I just always ended up going back to dancing, because I wasn't happy with the way that management ran things. I’ve tried different jobs throughout the years: a non-profit, a distribution center, and I even got promoted at the mall job. It was terrifically embarrassing, but he gave me the job. He gave me an audition, and it was full nude. I have dance experience.” I was a dancer since I was like four years old, and I had always been on a stage. I asked for the manager and said, “Look I'm a really good dancer. I showed up dressed in fishnets, a garter belt underneath my underwear, and boots, which is weird, because I literally looked like a hooker. I called a couple of times and the manager was never there, so I just went in. I went about getting the job in an unconventional way.

That'd be funny.” Then I did, and here we are. It was actually a joke between my friends and me. I could not afford to eat, so it became a last resort. I have degrees in psychology and theater. I was a student at the time doing a 40-hour-a-week unpaid internship and working at the local mall.

The interview that follows has been lightly edited for length and clarity.Īdrienne Green: How did you get into exotic dancing? For The Atlantic’s series of interviews with American workers, I spoke with Liza, who requested that we only use her stage name, about how she became an exotic dancer, how the adult-entertainment industry is changing with increasing priority of the internet, and why people don’t consider her job respectable. Liza, an exotic dancer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, says that her wages are incredibly unpredictable: On a given night she’s earned anywhere from less than $150 to as much as $1,500.

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