<\/p>\n
I’m sitting in June Cade’s brightly lit office, with a beautiful view of Puget Sound, its lush islands, and the Seattle waterfront.\u00a0 June is general manager of the two Lusty Lady Theatres — one in Seattle, the other in San Francisco.\u00a0 She has been managing the theatres since 1981, during which time she’s taken them from being run of the mill peep shows to being quality theatres for sexual entertainment, where dancers are more likely than not to bring some real playful sexual energy to their job, some interest in real human contact — some genuine erotic presence, however theatrical, amplified, or camp.<\/p>\n
June is explaining her business philosophy by way of telling me how she consistently “beats down” the competition from other “Live Nude Dancer” shows.\u00a0 It’s a story worth telling because, according to June, the way to be successful in the live sex entertainment business is to treat the people you deal with —\u00a0 dancers, staff, customers, even neighbors and civic leader types — with courtesy and respect.<\/p>\n
June is no naive idealist.\u00a0 She knows she’s in the sex business, and that a peep show is, in the end, nothing more than a peep show.\u00a0 At the same time she believes strongly that sexual business is as legitimate as any other, and therefore no excuse to treat other people, or be treated by other people, as anything less than full, first-class human beings.<\/p>\n
“We hire women who like what they’re doing,” June explains.\u00a0 “Then we protect them so they’re in charge of the situation, so they can be nice to the customers.\u00a0 It pays off for everybody.\u00a0 It pays off for us, pays off for the customers, pays off for the dancers.”<\/p>\n
Overhead costs at the Lusty, according to June, are a great deal higher than at other live peeps.\u00a0 To begin with, dancers are paid decent salaries — $8 to $21 an hour, depending on experience.\u00a0 In addition, the Lusty believes in the importance of having an extensive, skilled administrative staff, and they pay their payroll taxes meticulously.<\/p>\n
Because sexual entertainment is so controversial, it’s easy for people in sexually oriented businesses to fall into an underground, outlaw mentality.\u00a0 You think we’re mean and nasty, we’ll show you mean and nasty.\u00a0 You think we’re slime, let’s get into being slime.\u00a0 You think sex is about breaking rules, then to hell with all the rules.\u00a0 Like much essential work that no one likes to think about, let alone do, sex work often appeals to people with strong rebellious streaks.\u00a0 It also has a way of creating rebels out of less confrontational folks who just get tired of being treated as low-life all the time.<\/p>\n
To her credit, June refuses to be exiled into this sort of outlaw attitude.\u00a0 She runs her theatres as upstanding business enterprises, not contraband.\u00a0 She is a respected member of Seattle’s downtown Business Improvement Association, and goes out of her way to maintain good business and personal relationships with the other downtown business people.<\/p>\n
“Most adult business operators put themselves on the fringes,” June says.\u00a0 If they wanted to, she believes, they too could have cooperative, courteous relationships with the non-sexual businesses around them.<\/p>\n
June was introduced to the Lusty in 1981 by her friend and lover, Bill Cooley, who owned the theatres.\u00a0 Talking with Bill and his show director (shift manager) in the course of being shown around, she asked why they didn’t they call a meeting of the dancers to discuss various issues that were being difficult.\u00a0 The (male) show director laughed at what he took to be her naivety.<\/p>\n
“You can’t expect women like this to be responsible enough to come to a meeting,” he chided.<\/p>\n
“Women like this!” June sneers, remembering the moment vividly.\u00a0 “He talked about the dancers as ‘women like this.’\u00a0 That’s when I realized that this could be a fun job and that I could make a real difference.”\u00a0 She signed up to be general manager and see what she could accomplish, thinking that she would stay in the job three years at most.\u00a0 Twelve years later she’s still there, and can look back at how she has entirely transformed the Lusty, for dancers and customers alike.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got to give Bill credit,” June says, remembering the man she describes as playful, funny, and generous.\u00a0 “He totally turned the business over to me.”\u00a0 She pauses, tears coming to her eyes, reaching for a tissue.\u00a0 Bill died in 1988 of a heart attack.\u00a0 He was 53.\u00a0 The business is now a corporation, with a majority of women on the board of directors.<\/p>\n
The first thing June did as manager was to make the dancers’ dressing room off limits to male staff, who were used to being able to come and go at will.\u00a0 This infuriated the men, but June was adamant.\u00a0 For her it was a matter of basic privacy and respect.\u00a0 She also established a policy of hiring only women to be show directors.<\/p>\n
“There are certain things men just don’t understand,” she says quietly.\u00a0 “Like about the dancers’ embarrassment.\u00a0 They can’t understand that just because someone has a job dancing without their clothes on doesn’t mean they’re not modest.”<\/p>\n
June believes strongly that it’s just not possible for a male show director to do the job effectively.\u00a0 Part of this has to do with being sensitive to and respectful of the feelings of the dancers, as with the issue of dressing room privacy.\u00a0 Also important is that the show director has to be able to hold ground and not be pushed around or manipulated by the dancers.<\/p>\n
“You’re dealing with sixty beautiful women, women who are used to getting their own way,” she explains.\u00a0 “Show directors have to be able to enforce standards without being domineering.\u00a0 They have to be able to treat women respectfully but not be bowled over by them.”\u00a0 It’s simply impossible, she believes, for a man to maintain some sense of objectivity and not be intimidated by the collective power of these beautiful, naked, unapologetically sexual women.<\/p>\n
“Men get manipulated [by sexy women] and then they get angry,” she says wisely.\u00a0 The last thing a show director needs is to be carrying around resentment about being dangled by his cock.\u00a0 The Lusty did experiment with a male show director once after she was manager, June recalls.\u00a0 “It was a disaster,” she grimaces, without going into the details.<\/p>\n
According to June, show directors need to be intelligent and sensitive about the sex entertainment business, but also realistic about it.\u00a0 “It’s important that people not try to make this into something it’s not, not to think we’re doing some great service for mankind.\u00a0 I mean, it’s a peep<\/em> show, after all!” she laughs.<\/p>\n What does it take to be a good performer at the Lusty?\u00a0 The most important thing to June is that dancers be able to smile genuinely, to be seductive, to be openly sexual without going against their own standards — their morals, their ethics, their personal sexual beliefs.<\/p>\n “Dancers need to be comfortable with their own sexuality, and comfortable with men and male sexuality too.\u00a0 They also have to be able to genuinely interact with the customers, otherwise they’re going to get bored.\u00a0 Exhibitionism is also important — an inherent delight in being seen naked.”\u00a0 She laughingly calls the dancers “a group of little show-offs.”\u00a0 And more important than simply being raunchy is the quality of the sexual energy passing between dancer and customer, some sense of real (even if make-believe), honest (even if invented) connection across the glass.<\/p>\n What dancers don’t<\/em> have to do is to allow themselves to be directed by the customers or to feel that they have to perform for customers in any way that doesn’t feel comfortable or natural.\u00a0 This is the primary way that the theatres protect the dancers’ work situation.\u00a0 Customers who are rude or disrespectful of the dancers, or who try to dictate to the dancers what they should do, are told in no uncertain terms that they’re out of line.\u00a0 If they persist, they find themselves out on the street.<\/p>\n In terms of personal appearance, the Lusty Lady Hiring Criteria are quite straightforward:<\/p>\n \u2022 No body or facial piercings (other than pierced ears) are allowed while working.<\/p>\n \u2022 No tattoos on arms or breasts.\u00a0 Tattoos elsewhere must be small and feminine.<\/p>\n \u2022 Your hair must be long and healthy.\u00a0 (At least past your jaw line.)<\/p>\n \u2022 You must have a waist and a trim stomach.<\/p>\n \u2022 Your body should be firm with smooth skin, a clear complexion, and a minimum of cellulite.<\/p>\n \u2022 An attractive smile is important; so are clean, healthy teeth.<\/p>\n \u2022 Your height is of no importance, but that you are well-proportioned in relation to your height is important.<\/p>\n \u2022 Overall, your look should be beautiful and healthy.<\/p>\n \u2022 Please be honest with yourself.<\/p>\n Women who are interested in becoming dancers at the Lusty apply at the theatres.\u00a0 They must speak and understand English fluently, have a valid state photo ID, phone number, and social security card, and be on time for their appointments.\u00a0 A show director will take them around, explain how the theatre works and what is expected from the dancers — mainly that they make eye contact with the customers, that they be seductive, and that they be comfortable with themselves about doing this job.<\/p>\n Women who are interested make an appointment to come back at a later date for an audition.\u00a0 June wants prospective dancers to take time and really think about whether they want to do this job.\u00a0 She knows that being a public sex object can be emotionally as well as physically draining.\u00a0 (Dancers, on the average, stay at the Lusty about a year or two before moving on.)<\/p>\n For their auditions, women choose stage names and bring their own costumes, as well as three or four songs to dance to.\u00a0 If hired, they start at $8 an hour and get a raise of $1 an hour every two weeks up to $21 an hour, if all goes well on the job.\u00a0 This means not only maintaining a good attitude with customers, but also being responsible, showing up for work on time, cooperating and getting along with the other dancers.<\/p>\n One thing that many dancers have a hard time understanding, June says, is that working as an erotic dancer is as much “a real job” as any job in the non-sexual world.\u00a0 Showing up late, flaking on a shift, or calling up to cancel a shift at the last minute are definitely not ok.<\/p>\n In other words, there are two sides to the coin of treating sexual work with real respect.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Spectator<\/em> magazine, September 3, 1993<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 1993 David Steinberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n I’m sitting in June Cade’s brightly lit office, with a beautiful view of Puget Sound, its lush islands, and the Seattle waterfront. 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