I Auditioned at a Strip Club: What Happened Next

A little over three months ago, my friend Diamond, her friend, and I came to an audition at a strip club in Florida. I was a nervous wreck, as the promoter explained that girls who didn’t “look up to the mark” would be sent home immediately. Looking up to par meant our nails, hair and makeup were done, our armpits and bikini area were waxed, and we were each wearing attractive two-pieces.

When we reached the back room, my anxiety dissipated when I looked in the mirror. I saw a beautiful black woman staring at me. I put on a red two-piece, blew out my afro, reapplied the lip gloss, and waited for my turn to test.

The dance director, a woman I later learned was Cheryl, asked me to stand against a wall and took pictures of me from different angles. When she finished, she told me she was going to tell me what my boss thought.

Not long after that, Cheryl pulled me aside and said, “I’m sorry, but my manager says you can’t dance tonight because your hair isn’t done yet.”

“What?! My hair is gone!” I said.

“The president didn’t like it. She said, ‘You can come back when you’re done.'”

My heart sank to my stomach. I was so confused. This was a black-owned club. If I should be accepted anywhere With my afro, it should be here.

I looked around and noticed that all the other black girls had their hair straight, in long braids, or wore wigs, and that the only women who had their hair natural were the ones with a loose curl pattern, 1a-3b.

“I was driving with my friends. I’m an hour from home – I guess I could try changing my hair? I stammered.”

Two years ago, I had my hair straightened at Dominican Salon in the Bronx. The stylist mixed the curling solution with the conditioner, which caused my hair to fall out when I washed it a week later. Since I’ve grown it back, I’ve tended my hair like a garden: gently gathering it starting at the top and working my way down to the roots. During that experience, I found that my hair was gorgeous, loved, and worth protecting and defending from anyone who said otherwise. I felt something inside me give up when I told Cheryl I was going to try changing my hair.

It sat rock hard in my stomach and I felt ashamed—not of the stigma around sex work, not of standing in the hallway in revealing clothes, but the shame that arises when you have to change—adapt yourself—to satisfy Eurocentric styles of beauty. Which says you can be black, but not too black – you can wear your natural hair, but only if there’s a loose curl pattern, not a 4b afro that gently jutted out of my scalp hairline.

I took a deep breath and went to the back room. There was the smell of burnt flat iron hair and Victoria’s Secret perfume, Chanel, and Pink Mist mixed with the smell of feet. Six-inch high heels were scattered around the room, and more girls arrived to audition. Those who had their natural hair out had fringes and were preparing to melt down their lace fronts. Those who don’t have wigs and those who have the kind of hair that if you run your fingers through they get stuck – they’ll have to see themselves outside the club.

Diamond was in the corner, its edges turning into dramatic concentric circles. She fluttered her 20mm long eyelashes when she asked me how my audition went.

“They didn’t like my hair,” I told her.

“Yes, it feels right – I’m amazed they let me dance with my hair,” she said. Her hair was in box braids.

I sighed, gathered my Eco Style gel, edge controls, a hair tie, and a pen that I would use as a makeshift comb, and entered the bathroom. A girl who I later learned was Raven was staring intently into the mirror as she dabbed her face with setting powder. She had long blonde-brown Senegalese locks that hung gracefully down her back. She wore a Zaffre two-piece with rhinestones outlining her bra and panty. I turned on the cold water tap and dipped my head in the sink. I wasn’t looking at Raven, but I could feel her eyes on me as she came up, and my hair was now wet, frizzier, and softer. I reached for a tissue to keep the water from running down my face.

Raven packed her things into her brown gym bag and said, “Your hair is beautiful,” as she prepared to leave the room. I laughed sarcastically and said, “Yes, well, they said I had to change my hair because they didn’t like it.”

“I’m not surprised,” she replied. “I’m surprised no one has said anything about my hair to be honest. That’s how it is for black girls.

“They can go to hell,” I said.

“i feel you.”

She turned to leave, and without looking back, said to me, “Good luck, though.”

When I tell this story to other dancers, peers, colleagues, and friends, they give me the same response that Diamond and Raven did: That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s always been. If you want to make money, you shouldn’t show up Very black. Even a black-owned club is not guaranteed to be an exception to this rule.

I recently found Siobhan Brooks. Unequal desires: Race and erotic capital in the abstraction industrywhich examines racial stratification and erotic capital in strip clubs using ethnography. Brooks defines sexy capital as “based on what is considered desirable according to prevailing beauty standards within the United States, which often includes someone who is white, young, and/or has a (desirable) body (although what is considered desirable) is changing.” over time).”

Brooks concludes, just as Diamond and Raven do, that “racism against black women in this industry is seen as normal because…the sex industry relies on ideas of customer taste and preferences.” These notions of customer taste—who is desirable and who is undesirable—do not originate among club owners, but rather reflect systemic anti-black aesthetic constructions.

Dancers – sex workers in general – and especially black people in this industry, are fighting multiple battles at once. Not only do we face shame and judgment from our peers and family, but we are also routinely discriminated against, which in turn affects the amount of money we can earn. It’s not uncommon for black women to not be hired at clubs because of our skin, body type, hair, or any number of other factors related to blackness. A close friend of mine told me she auditioned for eight clubs in one night and none of them hired her because she was “too dark.”

On the night of my audition at this club in Florida, I resurfaced from the bathroom and looked for Cheryl—this time my afro was tamed into two braided, puffy braids, with curly curls falling in the front. I located Cheryl and auditioned for her again. Moments later, she returned from speaking with her boss with a thick necklace in her hand. “Sign here. First there. “History is here,” she told me. And I did. I swallowed my pride and turned on my heels.

Note: Names and some details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals mentioned in this article.

Benda Smith is an open-ended creative writer interested in how black women survive through the use of erotic resistance. She is a second-year MFA candidate at Louisiana State University, a Watering Hole Fellow and an upcoming Cave Canem Fellow. She loves her kitten, Neil Hurston’s Zorro. Her work has been or will soon be featured in Voicemail Poems, Root Work Journal, Interim Poetics, and many others.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost In 2022.