The lights are low while Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It” echoes throughout both floors of Dallas’ newest Spearmint Rhino club, which has only been open since February. The air is sweet with the smell of perfume. Most of the tables are empty this Friday night, though there are a handful of men scattered across the first floor, some at tables, a couple at the bar. The tables have three to four seats available, but most of the men seem to have come alone.
A single pole rises center stage which can be seen from all corners of the club, including from the second floor although it is closed off to guests for the night. The red, green, blue, and purple lights take turns illuminating the stage, but also the woman dancing on it. She goes by the stage name Kristie and the colors bounce off her porcelain skin, her tall, silver sparkly heels, and her glittery purple bodysuit — the top half of which is draped around her hips, exposing her breasts.
For Kristie, the pole is more of a prop than the focus for this dance. While she occasionally holds onto it and spins her body around it, she uses the entire stage for her performance. She tosses her caramel blonde hair and seemingly “breaks” her heels while sliding into splits. She brings her legs closed behind her and pushes back into an almost-child’s yoga pose, comes up on her hands and knees, and then gently, yet sensually, thrusts her hips back and forth. Kristie is light on her feet and knows how to use all of her 5-foot-1 body, but the men in the audience are all occupied. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.
Club turnout and tips have been inconsistent since the coronavirus pandemic washed over the country. Between the fear of getting sick and the loss of income due to people losing their jobs, customers are not flocking to strip clubs like they used to. Despite being a seasoned dancer and having a regular following, Kristie’s income just isn’t what it was prior to the March 2020 shutdown. It also doesn’t help that her current club opened in the middle of the pandemic. But as a single mother to a one-year-old son, Kristie, 24, is willing to risk her health to make sure her son has a roof over his head.
Before the song finishes its last verse, the DJ thanks Kristie for her performance. As she makes her way down from the stage, the few men in the audience all have at least one girl at their table. The number of dancers working that night outnumber those in the audience — an all too familiar sight within local strip clubs.
Kristie’s day usually starts around 10 a.m. She wakes up, takes her dog for a walk, and prepares breakfast for her son in their Dallas apartment.
“I think by the time he was eight or nine months, he was sleeping 12 hours throughout the night,” Kristie said. “And he never wakes up. He just sleeps the whole time, which is pretty convenient.”
Her son usually wakes up by the time breakfast is ready, so the two of them eat and lounge around for a few hours and maybe go for a walk or watch some “Cocomelon” together. Around 5 p.m., Kristie heads to work, blowing kisses to her son on her way out and leaving him with a sitter.
One of her greatest wishes is to provide her son with a stable childhood, unlike the one she had.
Growing up poor in Iowa, Kristie started working at a dry cleaners at 14 with her mother, who was divorced, and an alcoholic and drug addict. She had five siblings and wanted things her parents couldn’t afford to buy her — in this case, a cell phone — so she needed to earn her own money.
The six children never lived together at the same time. Her two oldest sisters lived with their fathers. Kristie's mother lost custody of her youngest sister and when her older sister moved out, that left Kristie and her brother alone until he was nine when he moved in with their father.
“I was closest with my brother, more than any of my sisters, and that’s because we shared the same parents — both mom and dad,” Kristie said. “All my sisters have different dads from us and from each other.”
Despite being separated and Kristie taking on different jobs, , jumping from retail to fast food, she and her brother would remain close.
When Kristie’ was about 16, her dad and brother moved to Dallas. The siblings would video chat and message each other frequently and would take turns visiting their parents during the summer and at Christmas time.
“Living with my mom was interesting and a little traumatic,” Kristie said. “There were a lot of men in and out of the picture, more than I can count.”
Despite this, Kristie and her mom got along for the most part. At least, until Kristie was about 18. Her mother quit working and would ask Kristie for money, which put a rift between the two.
Kristie compares her life to the TV show “Shameless.”
“That is my family,” she said. “Six kids, drug addict mom, dysfunctional, up north in the midwest — it’s crazy how accurate it is.”
At 19, Kristie was living on her own in an apartment. Her roommate suddenly moved out, leaving Kristie alone with the rent. She was working two jobs just to make ends meet — one, as a full-time manager at an adult gift store and the other part-time as a waitress . Her sleep schedule was inconsistent since the hours were irregular, and she had almost no time to herself. One day, a coworker from the adult store brought up the idea of stripping.
“We had planned to go [audition] together and check it out,” Kristie said. “But she wasn’t available one day and I wanted to go — I was excited! Nervous, but also excited. I went into a club by myself and asked to audition. They were very nice.”
The managers walked Kristie to the back of the club and asked her to go on stage and dance for two songs.
She remembers being scared to take the stage. Compared to the other girls working, she was extremely underdressed.
“I had a pair of regular heels like you would wear out to a restaurant and none of the other girls had heels that looked like that.”
The rest of her outfit was made up of a tie-side bikini bottom she had worn to a rave once and a peach-colored sequined Victoria Secret bra.
Even though it was only an audition there were customers in the club and Kristie was shaking when she took off her bra. However, there was another dancer sitting with a customer who had the customer tip Kristie, which helped ease her nerves. When she stepped off stage, she was told she was hired.
“I was terrified,” she laughed. “But the first day went really well and I liked it. I quickly made it my life.”
After she started at her first club, Kristie quit her other two jobs. She had made about $600 her first night, which was almost her entire rent.
“Making one paycheck in one night can certainly motivate you,” she said.
Once she had acquired a decent amount of money, Kristie took note of what the other dancers were wearing. Some wore lingerie, others would wear what is referred to as a t-back, which is essentially a g-string and triangle top. Her wardrobe quickly grew in variety, especially when it came to shoes. She had come a long way from the outfit she auditioned in.
“I did have a shoe obsession for a little while,” Kristie said. “They’re actually crazy expensive, like $100 a pair, which is ridiculous. And I only wear them at work!”
About a year into her career as an exotic dancer, she decided to move to the DFW area to be closer to her father, who is a Desert Storm veteran, and to her brother. She had also been traveling from Iowa to Dallas, taking advantage of the many opportunities the Metroplex provided exotic dancers. Her aunt and brother knew when she was in town, but not her father.
"I felt bad that I kept coming down to Dallas and I wasn’t visiting him. And I couldn’t just pop in and say I was here for a visit because with my old job, I definitely couldn’t afford it and he would have known something was up.”
Kristie decided to send her father a message.
“I told him that I had been dancing for a while,” she said. “And [I told him] I was down here in Dallas traveling for work and I hoped he wasn’t upset with me, but I liked doing it.”
She remembers shaking while waiting for his response.
“I didn’t know how he’d take it, but he messaged back and told me he had a suspicion for a while,” she said. “But he also told me that it was my choice and he would support me regardless.”
He also advised Kristie to be aware of her surroundings, keep her guard up, save her money, and to stay aware of how she would feel coming out of the industry.
“The money is so lucrative that it may be hard to step away from the industry when I want to,” Kristie said. “But overall, he told me he loved me always. He wasn’t mad or upset. He was happy that I was open with him.”
The men at the Spearmint Rhino are engaged in conversation or receiving lap dances from some of the dancers. Kristie makes her way to the only table that had more than one guest. Three other girls were also at the table talking with two men.
Kristie and the other dancers act as if they had known the men for years, laughing and smiling as they talk. However, both men are first timers.
After Kristie's performance, other girls take the stage, but hardly anyone tips. The girls at the tables are hard at work, so the attention is not really on the stage. Kristie sits at a table with two men and Ryan, a woman with blonde curly hair.
“F__k you!” yells Ryan as the two men stagger away. One of them tossed some money at her and it fell to the floor. When she asked them to pick it up, they refused and she grew angry.
Kristie, and two other women move quickly to calm her down. Vivian, one of the women, with long black hair and a cat tattoo on her thigh, speaks first.
“We don’t do that here,” Vivian tells her.
“No, listen, you’re too drunk to even remember what I just said ,” Ryan starts.
“No, bitch, because I’m talking right now,” Vivian snaps back. Besides, she's only had two drinks, and at this club, the women needed to be more respectful toward customers because it was classier than other clubs.
Ryan tries talking over Vivian and says, “I’m sorry for disrespecting you, I’m just having a bad day.” She has been banned from five different clubs and wants a “truce, truce, truce!”
Kristie learned quickly that the guy in the suit is not always the guy with the money.
“Much of what a dancer does is listen and really kind of almost be a therapist for a customer,” Kristie said. “But hearing lots of people relieve their stress onto you, that can be mentally exhausting.”
Despite making good money, there are times where she needs to take breaks from dancing for the sake of her mental health.
“The type of club you work in definitely affects the type of customers you have,” Kristie said.
Location plays a role in the type of people who go to strip clubs, but she also believes there is a difference between BYOB (bring your own beverage) clubs and clubs that serve alcohol.
“Clubs that are BYOB are full nude,” Kristie said. “And in my experience, clubs that are BYOB generally have more negative experiences as a dancer. Whether or not it’s because of the full nudity or because you bring your own alcohol and don’t really have a bartender to cut you off, I’m not really sure.”
Spearmint Rhino sells alcohol and is known for being a higher-end club. But Kristie has worked at other Dallas strip clubs, both BYOB and non-BYOB.
“Many customers will respect your boundaries in the beginning, but will eventually get the idea in their head that it’s going to move out of the club, you know like dating,” she said. “It’s a challenge to keep them as a customer, but also let them know that that’s not possible, that it’s not going to happen.”
While some customers understand the boundary, she has had experiences where some have not.
“That can be draining,” Kristie said. “It’s like breaking up with someone every day. It’s kind of depressing sometimes to think that your income depends on how nice you are to somebody.”
She’s even had customers who get physically aggressive with her. Once while giving a dance in a private room, the man she was entertaining started to pull her hair and choke her.
“On some level, that can be seen as attractive,” Kristie said. “But every customer should ask every dancer what they’re comfortable with, because different people have different kinks and different comfort levels.”
She told the customer that he was being too aggressive but instead of stopping, he grew more aggressive.
“It was scary to see the expression on his face,” Kristie said. “He really enjoyed scaring another person, hurting another person and that is scary to encounter. It terrified me.”
To get herself away from him, she told him she had to use the restroom and grabbed the manager on duty. He was immediately told the dance was over and he needed to leave the club.
Although she has not seen that man again, it is experiences like these, she said, that makes her have to take breaks from dancing.
She’ll sometimes visit her family in Iowa or Dallas. She also tries to see her father at least once a week.
He suffers from anxiety and PTSD from his time in the army. He lives alone, and Kristie has his power of attorney. She goes grocery shopping for him and they spend time together watching movies.
Kristie and her brother remained close, especially after her move to Dallas. Their time together in Dallas was short lived, however, because last year he moved back to Iowa to stay with one of their sisters. But in Sept. 2020, her brother was shot and killed during a robbery by two teen gang members.
“ [The teenagers] are on trial right now, so it’s kind of an ongoing process,” Kristie said. “It’s been really hard, but I’m just trying to do my best.”
After her brother died, many of her followers on her designated work Instagram account donated to his funeral expenses and helped Kristie with her income when she took a break from dancing to grieve.
“It was really nice to see how kind everybody was,” Kristie said. “I was just a girl that they followed on Instagram and sometimes see at the strip club, you know, it was just heartwarming to see people reach out like that.”
Her brother’s death wasn’t the first time her followers had supported her in her personal life. When Kristie and her then-fiancé, who was a manager at a different strip club, found out they were pregnant, they held a baby shower and invited both coworkers and guests to help celebrate their child who was born in May 2019.
“Even though it’s a sexually-based business, [it was nice to see] how many serious bonds and friendships were made from that,” Kristie said. “It was pretty cool to see a guy that I used to give lap dances come in and bring me a stroller.”
A manager at the Spearmint Rhino leads Ryan upstairs to the locker room to give the unruly dancer a private chat. There are not many guests in the club, so Vivian sits with Kristie at a table and the two chat while occasionally hitting their vape pens.
“You never know when you’re going to see a person again,” Vivian says. “You don’t know what they have in their pocket, what they have on their credit card, what they have in their wallet — you don’t f----g know. [Ryan] was like, ‘He’s been my regular for five years, they’d never fire me.’ And I was like, ‘Girl, they’d fire you in an instant, trust me.’”
Suki, the other woman who witnessed Ryan and Vivian’s altercation, joins the table. The girls chat about what they think will happen to Ryan.
“What a slow night,” Kristie says. “I’m tempted to leave.”
The girls tell her to stick it out. The DJ calls Vivian up to the stage.
“Let me know if [Ryan] walks out the door while I’m gone,” Vivian says. “I’d love to see it.”
Suki stands to head to the locker room.
“I guess I’ll go be nosy and check it out,” she says.
Prior to the pandemic, Kristie was living with her fiancé and son. She was on a break from work to take care of their baby while her fiancé continued to manage another strip club. When bars and other public places started to shut down, Kristie’s fiancé was able to mostly support the family. However, before the shutdown, her fiancé contracted COVID and ended up spreading it to both Kristie and their son. Luckily, there was only one day when they both felt miserable.
“I had a fever of probably 102 and my son had a fever of 104,” said Kristie who developed chills and sweated profusely. “I remember thinking this is awful, because I don’t want anyone else to get this. It was so hard to do anything. I just wanted to lay in bed and wait for it to be over, but I couldn’t because I had to take care of my son.”
Kristie planned to take her son to urgent care if Tylenol didn’t bring down his fever.
“I remember wondering if I should take him to the doctor because they were only treating symptoms at that point,” Kristie said. “There wasn’t anything they could really do for you unless you were having trouble breathing … and we weren’t, so we had to tough it out.”
Through their sickness, Kristie continued to breastfeed.
“I think a lot of that contributed to how fast my son recovered,” Kristie said. “I did research with the CDC. [With] previous strains of the virus, women who were breastfeeding had antibodies in breastmilk.”
Finally, both their fevers broke and the worst of the sickness was over. Kristie had lost her sense of smell early on and while it hasn’t fully recovered, it continues to improve.
Just when she thought things were going to get better, the economy began to shut down. Kristie and her family would be locked down for even longer.
“I did supplement my income by doing OnlyFans,” Kristie said. “I know many girls did online live shows if they happened to have a pole in their home. Being forced to work only online when the clubs weren’t open definitely helped open an avenue I wouldn’t have explored otherwise.”
Kristie recorded a few shows at her home and privately sold the videos to customers, but never did live showings. The money never matched what she was earning prior to the pandemic. She compares her OnlyFans money to unemployment benefits — just a fraction of what she used to make.
“The club and OnlyFans are sort of mutually beneficial as far as promoting,” Kristie said. “So the OnlyFans definitely promotes me working in the club and me working in the club definitely promotes my OnlyFans for when I’m not available in the club.”
When the clubs started to open again, Kristie’s income did not immediately recover. People weren’t showing up like before the pandemic and wearing a mask made it hard to attract guests. Some nights she was left without making the equivalent of minimum wage. Sometimes she would even leave in the negative. Strippers have to pay house fees to dance and typically tip their DJs and house mom, the woman who usually helps the girls in the locker room.
“When I went back to work after everything had opened up, I wasn’t afraid of getting sick only because I already had been,” Kristie said. “I absolutely thought it was important that we wear masks all the time. I felt like hand washing and hand sanitizing was very important. I was very pleased with the clubs offering that.”
The only concern Kristie really had was dancer-to-dancer infection.
“We share a pole — that’s the one thing we all touch,” Kristie said. “Stage performances are required, so [if] an entertainer goes up and she doesn’t spray the cloth with alcohol and wipe down the pole, the next entertainer goes up and she doesn’t spray it...that’s an easy way to infect other people if there was a possible infection.”
Many of Kristie’s coworkers didn’t go back to work immediately because they were afraid of getting sick.
“Most of the dancers I know that went back right away were parents,” Kristie said. “I think what it comes down to is priorities. I know a lot of dancers who really prioritized their health over their income, which is absolutely important.”
As a parent, Kristie believes she doesn’t have that option. Now that she and her fiancé are no longer together, she has even more of a reason.
“My health is a little less important than making sure I can pay my bills to take care of my son and to make sure that we have somewhere to go and that he has food to eat,” Kristie said. “That definitely is one of the biggest reasons I went back to the club so soon [and] why I sort of prioritize my finances over my health.”
Now that Texas has lifted its mask mandate, Kristie has seen an increase in people visiting clubs, but the amount of money she makes some nights is really hit and miss.
Vivian finishes her dance, but Ryan is still in the locker room. She goes upstairs to join Kristie and watches the stage from the second floor. Hardly any new guests have arrived.
Ryan suddenly appears from the locker room, wipes her face, and makes her way to the staircase. From the top of the stairs, she composes herself, straightens her posture, and scopes out the audience, looking for her next guest. As she makes her way down, it appears as if she’s consciously thinking about each step she takes. Once she’s made it to the bottom, she throws herself onto a heavyset man with curly hair sitting by the staircase.
Vivian watches her like a hawk from above. Ryan throws her curly hair back and laughs with the man and sits on his lap as his eyes grow wide. While Ryan entertains him, the DJ calls out to let her know she’ll be going on stage soon.
A new couple enters the club and makes their way to a table near the stage. Vivian flashes a smile to Kristie and makes her way down the staircase to talk to the couple. As she passes Ryan, Vivian flashes another glare but Ryan doesn’t seem to notice.
Ryan makes her way to the stage, her sparkly red triangle top already off. As she goes up the stairs, one of her heels comes off and the curly-haired man rushes over to help her put it on and rushes back to his seat. Kristie moves to join Vivian.
Once Ryan’s song starts, she begins dancing, loosens her bottoms to where they are barely holding on, and beckons the curly-haired man back to the stage. She tells him to smack her behind, which he eagerly does. The couple by the stage stays occupied with Kristie and Vivian, not giving Ryan a single glance.
Once the curly-haired man seems to have run out of money, Ryan motions with her fingers for other guests to come to the stage, but all occupied. One guest who is not occupied shakes his head no, but Ryan claps her hands together and begs them to come forward. The guest declines again.
Ryan finishes her dance, unsuccessful in her efforts to attract more customers to the stage, and goes back to the curly-haired man. It seems like he’s the only one interested.
Kristie leaves Vivian with the couple and tells the DJ she’s ready to leave. The club is not busy enough for her to earn back what she’ll be paying her babysitter. It is time for her to go home to her son.
Kristie makes only $5 this Friday night. Most of the tables stayed unoccupied the whole time she was there. Was it the pandemic? The economy? The newness of the club?
Kristie returns to her apartment, pays the babysitter and peeks in to check on her son. He's sound asleep, safe within his bed, protected by the mom who loves him.