E20: The Exotic Dancers Union
Working Class History
Working Class History
5.0 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2019
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We have more info, photos, videos and full show notes for this episode on our website at https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e20-the-exotic-dancers-union/
We have been trying to improve our podcast over the last few months, but this is really the first of our new wave of episodes which we have been devoting huge amounts of time to. We have worked on this episode for over 6 months, and are very pleased to finally be able to release it. Ultimately we will only be able to continue to devote this much time to the podcast if we get more support on patreon, so please do support us if you can. If not, we would still appreciate you sharing podcast episodes on social media, and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Thanks also to the following people:
Vixen Noir, for the theme music – Lusty Lady. You can buy it here https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tpj2ewbwpvzrlqb45umxztaav6m?play=1&u=0
Episode cover photo by Matthew Roth https://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewalmonroth
Editing by Louise Barry of Audio Interference https://interferencearchive.org/category/publications/audio/
To commemorate and celebrate radical sex workers like at the Lusty Lady, and to help fund our work, we have produced a range of Sex Workers Power merch, using an illustration from @ripbambi, available here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/sex-workersAgain, full show notes including photos and videos here: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/03/13/e20-the-exotic-dancers-union/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 1997, the Lusty Lady in San Francisco became the first strip club to be unionized by its workers, who won big improvements to their paying conditions. |
| 0:08.3 | Not content to stop there, they later took over the club and ran it as the world's first worker-controlled strip joint. |
| 0:14.1 | This is working class history. |
| 0:19.2 | Ooh, look at those ladies in there. |
| 0:21.6 | Oh, my God. |
| 0:22.6 | Come to see the heart he's looking at the lefty lady. |
| 0:28.6 | Come on in and take a dollar in that slide. |
| 0:32.6 | Come to see the heart is working as a lusty lady. |
| 0:37.9 | Come on in and take a dollar in that sliding. |
| 0:42.7 | Watch that window go on. |
| 0:44.8 | The Lusty wasn't a conventional strip club. |
| 0:47.0 | It was a peep show. |
| 0:48.4 | Cinnamon Maxine worked there from 2007 until 2011 |
| 0:51.4 | and explains how its business model worked. |
| 0:54.3 | The money was from clients and customers that would come in and slide. |
| 0:58.4 | At first it was coins. |
| 0:59.8 | I guess it used to be 25 cents or something for a few seconds. |
| 1:03.4 | A window would go up and there would be somebody dancing on the other side. |
| 1:07.5 | And later, after it co-opted it started taking dollars customers would slide |
| 1:12.7 | dollar bills until a dollar slot and a window would go up and like I said there'd be |
| 1:17.8 | somebody dancing on the other side there were also video booths and those are pretty |
| 1:21.9 | popular but of course there's nobody in there with you let's talk about something that might be keeping you up at |
... |
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