end up at the very end of the lineup and we all walk back out onto the stage like fashion models do at the end of a fashion show. The announcer goes through all the girls, then says, “Let’s hear it for Sprinkle Sparkle!” and the crowd went wild. Guys were jumping up and out of their seats. My group of guy friends were giving me a standing ovation. I won. Since I was the winner I got to do another minute long dance. I ask the DJ to play another ghetto song and off I went. This time I felt much more relaxed. I felt like I was an actress in a movie playing a stripper. I gave a couple lap dances and I gathered all my cash at the end and started to see why women do this.

I make it to the dressing room after my last dance and none of the girls will even look at me. A couple girls congratulate me and gather their things and scurry out the door. I ask the bouncer outside the dressing room, “Where do I collect my prize?” He tells me to go upstairs. I start putting on my clothes and he says, “No, just go up in your bikini.” That’s kind of weird. I mean this is already one of the craziest nights of my life, how could this get any crazier?

I walk up a couple flights of stairs and now the music downstairs sounds distant and muffled. There is a huge guy in a black suit standing outside of the only door on this floor. In fact, all the walls are painted black I can barely see the outline of the door he’s standing in front of. He looks me up and down with no expression on his face and says, “Are you the winner?” “Yes, I-I-I’m Sprinkle Sparkle”, I stutter. He then opens the door and tells me to go inside. There’s a little man dressed in a nice suit sitting behind a black shiny desk and he has two huge guys in black suits standing on each side of him. All I can think in this moment is, “Is this the mafia?” The little man looks me up and down and says, “So, I can give you the prize money or I can offer you a job here and you can start working tonight.” I’m sobering up at this point and Yllom is crawling back inside Molly. I think about it for less than a second, well knowing this is a one time affair, and I respond, “I’ll just take the cash.” He scoffs and reaches into the drawer of his desk, takes out a huge wad of cash and throws it down on the table. He then says, “Take it and get out.” I could almost see the steam blowing out of his ears.

I grab the cash and quickly exit the door scared he may change his mind and demand I work for him. I quickly got dressed and head downstairs. A ton of men from the crowd see me and tell me what a great job I had done. A couple of them asked me to give them a private lap dance. I see Rob and quickly run to him. “How did I do?!” He responds, “Dude you killed it!” All his friends are now looking at me with that look. They all look hungry. Not for food, but for my body. We stay for another hour and watch the professionals perform. They were incredible. It was like watching naked Circ Du Soleil acrobats. These girls can hang from the stripper pole upside down with only their legs. They are incredible strong and confident. I couldn’t help but get lost in their performances. They looked like naked, slutty ballerinas.

We finally finish up and we walk out of the club. It’s now close to 2am and we’re standing outside in the cold, with tons of cash in my purse, my ears are buzzing from the loud music and my head is spinning from all the adrenaline and alcohol pumping through my body. It was that adrenaline that cancels out any sort of guilt or shame I could’ve been feeling after being a stripper for the night. I instantly start a dialogue with myself about what just happened inside that club. “What have I done? I mean, do I need to feel guilty for using my body to make money? Nothing happened. I didn’t have to touch anyone I didn’t want to touch, no one touched me and it felt pretty safe in there. So maybe this was just a really crazy experience and nothing to feel ashamed of?”

Looking back at this experience now, I honestly don’t feel bad about it at all. It was a totally spontaneous and reckless night. I’ve mentioned in earlier blog posts, I think strippers and porn stars play an important role in our society. They provide a service that is needed and they can support themselves and their families financially. In a way, I envy a woman who knows her body and her sexuality has a certain amount of power. Women in this industry share themselves with the world and understand that we are all sexual beings and why not make a living using what nature gave you? In a way I understand too. But It’s an interesting experience being a woman. We are designed to look so feminine, delicate, soft and approachable. I felt like I was always taught to be scared. Be scared of men as you walk alone at night. Don’t dress a certain way because it draws in the wrong kind of attention. Don’t drink too much alcohol or someone will take advantage of you. Don’t smile too much at people, they could mistake it for something else. So what the fuck am I allowed to do? What the fuck is a woman to do? Cover up your body and don’t be too nice? No better yet, just have a baby then you’ll be completely invisible. Through all of my teens and my 20’s I experimented with everything. I didn’t want to be scared of anyone or anything. I wanted to just live and do whatever I wanted, which led to abusing drugs and alcohol, which led to a lot of traumatic experiences.

I realize that I haven’t been real with people or myself when it comes to my sexuality. I had been getting so drunk and acting the way I thought I should act. I didn’t care about my body or my heart. I just wanted to feel loved and at the time, I thought in order to be loved I had to give myself to someone else like I was a piece of property and my body was all I had to offer. I identified with being wanted by men and by the looks they gave me. It was a reassurance that I was beautiful and that I was wanted. Now I’m just a mom, strolling her baby down the street. I’m all used up. I’m damaged goods. I’m wrinkly with saggy boobs and dark circles under my eyes. What happened to that girl that stripped that one time? What happened to all the men staring at my body? What happened to me?

I’m stepping into a whole new chapter of my life. I’m having to find my love for myself. I’m being forced to stop looking for outside sources to fill my heart. I can look me up and down and see me. I know how to touch myself and make me feel good. I can hoot and holler at me and be like, “Yeah mama, you lookin fine!” I feel I look more like my true self these days. But I can’t help but miss the stares and winks thrown my way. I can’t help but feel that being wanted by men is truly being loved. I’ve spent so much time believing this to be my truth. I’m working on ways to find myself again. I have to go out there and make it happen. I don’t want to just show up in a bikini, take it off, dance around and that’s it. That was a really fun time in my life, but I want more now.

What started out as just wanting to tell a cool, sexy story that happened long ago, I find myself bouncing from one thing to the next. But that’s where I’m at right now. I’m trying to put the pieces of my life back together. I want it to be real this time. I want to feel whole and beautiful. I love my crazy, sexy life. But I want to live a healthy, crazy, sexy life without the use of drugs and alcohol aiding in my decision making. It’s going to be interesting figuring out what makes me tick. I don’t think I’ll run off and do another amateur night at a strip club, but I want to run off and do something out of my comfort zone because that’s what keeps me going and looking forward to tomorrow. I’m not just a drunk girl wobbling down the street with hardly any clothes on or a mom strolling her baby to a Mommy and Me class. I’m a tall, crazy, adventurous mother fucker. I’m a little more afraid than I used to be, but I’m okay with that. I’m ready to embrace the fear and let it all be okay. I’m ready to step out onto the stage of life, naked and totally afraid, and explore what truly makes me happy.