HELLO FROM THE VOID!
This is my first episode in over a year. I promised in spring of 2023 that I'd return in the fall. But in the fall, we collectively began to witness an unbridled holocaust in Palestine. I was frozen with grief for many months, and stopped producing all content; I was speechless, and hopeless. While I'm still filled with a profound grief and rage, a lot has changed for me since then. I've found strength and solidarity in my anti-zionist queer sex worker community, and a community of fellow anti-zionist Jews. Today's episode features a conversation with myself and queer, anti-zionist Jewish educators Ayelet Cartolina and Jessie & Elana from the Making Mensches Podcast.

One last thing: in June of 2023, Meta deleted my Stripper's Guide Instagram account in a wave of overnight deletions of thousands of sex workers' accounts across the world. It is so important to me to be able to stay connected to you! If you want information and tools for navigating anti-sex worker and anti-femme stigma in the world and in your relationships, please consider subscribing to my free blog on Substack! You can still find me on Instagram, but please don't let that fickle place be our only avenue of connection.

A Stripper's Guide pod is taking a little breaky-break for now, but I am very active on Substack, and I'm making a documentary.

This is the season finale, hosted by Leilah and her friend Erica Sosa, who writes about fat femmes, desirability politics, and erotic autonomy on her Substack. 

Today we are geeking out because we get to speak with someone who inspires us both a lot.

Aubrey Gordon is an author, columnist, and the cohost of Maintenance Phase, a podcast that debunks the diet industry. She was featured in a 2023 documentary, Your Fat Friend, whose name is based on the title of Aubrey's column, Yr Fat Friend.

In this episode, we talk about some parallels between anti-fat stigma and anti-sex worker stigma (and their differences), and how it feels when someone who used to be one of us won't claim us.

Aubrey's links & stuff:

• Maintenance Phase Podcast (available wherever you stream)
• Books: "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat"
• Social Media: Twitter, Instagram
• Your Fat Friend  Documentary

This is a recording from my new Instagram Live series where I answer people's questions about love, dating, and breakups. This series centers sex workers and femmes, but everyone is encouraged to listen to the show -- especially if you date women, femmes, or sex workers.

In this crossover episode, I team up with activist & former stripper AM Davies, co-host of Yes, A Stripper podcast. AM and myself, like many sex workers, have been groped, assaulted, and harrassed by the (usually straight) women customers who frequent our establishments, often in the presence of their husbands and boyfriends. We take a critical look at misogyny from underexplored angles, including whore-on-whore misogyny.

• Read my new article, Whores Aren't Sex Objects, which examines this topic further (available after 12pm  EST on 6/15)
• Listen to Yes, A Stripper Podcast here

"Feminist" movements often leave behind both sex workers and femmes of color. On top of that, even within sex worker communities, there often run deeply racist and anti-immigrant beliefs. My guest on this episode, Dr. Connie Wun, is a researcher, author, educator, and former sex worker, whose work is dedicated to ending racial and gender-based violence. She talks to us about why it's so important to deliberately carve space for Asian femmes and sex workers in the feminist fight for universal liberation.

• Connect with Dr. Connie Wun on Instagram!

Have a great week, cuties!
Xo,
Leilah

#FemmesAreAllowed to feel erotically empowered. We don't owe anyone anything. Our erotic energy is ours. Sometimes it's sexual, but it's so much more than that. Join me and my incredible guest, pole dancer and AIDS activist Dey Phoenix. We discuss how both stripping and practicing magic have helped us each recognize and embrace our power as femmes, creators, community members, and helped us embody our values of anti-oppression.
Tangents include crusty vampires and an in-depth analysis for why Meg Thee Stallion, Cardi B, and Issa Rae should all come hang out with us.
Find Dey Phoenix on Instagram here and check out Impulse Group here!

Wanna get involved with A Stripper's Guide? Here's how:

• Sign up for A Stripper's Guide newsletter
• Read my writing for Boston Hassle
• Listen to my music
• Shop Penelope's Locker

Wanna work with me as your coach?
I provide life, leadership, and relationship coaching for queers, creatives, and sex workers, as well as feminist coaching for cis men. If you're interested in working together 1:1, click here.

Til next week!
xo,
Leilah/Penelope

Stripper dance, just like the strip club industry, is rife with cultural appropriation. Because we live in a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the appropriation of BIPOC dances, specifically within the strip club industry, which actively disenfranchises BIPOC strippers (particularly & especially Black strippers), is nothing short of an act of cultural and interpersonal violence.

This panel discussion includes four guests: Joy, a black stripper/pole dancer; dancehall queen Hershey (also searchable: bliss_movements617); Jamaican dancer, author, and DJ Bianca Rose [aka Bianca Star]; and Moroccan dancer/Raqs Sharqi dancer Soumaya MaRose.

Let's stay connected!
Join my free newsletter, follow me on Instagram, and visit astrippersguide.com for resources & offerings.

xo,
Leilah
Founder of A Stripper's Guide

I'm a white stripper. On 7/22/20, I held a discussion panel with V, Tiffany, Chenelle, and Joy (click for her IG), four of my Black/Afro Latinx colleagues, about the rampant and insidious racism in the strip club industry. We break down the unique structure of the strip club industry that protects and proliferates racism. Listen to my colleagues' first-hand experiences, and learn from all of us about what we need from you, whether you're a stripper or civilian. In this critical & historic moment, help us swing the tide of power in our favor. Together, we can dismantle the harmful system as it is, and restore the sex industry to the rightful hands of whores, with Black sex workers front & center.

xo,
Leilah (aka Penelope)
Founder of A Stripper's Guide

Let's stay connected!
Join my free newsletter, follow me on Instagram, and visit astrippersguide.com for resources & offerings.

It's just a fact: lots of sex workers are moms, and lots of moms are sex workers. In this 2-part Mothers Day Special, we hear directly from different sex working moms who offer up some hard-won wisdom about parenting while living under society's microscope. This episode features sex workin' moms Roxy Hartless and Mina!

Links:

• Roxy Hartless: Instagram & TikTok
• Life After MLM Podcast episode featuring Leilah
• Valley Latini on A Stripper’s Guide Podcast : 
  • Two Stripper/Pop Singers Walk into a Bar  (ep. 1.2)
  • From Stripper to Full-Time Musician  (ep. 4.13)

It's just a fact: lots of sex workers are moms, and lots of moms are sex workers. In this 2-part Mothers Day Special, we hear directly from different sex working moms who offer up some hard-won wisdom about parenting while living under society's microscope.

Today's featured guests: 

• Elle Stanger - certified sex educator, parent,  host of They Talk Sex Podcast, and sex worker since 2009.  Follow them on Instagram & Twitter 
• Kristen Thomas - certified breathwork facilitator, founder of Bad Bitches do Breath Work, mom, and sex worker of 16 years. Follow her on Instagram

Dr. Rhea Ashley Hoskin is blazing trails in the field of Femme Theory, which aims to center and include femme narratives and experiences in all realms. From conservative communities to feminist and queer communities, why is it that so many femmes know what it’s like to feel somehow both underestimated and overlooked, and at the same time behaviorally policed? Why is it that so many femmes, from sex workers and food servers to teachers and corporate professionals, know what it’s like to be sexually harassed at work, at home, and out in the street? Dr. Hoskin and I ponder these questions and more.

• Find more of Dr. Hoskin on Instagram, Twitter, and her website
• Find Leilah on Instagram
• Can femme be theory? Exploring the epistemological and methodological possibilities of femme - Dr. Hoskin’s article mentioned in this episodes )
• Queer Femme Erasure - another Stripper's Guide episode you may like

Did you know that sex work is a criminal offense in most of the world, including virtually the entire United States? Attorney Elizabeth Ricks is here to explain how criminalization vastly increases violence towards sex workers, and why efforts to end human trafficking MUST be led by sex workers, not police (if we actually want to end human trafficking).

Also check out our sister episode: What Does It Mean to Decriminalize Sex Work? with Ariela Moscowitz of the organization Decriminalize Sex Work

Mentioned in this episode:

• TransLife Care program at Chicago House 
• SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Project)

Can sex workers be faithful lovers? Is it ever okay to hide your sex work from your partner(s)? Do sex workers "deserve" to be cheated on? If you've grappled with these questions in your own relationships, this episode is for you.

Lots of sex workers, myself included, have run into issues with romantic partners who feel uncomfortable about our jobs. This episode is about what happens when they don't confront their insecurities.

I share my strategies for making consistent champagne room sales (also known as VIP rooms or private rooms). These sales tips are for strippers, but really can be useful for any service provider. In this episode, I cover how to attract customers you want, maintaining control with difficult customers, and how to hold your boundaries without fear of losing the sale.

This is a recording of one of my real Info Sessions for Baby Strippers! In these sessions, dancers who are new to the industry (or thinking about trying it) come ask me all their questions. In this episode, Emily, a brand new stripper, asks me about everything from selling champagne rooms to feeling guilty she might hurt a customer's feelings if she stops giving him attention after he runs out of money. 

Tune in next week for an episode about closing champagne room sales!