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" A tiny red light glowed like a Jawa eyeball in the blackness of the one-way booth in the corner. &amp;quot;Look at that. What is that?&amp;quot; I asked Star. Dancing next to Star was like dancing next to an Amazonian Bond girl with magnificent natural boobs and a beautiful face. She had soft freckles and full lips, and ornate silver hoops twinkled from her earlobes. She was a belly dancing, fire eating, vegan, bisexual, world traveler. Star was one of many well-read, punk, bohemian dancers at The Lusty Lady, most of whom held college degrees and carried on non-monagamous relationships. Star walked over to the one-way booth towards the red light, where a special thick glass enabled customers the privacy of watching us while we couldn&amp;#039;t see them. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re being filmed,&amp;quot; she said to me. &amp;quot;Move over there.&amp;quot; She pointed to the other side of the stage. I drifted over to the other regular windows where two men in clown masks and noses bounced up and down wildly jerking off, oblivious to the confrontation happening onstage. The music mostly drowned out our voices so Star was practically yelling, &amp;quot;I see you.&amp;quot; She blocked the window with her whole body. &amp;quot;Turn your camera off. I see you.&amp;quot; She put her elbows on the window to block his view. &amp;quot;Turn it off or we will have you thrown out.&amp;quot; She spun around and stomped offstage. I bent over for the clown guys who laughed and jerked, their wiry, frizzy wig hair moving in sync, bouncing in the air above them. A door slammed shut. The clowns left. &amp;quot;What happened?&amp;quot; I asked Star. She stood with one six-inch platform heel in a window ledge and moved her pale hips side to side. &amp;quot;I told her guys are sneaking in cameras and filming us. They could do anything with that footage,&amp;quot; she said. Some girls who danced at The Lusty Lady peepshow had kids, teaching jobs, or partners who didn&amp;#039;t know they worked here. &amp;quot;What did she say?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;She goes, Star, you need to understand if you&amp;#039;re uncomfortable, then you can go work somewhere else.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Fuck,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;And I go: We are all uncomfortable with it. And, you need to know, I&amp;#039;m going to change things around here,&amp;quot; she says this to her reflection in the glass where a suit watched her long, strong legs spread for him. The stitches on my wrist had healed, but I still wore a black leather cuff to hide the angry red scar. I had removed the stitches myself with needle-nose pliers and rubbing alcohol the week before. I felt giddy, like something horrible and great was about to happen. I believed Star was going to change things, and I wanted to change things with her. Management called a staff meeting and it was during this meeting when I realized our labor war had begun. We brought up the problem with video cameras being snuck into the one-way booths, and our solution was to replace the one-way mirrors with regular glass. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s too expensive to replace and customers like the one-ways,&amp;quot; they&amp;#039;d countered. They also didn&amp;#039;t allow us to confiscate customers&amp;#039; cameras\u2014even though the Mohawk boy did it anyway. The only thing management agreed to do was print out flimsy paper signs from their shitty printer with an image of a video camera crossed out and post them. They wouldn&amp;#039;t make any waves, so we felt we had to. Onstage, we made plans. &amp;quot;All they care about is moving customers through these doors,&amp;quot; Star said. I knew it was the truth. &amp;quot;When I had bronchitis, I couldn&amp;#039;t find anyone to cover me and I didn&amp;#039;t get my raise,&amp;quot; Sybil said. Black girls were allotted fewer shifts and hardly ever worked in the Private Pleasures booth. Busty girls had to find busty dancers to cover their shifts. Black girls had to find other black girls to cover theirs. If we didn&amp;#039;t find a girl to cover within our &amp;quot;type,&amp;quot; we would be missing from the schedule the following week as punishment. In response, we organized. We elected a union organizer and shop stewards. We hired an attorney and got to work. We dressed up in skimpy outfits and passed out free condoms in baskets on Market Street holding up signs that said &amp;quot;Support Your Local Stripper.&amp;quot; Our community buzzed with the delight of making change happen, but we showed up to work churning with anxiety. If show directors caught us talking onstage, they would write us up. They fired us for tiny infractions while we researched unions and union busters. Management used every single tactic in the union-busting manual including a poster-sized check for ten grand made out to the union with a sign that said, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t write this check,&amp;quot; implying that union dues would break the bank, and we&amp;#039;d be better off without the union. My work place had become a chaotic war zone, but one in which we felt strong and bonded by our determination. We were going to make the world a better place for strippers. We were also scared of the possible repercussions. We taped flyers to the mirrors in the dressing room that said &amp;quot;Bad Girls Like Good Contracts&amp;quot; and left a copy of the book &amp;quot;Confessions of a Union Buster&amp;quot; on the dressing room table. My legs ached from riding my bicycle from the Lower Haight to North Beach in order to avoid being even one minute late, which would get me fired. Velvet whispered to me &amp;quot;watch it. There are moles onstage.&amp;quot; Later that day, Summer was fired for talking onstage about the union. She had a young son and no other job. We walked out in protest and stayed out of the club for forty-eight hours, scared and broke. Our rage only made us fight harder. In the Private Pleasures Booth, I procured support from my regular clients, like Speculum Man. He always brought his favorite dancers toys and kept them at the front desk in Ziplocs with notes. I did a show for him in Private Pleasures and then we made plans to meet up across the street at The Onion where we gathered signatures from clients and friends to support our union, played pool, and talked about wanting our basic rights. During one lockout, Star arranged for one of her devoted clients to do a show with us outside. He wanted to take us to a construction zone where we would cover ourselves in mud. For a day of posing for him in the hot sun we would make a few hundred bucks each. Afterwards, as I cleaned my ears with a pile of Q-tips, I was elated by the feeling of being unified inside and outside of the club. I called Mom. &amp;quot;Mom, we are trying to unionize at my job.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The clothing store?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No, the place where I took you\u2014the club where I dance. A girl got fired the other day for talking about our union. So we are on a lockout.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Honey. You don&amp;#039;t have to do anything you don&amp;#039;t want to do. Remember that.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Thanks, Mom.&amp;quot; The dispute took months of long negotiations and meetings. They tried to tire us out by protracted delays in order to test us\u2014to see if we really wanted to go through the trouble to unionize. During one of many tedious contract negotiation meetings, we demanded that they rehire Summer. After several months, we won our election 75-15, becoming SEIU Local 790: The Exotic Dancer&amp;#039;s Alliance. The Lusty Lady was the first strip club in the United States to successfully unionize. By then, I had already moved over to the full-contact lap dancing clubs to make the real money. But knowing we had won made me dance with a new determination and confidence that I&amp;#039;d never before associated with stripping. I was proud to strip and felt like a member of my community of dancers. Excerpted from Spent: A Memoir, by Antonia Crane. RELATED:  I&amp;#039;m a Strip Club House Mom Would You Strip for Your Boyfriend&amp;#039;s Dad? I Did. Follow Antonia on Twitter. Photo Credit: Shelia Rose "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a5901/antonia-crane-spent-lusty-lady/>