Good Vibrations Magazine

“Wear your best slut outfit. Come willing to shed your inhibitions, and all of your clothing. RSVP, so I know how many naked women there will be in my living room.”

I broke into a sweat as I read the invitation to my first “stripping workshop.” Not only was I going to have to take off my clothes, I had to do it in a room full of relative strangers, and I didn’t even get to choose my own music, get buzzed off of a few cocktails beforehand, or have any guarantee that I would be stripping for people who actually wanted to sleep with me.

It’s not that I wasn’t excited, or hadn’t dreamt of the day I could learn to strip from a professional; I often fantasized about giving a lap dance to my lover or wannabe lover. But fantasies were fantasies, and in my fantasies I never got my shirt caught on my head as I tried to take it off, I never accidentally tripped while trying an acrobatic move, and I never ran the risk of having the strippee laugh at my attempts to be hot and desirable.

Not to mention, the workshop would be in a room full of twelve other queer women who likely also fantasized about being femme fatale sex machines with enough sex appeal to make every woman in the room seize with ecstasy.

I was intimidated.

Lucky for me, everyone else at the workshop was too.

The fun began as the sun set over Seattle’s skyline, with streaks of orange, yellow and purple competing for center stage with the mountain ranges and cityscape.

We all sat in a circle, tentatively nibbling on cookies and drinking juice, yanking down our skirts that were all of a sudden feeling much too short, and adjusting the fishnet stockings we thought fell into the category of “slut gear.”

Suddenly a knock pounded on the door.

“That’s MAX,” said our hostess Sam, as she adjusted her breasts and fluffed her armpit hair. “She said we can all practice our lap dances on her at the end if we want to,” Sam continued as the eyes of the women around the room started to pop out of their respective heads.

And the eyes popped further when Max walked into the room.

We had all seen her before. We’d seen her dancing in the cages at the annual pride events. We’d seen her pants fall around her hips to reveal her tight, boy cut underwear with the words “Queer” written on her ass as she stripped on stage. We’d seen her in her too-tight A-line tank tops as she strutted down the streets of Seattle. We’d seen her riding on the back of a motorcycle during dykes on bikes. And now, we were seeing her in Sam’s living room.

It wasn’t the same kind of beauty she showed on stage– brassy, tough, and in your face. There was no spiky, gelled hair, no dark eye makeup or lipstick, and no look on her face that said “I own this room and everyone in it.” That night she was softer, she was more subtle, she was…real.

“I’m feeling really nervous about teaching this workshop,” she said. “I thought about it on the entire ride over here. I feel like I don’t know what I am doing enough to teach a class on this, even though I have been dancing for seven years,” she said as she looked down at her hands and played with her fingers.

“But that’s my point. None of us feels like we know what we are doing, because there is no formula. I am here to show you that EVERYONE can be sexy, and it’s just about getting in the zone, channeling what your own individuality, and expressing what is sexy to YOU. People who agree with your vision of sexiness will agree. It’s not about being a certain size, or having a formula. Being alive is sexy. Being passionate is sexy. Having confidence is sexy. So, being passionately alive is the sexiest thing of all.”

No formula. No worksheets on how to push your ass up at the right angle, or give the perfect come hither look, or how to perfectly slither across the floor. Just being real, channeling your individuality, and not being afraid to own it. It seemed too simple, and too good to be true.

It was, in some ways. She definitely provided a fair share of technical advice, but for most of the workshop, we talked about what was holding us back, and what kept us from feeling like stripping was something we could do.

Most people said they feared not being found sexy by the people they were trying to seduce. Some people said they didn’t think their bodies would look right: too fat, too skinny, too flat chested, too much ass. Others said they were afraid of being clumsy, running out of dance ideas, or falling on their faces. Suddenly we were coming face to face with years of social programming on what is sexy, and what is not.

With the help of Max and the other brilliant women in the room, I realized that we all have to take the creation of a new culture into our own hands – a culture that encourages difference and diversity, tiny boobs, big booty, freckly face and all.

She did of course, give up plenty of technical advice.

According to our coach and stripper of seven years, eye contact and facial expressions are key. You are performing, and your eyes and your face are telling your story. If you want the tone to be playful, you need to show it in your face. If you want it to be seductive and alluring, or rough and passionate, you need to show that too.

Just like anything else, practice makes perfect. Dancing and stripping takes strength, some coordination, and as mentioned before, performance skills, but most of all, willingness to take risks and challenge yourself. The technical part is tiny if you can master that.

Turns out the real secret to giving a killer strip tease is channeling what feels most sexy to you, and not being afraid to wear it (Or to take it off).