Chapter 5
Strippers ... And Grab-bag Sex
"I think there is a lot of narcissism involved. Most strippers love their bodies more than the men in the audience...! "
A featured Oriental Stripper.
Narcissism is the love of one's own body. In the extreme, it becomes almost a fetish. It is different from autoeroticism, which is the self-stimulation of the genital organs, in that the narcissistic individual gets extreme pleasure merely by looking at or touching his own body.
During the course of interviewing strippers and dancers, the author was impressed at the great number of women who exhibited a narcissistic complex. Many of them were eager to show off their fine breasts, their flat stomachs and well-shaped fannies; moreover, most of them actually went to great pains to point out that their skin was unblemished, creamy, and smooth.
Almost unconsciously, some women would caress their breasts lovingly as they pointed out their perfections, and many would run their hands gently over their fannies and their thighs as they invited inspection and admiration.
One noted stripper, Evelyn West, gained a billing gimmick and much publicity when she insured her breasts with Lloyds of London for $100,000. She calls her bosom "my treasure chest." An interesting sidelight is that Lloyds insisted on issuing two separate policies, one to cover each breast, rather than one policy covering the entire bosom. Said one manager, "That's silly. If Evelyn had something happen to one breast, she'd be finished. Who ever heard of a stripper with only one tit?"
"No doubt about it, the big-breasted broads make the top dough," said one successful stripper, an Oriental. "Tempest Storm, Blaze Starr-that's the kind of woman men want to see. I think it's a matter of bust. I'm skinny, and as far as breasts go I just get by, because Oriental girls aren't supposed to be buxom. Take Virginia Ball, she's less than five feet tall, but she has the bust of a seven-foot Amazon."
She herself does a demure Oriental strip, but eventually she ends up in pasties and a G-string. At first, she featured Balinese and Japanese dances, but she got smart to the fact that she could triple her earnings as a stripper. She worked the Peel Wheel for two years, then left to take night club engagements.
"Night clubs aren't as strong. They just want to see what's coming off next. And as far as I'm concerned, that's what it's all about-a tease. On the circuit, they want it raw. Snap out your G-string-that sort of thing. I won't go overboard. Anyhow, it doesn't bother me now. I'm much too involved with my family."
By contrast, consider a stripper named Maizie. Maizie is unmarried at present, although she has been twice wed and divorced. She has been from the bottom to the top in the Peel Wheel, and is currently on what she calls "The Last Strip," which is the featured peeler's spot in carnivals.
"I started out in a carny, as a dancer. In those days you didn't really have to strip, just shake your ass and tits real wild. But you were covered. Where the real money was made was in the 'come-on' show-you know, where the spieler comes out at the close of the regular performance and says that for another buck each, the 'real men' can stay and see a real strip show. In that one, we stripped to pasties and a G-string, and we really let go with the obscene gestures. Lots of grinds and bumps, what we called 'throwing it right in their faces.'
"At this come-on show, I've seen guys sit right there with a coat or a hat over their cocks, and play with themselves until they came. It bothered me at first. I thought sure they were going to proposition me, or make grabs at me, but they never did. I found out later that most of them wouldn't be able to keep a hard on if they got with a dame. They're what they call 'voyeurs' they can get their kicks out of watching a naked dame, or even a couple performing intercourse or sucking, but most of them only want to jerk themselves off.
"I used to get a kick out of it, being able to get these jokers all hotted up. And a funny thing-sometimes I'd get my own kicks from being able to do it to them. Not a real 'come' job for me, most of the time, but a real kick. Then I'd go a little overboard. I'd rub myself and give them some real good bumps. The motion of it often felt good to my pussy. I used to feature the 'ass-shimmy' a lot, and that made me get my rocks hot, too.
"At almost every show, some guy would holler, 'How much, baby?' But I was green then. I never went for it. I was saving it for the right guy, believe it or not. Oh, I wasn't a virgin, but I sure as hell wasn't a whore either. I had Stardust in my eyes about show business. I dreamed about making it big in burlesque, then maybe making it in the movies. And-I still believed that there were decent men; the kind who'd offer a wedding ring and all.
"My first husband was a burlesque comic. He was also the one that wiped the Stardust out of my eyes. I had been booked into a burlesque house in Seattle, and Larry was the featured comic. Funny, but when he was watching me perform, I got a special kick. The more the audience yelled and whistled, the wilder I'd get, but it was for Larry more than for the others. I actually came a couple of times while he was watching me."
Dr. Donald Arbagian, West Coast psychologist and Ph.D., notes that he has investigated several cases of narcissism where the person was able to have an orgasm without any heterosexual or homosexual contact. This involves an extremely egocentric makeup. "In many cases," Dr. Arbagian states, "this type of person may find himself impotent when he comes to the actual sex act because of egocentric thinking. The narcissistic person sees his own body as wonderful and complete, and when he discovers that it is not sexually self-sufficient, he may become neurotic and frustrated."
Famed stripper Georgia Southern said, "Any woman on the stage is selling sex, whether it's Helen Hayes or Shirley MacLaine or a stripper. But no good performer is thinking of the sex act. You are concentrating on a good performance."
Maizie does not completely agree with this. "Of course I'm thinking of sex," she said when Miss Southern's statement was brought up. "I'm not thinking of masturbating myself or of seeing myself half-naked, like the audience is seeing me. I'm thinking of another person and myself, involved in some sort of screwing or sucking. Sometimes it's a fantasy, sometimes it's a memory-the reliving of a particularly good fuck or suck job. I don't go for that jazz about the 'dedicated' stripper. What the hell-I'm in it for money and I feel I get a bonus because I can get some extra kicks out of what I do to arouse men-and women, too.
"Larry wanted me to marry him and try the night club circuit, the strip clubs that were coming up strong right after the war. We'd been screwing and blowing each other regular anyhow, and he wanted me to learn lines, so we could do a comedy-strip routine.
"After we were married, sex between the two of us began to get dull for me, no matter what way we tried it. I didn't realize it at the time, but I needed an audience, believe it or not! Later-two marriages later-I went to a headshrinker and he finally came right out and told me that!
"I should have known it, though, because we went to a drive-in movie once, and we got fooling around in the car and Larry went down on me. It was old stuff, and I wasn't especially excited, until I noticed that the couple in the next car were gawking at us and giggling. All at once, I got really hot. I grabbed Larry's head and really smothered him, and I kept talking to him to do it good. I had a quick, wildfire orgasm. It pleased Larry-he always felt more like a good man, I guess, when he could make me come real good.
"But I couldn't get much kick out of sex with him-until I caught him fucking this cheap stripper from Mexico. She worked with snakes-and they made me sick to my stomach. Anyhow, I walked into her room one night-she was staying in the same hotel we were, and was on the same bill with us, and there was Larry, screwing her from the back and pumping away like mad. She was moaning with pleasure and saying, 'Stick it in good, Larry-fuck me-fuck me deep and hard!' And he was doing just that. I guess I should have been wild with jealousy, but instead I got hot as hell. I only had a robe on, and I slipped out of it and walked over and knelt in front of Larry. 'OK, lover boy,' I told him, 'let's see if you're good enough to handle two women at once.'
"He let go of his hold on Lolita's ass and grabbed mine, pulling my cunt close to his face. I was wild, watching his prick going in and out of that dame, and the crazy, half-dopey look on her face. When Larry put his tongue inside my cunt, it took me less than a minute to come. Then I got mad! I pushed Larry off this dame and kicked her off the couch, and I laid down and spread my legs wide open, holding the lips of my cunt with my fingers. 'Now show this slut what a real woman can do!' I told him.
"Larry was so hot by then, he'd have screwed a bitch in heat, and he really went into me. Inside a couple of minutes, we both came together, with this dumb dame standing there, stark naked, watching us. When I came, I looked right into her eyes, and it was ten times as good!
"Afterwards, Larry sucked her off while he was fucking me, and that was good too.
"But you don't get chances like that often. Usually the girls in the show have their own boyfriends-or girlfriends-and not many go for 'party sex.' Besides, most of the girls were 'straight' and a lot of them were picking up side money as whores, and their men were acting as pimps.
"That's why Larry and I split up-he wanted me to peddle my ass. Oh, he tried to make it sound like it wasn't whoring, just because he wanted me to do it with an agent and a couple of club managers. In return we would get good, long-run bookings. I told him to go to hell, that I wasn't whoring for him or anyone else-not for a booking that I felt I could get strictly on my stripping talents, anyway.
"I know that most people think strippers are all tramps, and can't even feel love-nothing but sex-but that isn't true. We're still human, and at that time I still thought that the white knight in shining armor was going to come along. Maybe I even hoped it would be Larry, and he'd be changed by some good fairy with a magic wand. Magic wand ... hah!
"So we split up and he got a divorce later. He just went to Tijuana one day, when he was working a club in Los Angeles, and got a Mexican divorce.
"I went it alone after that. I got more raw, and got better bookings. I always did have the big titties they liked, and after I started to do the 'naked split,' I got good billing. The 'naked split' is where you wear a thin G-string while you do a split. Naturally, this shows a lot of pubic hair, and often it shows the lips of your cunt. It drives the guys out there wild. They think they've 'sneaked a peek'-sort of 'put one over on you' and got more for their money.
"They call it 'flashing' when you show hair, but the 'naked split' is a lot better. It really turns 'em on. And I get even bigger kicks when I see their faces. I can almost see through their hats or coats, whatever they have over their cocks, and watch them playing with their pricks-that I made stiff! Imagine, me getting a whole audience hard!
"But you have it tough when you do a good 'naked split.' A lot of the big strippers-the ones who pull that lady stripper' shit-they refuse to play a club where a 'naked splitter' is working. You take Julie Taylor-she's a big favorite now. She won't play the same bill with me or any other nude split strippers. Thinks it's degrading or something. Julie Taylor is like the old timers. You know-Gypsy Rose Lee, Ann Corio, Margie Hart-and none of them ever went-further than down to pasties and French panties on the stage.
"Today you've got to go more or you don't work. Bare titties are 'in.' Most of the gals go further than a G-string. Why, when I worked one of the topless clubs in San Francisco, I did a real nude split-and I mean I was stark, staring naked-topless and bottomless. Of course, I was shaved all over. That's another thing a lot of Johns like to see-a naked pussy, so you can see all the folds and all that jazz. Me, I think a woman's snatch is a lot prettier with some hair around it.
"Anyhow, I met Bill a year or so after Larry and I split. He was manager and part owner of a club, and he kept me booked pretty regular. Of course we were sleeping together-just as often as he could get free from the dame he was shacked up with. I liked the idea of being settled in one city, so when he asked me to live with him, I was happy to. He had a nice apartment, in the classy section of town, but we didn't spend a lot of time there. He wanted me to keep on working the club, so I did.
"I didn't like some of Bill's high-toned ideas-like when we'd go to a nice restaurant or some place like that, he'd introduce me as a singer or a dancer-never a stripper. He wanted to give the idea that I was a lady, I suppose, but I've always felt that I just wanted people to think of me as a woman-all woman-and to hell with that lady stuff.
"Then it turned out Bill wanted me to hustle, too. He tried to make it sound like something special, and maybe it was. He had some rich customers at the club, and he told me that a couple of them had said they would go" a thousand bucks to spend a night with me. One of them even made me an offer in a note he sent backstage, to pay $500 just to kiss my breasts and my pussy. How about that?
"At first, I told Bill I wouldn't-that I didn't want any man but him, but he kept after me. One night he told me that he was in deep financially with a guy, and needed to borrow some heavy dough from a friend. The only condition was the friend wanted a weekend of sex with me.
"Funny, but this guy-if I hadn't known Bill-would have been able to turn me on good. But I was a cold-assed bitch, feeling resentful towards Bill for peddling me that way, and the guy got the message. I went the whole route with him-blow job, the ass bit, front and back fucking, and he got his money's worth, but I didn't fool him. He knew I was just doing a job without any feeling.
"He had a flashy apartment:-I think he was a gangster of some kind-and after the first night he asked me if I'd mind if we had a few others in for some fun. I guess I knew what he meant by 'fun' but I didn't mind. In a way, he bored me-and that's not supposed to be a joke.
"So we had some sex in the early afternoon-the usual-this joker liked his prick sucked ten times a day, and confidentially, he needed it to get a good hard on. Early Saturday evening the others started to arrive. I was almost floored when I saw that there were five guys and only one other woman ! When the sixth guy finally walked in, I really flipped! It was Bill!
"This guy I had been farmed out to for the weekend wanted to really rub it into Bill by making him watch while other men fucked and sucked me, and while I sucked them off. That's what I thought. Actually, Bill was fucking around with the other dame at this party! He was in on it all the time! And me in love with the rotten bastard!
"Anyhow, I didn't know all of this at the time. I didn't want to screw up Bill's loan, so I played it dumb for the benefit of the others. This big wheel I'd been hired to fuck introduced everybody by first name, and I remember the dame was named Millie. Right off the bat Charlie-that was the guy I was supposed to screw for the loan money-tells everybody that I'm a star stripper. He asked me-real polite-if I'd mind doing a strip, then he turned on some 'blue' music and I obliged with the whole bit-bumps, grinds, tit-flashing, the works! Then the bastard had the other dame do a strip. She was filthy-and she was fat around the ass, with waffled skin and breasts that were beginning to sag, but those jerks ate it up. Then my little old sponsor put us up for grabs!
"He called for volunteers-any position-any combination-with one condition: the thing had to be done right there where all the rest could watch. By then I was mad, and when this old guy picked me and wanted a blow job to start with and an ass-fuck as an encore. I decided to show up this Millie bitch! I went to work on this guy like he'd never been done before. A couple of the others even applauded when I gave him the fanciest blow job he'd ever had. Wouldn't you know that Bill clapped the loudest of all!
"After that it was a gang sex brawl. When I saw Bill head for that slut, I really let go. I turned on three guys at once: I was sucking one, another was fucking me, and the third, I was jerking off! And you know something? When the guy with his cock in my cunt made me come, I went up to the ceiling! I really enjoyed it. I was beginning to realize that it increased my fucking pleasure when I had an audience!
"After that, I never did get much kick out of a straight 'lights out' fucking or sucking affair. I needed and wanted somebody to watch me. Later the headshrinker told me that my strong competitive spirit was responsible for my actions! Imagine that-wanting to out-fuck some other woman! But it was true.
"Even now, in this rat race carnival, I have to have a gang bang every once in a while or go nuts. And even when I don't get into the sex orgies, I still like an audience. The guy I work for is a pig-a real weirdo. He goes both ways and he can't get a hard on unless he has a couple of homos watching. He gets a real bang out of watching their faces while he sucks my pussy. Then he insists that I suck them off, while he is fucking them in the ass.
"What's left? How the hell do I know? I don't go for dames-never did. Oh, I've gone for a sixty-nine with a dame-but only for 'show-off purposes, never for my own satisfaction. I liked a good, stiff prick inside of me-front, back, sideways-when I want to really come. And, I need somebody to watch us.
"You know-this one guy even talked me into doing it for some stag movies, but it wasn't the same. He kept telling me, while he was giving me the works-'Come one, get with it. Remember, ten thousand horny guys will be getting their rocks off while they watch you and me have all this fun.' But it didn't work for me. I want to see their faces while they're watching me. I'm a crowd-pleaser, and I need a crowd."
That every stripper is an exhibitionist is an accepted truth in psychiatric circles. Most psychiatrists go even further and claim that every woman-likes to strip and have her body admired. Most meek, docile housewives, psychiatrists claim, would give their husbands a real sex thrill, if he only had sense enough to ask her to strip or to position a mirror so that she could watch their performance of the sex act!
Carried to the extreme, this narcissistic complex can lead to the sex patterns established by the subject of the above case history. To put an exclamation point to the above, let us listen to Dr. Donald Arbagian who states, "Actually, almost all of us are a perfect combination of egotist and narcissist. We imagine ourselves so wonderfully expert in the sex act, that each of us wishes secretly that his behavior could be viewed by many others. Lacking that chance, he is willing to settle for any approving glance-even his own!"
Dolly is a showgirl, like Maizie, but her sex patterns form an interesting contrast. Dolly is presently retired, though not completely removed from show business. She is the booking agent and stage director for one of the largest strip clubs on the West Coast. In her position of authority, Dolly can make some good sex deals for herself. Although she is a bisexual who screws males when it serves her purposes, Dolly prefers sex with women.
She is the West Coast president of the largest lesbian society in the United States. Her contempt for men is obvious and her revelation concerning males and females who work the strip club circuits give a good insight into the viewpoint of many lesbians.
"I would say that about ninety percent of all strippers are like me-lesbians by preference, but bisexuals because that's the way you have to play the game sometimes. Men still run things, and the only means a woman has to even hope to get a draw, is her pussy and other sex weapons. To me, my pussy, my mouth, my ass are just tools where men are concerned. Only with women can I feel that they are really womanly assets. That's how it is. And you know who's responsible? Men-naturally!
"I'm not going to give you a big song and dance about how an ineffectual husband or boyfriend drove me to lesbianism. I'll just tell the truth and you decide. I used to swing pretty good-I mean with men only, when I got into this racket. I didn't have to do it to get jobs. I was good. I've got a good body-nice boobs, good hips and thighs, and I'm a pretty fair dancer. The rest was easy enough, because I never did have any funny feelings about taking off my clothes in front of men.
I come from a family of five boys and three girls, and the girls are the youngest. You try to keep your pussy or your titties hidden with that set-up. In fact, my oldest brother, Bob, who is twelve years older than me, took a crack at me when I was fourteen. He wasn't the cherry-breaker, but it wasn't long after I'd lost it that we had our first session. I was asking for it, I guess. I was baby-sitting for him and his wife, and had this character come over to keep me company. Bob and his wife walked in at the wrong time-while me and my friend were making it on the couch. His wife blew her stack. Bob was pretty drunk-that's why they had come home early-and while he was taking me home in the car he kept apologizing for the snotty things his wife had called me. I was still hot-I had missed my chance to come because of their untimely arrival-and, well, Bob and I had it right there in the back seat of his station wagon. Afterwards, he kissed my pussy until I came again-that was the first time I'd ever had it that way. He wanted me to suck his cock, but I wouldn't.
"When I was fifteen, I left school to take a job as a waitress in a night club. Oh, they knew I wasn't old enough, but I looked pretty sexy walking around in that skimpy uniform. Besides, I was going with a guy who played in the band. I left home and moved in with him. That was a mistake. I didn't know then that he was on drugs. As time went on, he lost his job with the band, and I had to support his habit. My salary as a waitress wasn't enough, so I began dancing. What the hell did I care if I took off my clothes? I was proud of my body, and that slob I lived with was a nothing in bed. In fact, I was getting my steady ass from the manager of the club-and he was paying me extra for it!
"Finally, this Jerry-the guy I lived with, threw a fit and tried to pull a robbery to get money for a fix. He got caught and was sent up. I never saw him again. I just kept the apartment, and kept on screwing around with the manager. You know, I don't even remember the guy's name!
"Like I said, I was pretty good. I used to do the 'snatch split' and the guys up front were able to get a pretty good look at my crotch because I wore a real G-string-and it was just a string-not a broad strip of cloth. That's how I met Hal. He was a big wheel from San Francisco, and he sent me a note backstage asking me right straight out if I'd sleep with him. You know something? I think most women like a man to do that. If a guy is straight out, he's probably a fairly decent guy other ways. Anyhow, I went for it, and that was how I eventually got to be a lesbian!
"Hal wanted me to go back to San Francisco with him, and I did. He had some connections, and I went right to work in a club there. We couldn't live together because he was married to a rich bitch who controlled the dough. I doubt' if I wanted marriage, anyway. I just wanted to strip as a headliner, and have my sex with Hal. He was really something. He was big-all over-and he loved eating pussy. I guess it was Hal who taught me that the best way a woman can come is to have somebody kiss her snatch, and put his fingers up inside, while working around the ass-hole with the other hand. Although I prefer women, if Hal would show up today, I think I'd give him a go-he was that good.
But he was a little queer, too, because his favorite way was a sixty-nine, where he'd suck and finger and play with my ass-hole, while I was sucking his prick and ramming a finger up his ass-hole. He went straight homo, I heard later, but he sure liked girl-ass when I knew him.
"I was nuts about the guy, and he was having a real ball with girls. I was just one of a dozen, I guess. One time he told me that he was going to spend the weekend on a yacht with a bunch of big shots from his wife's circle of friends. I blew up. I told him I didn't care how many others he had, just so I got my share. I talked him into taking me along on the trip. It was nothing but a sex brawl on a boat, but it was there that I first had my cunt licked and sucked by a woman-Hal's own wife! He'd never told me much about her, and I'd wondered how he got away with all his fucking around. His wife was a 'butch' a tough, aggressive sexpot, who made no bones about what she was or who she wanted to go down on.
"Hal and I were going at it hot and heavy in a cabin when his wife walked in with this other dame. It was funny, because they had come down to the cabin to do some sucking of their own. She was a cold cucumber, never batted an eye. She just stood there, looking at Hal, with his tongue a couple of inches inside my cunt and his cock five inches down my throat. When he stopped and looked at her, she grinned and said, 'I can do a better job than that, cutie.' I thought she was talking to Hal, but she meant it for me. She walked over and swung a roundhouse right at Hal that turned his cheek purple. 'Get out of here, you amateur,' she screeched, and to my surprise he did! He grabbed his clothes and beat it. I didn't know what the hell she intended to do to me, but I soon found out.
"I was lying there, stark naked, still hot from Hal's tongue. Jane-that was Hal's wife's name-didn't even take her dress off. She just got on top of me and spread my thighs with her hands. I swear that she was almost drooling as she looked at my wide-open snatch. 'Can't say as I blame Hal, honey,' she remarked, 'it looks delicious.' Then she went down into my wet, hungry crotch. She bit my clitoris. She used her tongue, her teeth, her fingers, and I'm telling you, nobody before or since has ever known how to please a cunt like she did. And to make it even more fascinating to me, this other dame comes over and takes off Jane's panties, pushes up her dress, and begins to suck Jane from behind. Jane raised up so that she was on her hands and knees, and this other gal slid up underneath her, working her hands around Jane's butt, while she was sucking loud and eager. And I mean loud! But by the time that Jane had made me come twice, I wanted to kick her friend in the face in order to get her out of Jane's cunt. I wanted to give Jane what she'd given me-a taste of paradise. After she'd finished and the other dame had made her come, Jane slid up on top of me, rubbing her cunt against mine, while she used her fingers on my little bump inside. She began to kiss me-my eyes, my hair, my neck and my mouth-until I was crazy with desire.
"After a while, she stood up and stripped off her dress. She wasn't wearing anything underneath it, and she pulled me up while she laid down, spreading her legs wide for me to come in with my tongue. What a luscious thing she was! Jane had a full figure with nice big breasts, wide hips, flat stomach, and her cunt lips were real beauties. Most women have those flaps of skin that look ugly, but hers didn't. She had what I call a 'virgin's cunt'-not very hairy, with smooth, tiny lips-and, just peeking out, was that red, shiny, wet little knob that I was dying to lick and suck.
"While I was giving her the best I knew how, the other woman straddled Jane's face, and Jane worked a finger up her ass and really gave her a suck job. I think we all came together, because I was masturbating myself like crazy. I was that hot for this Jane.
"Over the weekend, I found out that the women on board outnumbered the men by at least five to one. For me, it was a big discovery. I still got my rocks off with men, but the big new kick in sex for me was with women. We had at least four different sex sessions with only the women there, and one that was a real 'switcheroo'-guys going down on guys, women with women, women with guys and women-things I never even dreamed could happen.
"It was really a gang bang weekend. Hal took on everyone, especially the guys. After a while, we lost count and just switched blind. I said before that if Hal would show up now, I'd probably take him on, but maybe I wouldn't, really. I keep remembering how he slobbered over those cocks, and swallowed the come of one guy while another guy was fucking him in the ass.
"But I had a real ball. I made two or three gal friends on that trip who remained friends. Jane was one of them, and she really broke me in to lesbianism. I mean, she knew all the tricks. I had only heard about a 'dildo' before-you know, a phony prick that straps on to the hips of a woman-but Jane had a dozen or so different ones, and she was glad to put on a demonstration for me. They were all different sizes and made of different materials. Funny, even though Jane was an all-out les, she still liked to be fucked with a dildo. Her favorite was a 'two-way dildo' that had a cock on each end of it, so that while the front end was in my cunt, the cock at the other end was in hers, and every thrust she made gave me a movement to the prick on my end. I never quite learned to work it well enough so that we could come together but that was probably because it had been specially made for Jane, and all women are built differently.
"I seldom use a dildo anymore, unless my lover asks for it. I like the straight tongue and finger job. Besides, I've got a pretty prominent 'little man in the boat' and I can often come just by rubbing it against the vulva of another woman providing she is good at kissing and tonguing me at the same time. I've always been what I call a 'firecracker.' I can usually come inside of two minutes and then I'm good for three or four more within the next half-hour.
"I have no trouble getting sex, in the business I'm in. Most of the gals like to work for me because I don't act coy or play games. They know that I audition them on the couch, but most of them also know that when they work my club they learn a lot about stripping and-most important of all to a lot of the real lesbians-they don't have to peddle their asses to guys, or sleep with some sloppy boss or with his friends in order to keep working.
"If I go for sex with a man, it is never alone. I mean it sometimes happens at a party, where everybody pulls the 'switcheroo' and mixes it up with men and women. I enjoy it sometimes, but it always has to be a man-woman combo working on me to make me come. Two men don't turn me on, and I won't stand for any man who tries to put his cock in my ass-hole. I give them all the variations they want in fucking, and I'll blow a guy if a woman is going down on me at the same time, but none of that ass-fucking for me. And, when you cozy around in bed with the bisexuals-the men, I mean-they all want to put it in your ass, pretending that it's a guy's ass-hole. Queers, that's what they are, even if they are doing it to a woman.
"Another thing that the girls who work my club know: I don't force any girl to sleep with me. I like cherries as much as anybody else, but between you and me, there aren't any in the strip business. Oh, once in a while, a girl will come in who has never had sex with a woman. If she really wants to stay straight and just go for men, I leave her alone. They tell me that lots of men like to take a woman violently, even rape her, but I never had that feeling about a girl. Once in a while, I'll straighten out a kid for her own good, like Alicia.
"Alicia was a green country kid who was working for a slob. He was a pimp, and she was sucker enough to go along. She was crazy about him, and she reminded me of myself when I started in this business. So I broke her in. One night after he'd stood her up and she got a little drunk, I gave her a real going over. Then I told her she could make some real money sleeping with rich lesbians like Jane. Jane paid young girls as much as $100 a night. Alicia didn't like the idea at first, but once she had tried it a few times, she decided to ditch the pimp. She was a good dancer and went straight to the top. Then she upped and married some college kid. I know she stayed lesbian because we had a night together after she was hitched, but she must be swinging both ways because I later heard that she had a kid.
"I guess there's lots more of this going on in show business, but I can't say for sure because I've never been in any other business and I don't get out much into what you call 'normal' society. I don't think the rich dames that I swing with can be described as members of a 'normal' society, and I've only been to one sex orgy in my life. That was at the home of a movie star-a dame. I went to it with a man who owns a string of strip clubs. He didn't know it was going to be an orgy but we soon found out. There was plenty of booze flowing and after twenty or more couples arrived, there was a sex show that would have curled your hair-trained dogs licking girls' cunts and one big police dog that fucked one girl in the rear. Then some fag stars staged an act and finally everybody got together in one big sex circus.
"The girls who go to this kind of thing-usually for pay-tell me that it is generally a one-way deal. That is, the homos pair off for sex with other homos, and the lesbians make out with the women. The only variations come after each has exhausted all the possibilities with others of his own sex. Then, to add a little spice, they mix it up with the opposite sex. A funny thing, but in almost every case, the homo and the lesbian still want their own kind of sex-a homo wants his cock sucked by a woman or else he will fuck her up the ass, and a lesbian wants her pussy sucked or else she will get a guy on top of her, masturbating her with his fingers and kissing her on the mouth.
"I don't feel that I've missed much, and I wouldn't want it any other way. Maybe I'm a nympho, but I don't think so, because I have an orgasm just about every time with men as well as with women. But I can't see how these straight dames can settle down with one guy and have sex a couple of times a week only with him. I'd go out of my mind. I'd be fucking the milkman and the mailman, or maybe get me a whole flock of police dogs like that one I saw at the party, but I sure as hell couldn't live a dull life like those broads. I can't even see this 'marriage' among lesbians. Most lesbians are pretty faithful, once they marry, but I couldn't be. When I take on a steady partner, I always make it clear that it isn't going to be permanent and when I want to break it up, I do.
"I've never really fallen in love with a woman or a man. To me, love is a one-way street-a dead end. No piece of paper is going to keep me faithful to one person. That has to come from inside-you have to want to save it for just one woman or one man. And, after talking with some of the guys who go to strip clubs, and from knowing some of their wives in bed, I'm pretty certain that there just isn't any such thing as a 'faithful' husband or wife, because men and women aren't built that way. They're made for sex, not love."
As previously stated, Dolly is not unusual, at least in the glittering world of the strippers. But she is not necessarily typical, for many of the top strippers in the country are quite frank in disparaging Dolly's type.
Old-time burlesque queens such as Gypsy Rose Lee, Ann Corio, Sherry Britton, Lili St. Cyr, etc., have walked out on a contract countless times after discovering that the other girls were lesbians or prostitutes, or that the club managers expected the strippers to do favors for the management, either with club personnel or with customers.
In gathering material for this book, it was found that generally, girls in show business are pretty blase about sex. They are frank and open in their approach to it. As one stripper told us, "When you guys on the outside want a big night-something special-you go to see a movie, or a play, or something like that. Well, we're part of that show business world that entertains you, and when we want some kicks, show business isn't it for us. So, what is more natural than to turn to sex?"
This same girl who admitted that she was a lesbian, but had gone both ways in the sex game, concluded our interview with a smile as she confided, "This is the first time I can remember that I've been alone with a man for three hours, and he hasn't made a pass or a proposition! You know, it makes me feel more like a woman."