Usually stripping goddesses’ are sensual, raw, strong. You feel them in the curve of your hip as you spin, in the strong muscles of your thigh as you move your hips with the music. You see them in the stars and cosmic fuzz when you roll down from that upside down position and flip upright to crawl all sexy into someone’s lap. You know that she is something more than you, and you know that she is you.
Here in the mid west, they have a different kind of stripping god. The kind who capitalizes the g and makes it his name: God. This is a place where God speaks to the city council. He tells them all kinds of things. He tells them that everything in town, and especially WalMart, should be closed Saturday night and not open until after noon. He tells them that the little corner grocery meets with his approval and should be allowed to stay open on His day.
God has a lot to say about stripping. While he seems to feel that lap dances are inherently sinful, they are apparently forgivable as long as they are between a man and a woman. Lap dances involving two women, and especially two strippers, are mortal sins that must be prevented at all costs. Therefore this God has decreed, through the city council, that while one lap dance doesn’t need direct supervision, two lap dances do. Therefore, if there are going to be two strippers doing two lap dances anywhere in the vicinity of each other, a bouncer must be present to prevent any sinful girl on girl action, which strippers are obviously prone to. Yeah, God’s pretty homophobic.
God says that cunts are bad, and must be covered. Likewise, assholes are also evil and need covered. God doesn’t seem to have defined the boundaries of the cunt, though. It is unclear whether pubic hair is allowed.
What I really object to is Gods edict regarding nipples. You see, while God approves of areolas, he says that nipples need to be covered at all times. God is obviously a man, because if he was a woman he wouldn’t want to mutilate our nipples.
The most common nipple covering in these parts is nail polish. You paint it on as you’re doing your make up, because it takes a couple minutes to dry and because for those couple minutes your eyes will water and ruin your eyeliner and your mouth will grimace unsexily from the stinging pain. You see, your nipples suck stuff in. And nail polish is toxic. I envision breast feeding someday and having a glob of nail polish pop out of a milk duct and choke the baby. My midwife friend has confirmed that this entirely possible, even if the baby probably wouldn’t choke.
Next most used is bandaids. You cut out little circles and stick them on. It doesn’t really hurt, at first. Not until you go to pull off the leather strapped bra and it rips the bandaid off your nipple. Or until you drag a breast across someone’s face and the already partly dislodged bandaid sticks to their beard. Then there’s the matter of getting it off. Nail polish doesn’t come of easily, either, but at least it doesn’t impede your nipple usage. Bandaids impair nipple usage. I don’t like to go to sleep without being able to feel my nipples, so I’m left with two choices: rip ‘em off, or soak my nipples in shot glasses of soapy water until the bartender kicks me out cause I’ve been getting ready to leave for an hour already, and then rip ‘em off. Either way, it hurts. Every day it hurts more and more, because the band aids dry out your nipples and they start to crack.
Savvy women from Texas and Oregon use puffy fabric paint. People call it latex, even though it’s not. The stinging is minimal, just ten seconds of a cold prickly feeling. Most importantly, it peels off easily at the end of the night. Unfortunately, it also peels off easily throughout the night, putting me in frequent violation of the nipple law and, presumably, at risk of getting arrested and having to register as a sex offender for nipple exposure. I can’t tell if the paint is causing further drying and cracking, or if my poor nipples are just worn out from it all and having a sensitive time of the month.
I blame this on God, and I wish the city council out here would at least diversify their gods a little bit.
When I worked in SF, I used a product called Bikini Bite http://www.nicemuscle.com/bikini-bite-fastener-80937.htm
It is designed to hold fitness competitors costumes in position while doing pushups, splits, etc. It is a liquid that rolls on like old-school deodorant. GOD said it was a legal nipple covering product in CA…maybe God will give it the okay in this town.
I know you meant this to be amusing and it *was* funny. I’m definitely about to come off as the holier-than-thou god-obsessed moron, but I have to say this.
Please, don’t blame God for this. I’m really no spokesperson for Him, I don’t even go to church these days, but I doubt very much that he cares about these nuances. I don’t know what He thinks about stripping or homosexuality or anything- but I do know that often people use His name to accomplish strange or evil things.
Just as I hate when my gay friends say that they hate Christians because they have been told that “God hates fags,” I hope that a few Christians with some strange ideas about what and what doesn’t constitute a sin won’t cause you to insult a God whose message has generally been one of peace.
That’s all. Sorry if I freaked anyone out or misworded something. Good luck with finding a substitute! Hold in there.
Thanks for hearing me out.
-Miranda
I know that God. He showed up and bought some dances and told me about Jesus while I was grinding his dick. He’s a repressed one, that God is.
You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
—Anne Lamott
I’ve been reading you since a few months and I really love what you write about. This time, not only do I love the content, but I absolutely adore the deliverance! This is a beautifully written post, tongue-in-cheek, sensitive, pragmatic, touching. 😳
But the content begs the question: why go on stripping there? Isn’t it too much hassle? I think about my nipples that never get dangled in front of paying customers and how sensitive they are and it makes me cringe for yours. Besides, a “God” like that shouldn’t be rewarded by obeying his petty laws. But that’s just one girl’s opinion.
I call bullshit on the midwest Christian heretics! I happen to know God loves them parts. He MADE them! I know I call His Name out when I’m anywhere near my girl’s vagina and/or nipples. 😀 God’s a big fan of both, I’m quite sure. Sorry they make you put that crap on you – but whatever happened to those pasties from the old days, the ones with tassles on them? How’d those ever stayed on amazes me? … I do not apply adhesives to my parts, so my sympathy is with you … Irish
Don’t blame God. Blame the people who use him as an excuse to make other people feel bad for their own inadequate feelings towards themselves. I’m sure God doesn’t appreciate them using his name.
They’re too beautiful to cover up anyway!
Anyone that makes decisions on behalf of God is capable of strapping a bomb to their chest. There’s no limit in how far people will go to impose *their* will.
People can be insane at times. I really hate fundamentalists and rednecks. These are the type of individuals that go to strip clubs and secretly go to church and do their job as a preacher!!
Oh my Goddess, give me a break!!
Save the sacred nipples!!
What about heavy duty concealer? Like the stuff stage actors use? Still slightly toxic, as it’s made from chemicals, but…
I love the tasseled pasties myself. Not as much as I love nipples (and hot women dancing in my lap!!) but if the nipples Have to be covered (as decreed by small minded self hatin’ jerks everywhere) then they should be decorated! Accentuated!! Adorned! SPARKLY!!!
Reminds me of an old friend, a staunch pagan, who said, “It’s not that I don’t believe in the Christian god, it’s just that he sounds like kind of an ass and I’ve never really wanted to meet him.”
Can your nipple coverings be nipple colored? There is a type of cloth medical tape that is not quite as painful as band-aids. We had to use it at a topless club I once worked at, and all the guys gushed about how (they thought) we were the only club in the area that allowed bare nipples.
At another place I worked, we used a combination of liquid latex and concealer. Not quite as dying and painful, especially if you use the concealer intended for older (read: drier) skin.)
Gads, you are in Grand Rapids, Michigan aren’t you? Run like hell away from here if you are! Hell, I haven’t been allowed to see my own nipples since I moved here.
I’m in total agreement with the pagan fellow’s quote above.
I know that God. That God told the Texas state legislature that vibrators were bad and nobody should have more than three. That God also told my student body that cunts are bad and perverted so we had protests at our showing of the Vagina Monologues. THAT God sounds like an ass to me. Luckily, most people believe in a more reasonable entity.
Nice post. God or someone misusing his name; no difference to the nipple at the end of the day. What a shitty deal. Hope the money is good in covered-nippleville. But stay away from those nasty lesbian dances. And take care now.
The cracked dried out nipple thing? I am wondering whether the purified lanolin stuff I recommend to my nursing moms (and have used myself) might help after you’re done with whichever cover-up you use. It’s called ‘lansinoh’ and can be found at any drugstore/Walmart type place. In my experience, it works better than any other oil or lotion, and it’s pure enough for moms to leave on their nipples during breastfeeding. Sorry about this OTJ hazard—yeowtch; I’m cringing on your behalf.
You are very good in describing things. 😀
yowch! i dunno if it’s worth the nipples thing. what about some nice natural-ish lip stick/balm/whatever? would that appease God?
cover with vaseline then dip in glitter. Big glitter is better- washes off in shower….doesn’t work for close up with customers though…more of a stage and 3 ft rule thing…
Pasties can be fun- there is spirit gum…and then- this roll on stuff that keeps bikini’s covering the butts of beauty contestants…that stuff seems to cause little to no harm.
and now a poem:
HIP MOVEMENTS
nothing is ever finished by the grace
of god/ess
the muse
charmed
us
whirling
hurling
a brilliant solution
of taproot and vine dripping dew
at all hours
wile
running
in the streets
dancing
breathing fire
and burning
incense
the never mind
nonsense
of pinched faced women
it is just a shimmy
shake it loose
and smooth
as
you
go
Thomai, 94
Jeez! Just my normal lack-of-clothing would get me arrested! Glad I don’t live there, and God’s not going to the same parties as I do! LOL
I described this post to my wife after she got off work, and she wondered if elmer’s glue might be any good. At least it’s non-toxic, it never seems to have an impact on less sensitive skin like fingertips, doesn’t take skin with it when you peel it off, and *does* usually stay put until you do deliberately peel it off. I think they make it in colors now, but if they don’t maybe the nail polish or some other coloring could go on top of that.
I stick my pasties on with toupee tape. It’s double-sided, and you can buy it in a roll or a package of strips. It’s clear and you can cut it into any shape you like, and in my experience it holds far better than spirit gum or lash glue. When you’re done you just pull it off, it leaves no residue and is less grabby on your skin than a band-aid.
I love the things I learn from your site and your commenters. 😀
It’s not God, is the idiots interpreting ‘God’s’ word any way they deem fit.
It’s*
FYI I find you eloquent ecowhore.
Thanks!