I met the author of the following testimony, David Sherman, a few years ago. He was a strip joint manager, now he travels around the county to testify against these clubs. I recall him saying he had a change of heart about his job after his daughter was born.
-Shimei
http://www.adultssavingkids.org/DavidShermanII.html
TESTIMONY OF DAVID SHERMAN
Former Manager of Various Strip Clubs
Sexually oriented businesses: An Insider’s View
Testimony before the Michigan House Committee
Ethics and Constitutional Law
January 12, 2000
The National Organization Against Lewd Activities (NOALA)
800-552-1901
Having been involved in the Adult Entertainment Industry for fourteen years, I am very aware of the consequences this business can have on all involved. Over the years, I’ve seen friendships, families and lives destroyed.
Much of the activity of the adult entertainment industry is illegal and criminal. In addition, there are tremendous negative effects on entertainers, communities, local businesses as well as families.
The following, for your information, are some of my personal experiences with the Adult Entertainment Industry.
Right from the start, drug and alcohol use is rampant. The dancers call it partying. They don’t realize that they are medicating themselves in order to do the work they do. Also, the abortion rate is extremely high due to the fact that most have lost contact with family members due to what they do. They also feel they could never take the chance on flawing the body from carrying a child. Additionally, the dancers believe they have no way to support a baby without dancing, and therefore can’t quit to have one. Basically, they are caught in a very real, painful Catch-22.
The girls, if they have never danced, are usually extremely against it and most of the time is hired as waitresses, even though waitresses are not needed. This makes the atmosphere become a part of their life. At this point, they see it as a job, not as stripping and are converted quite easily to dancing. Once dancing they get used to being objectified. It becomes as important to them to hear how beautiful they are 200 times a day as it is to actually make the money from the dancing.
Between the use of drugs to medicate what they do and hearing how beautiful they are all the time, they soon experience what I call "BDA", Basic Dancer Attitude. This is when the dancer thinks that no matter what friends, children, husband and families think about her, it doesn’t matter. They can all be replaced because all of the patrons around her find her attractive, beautiful and idolized. Now, the dancers are truly caught in the "adult" scene. With friends and family gone from their lives, they exist alone is this dark, subculture of sex, drugs, alcohol and prostitution. All of this perverse living, to the dancer, is now just part of her normal lifestyle.
After a couple of years at this level, the dancer realizes she is getting older and attempts to fit back into society. She tries boyfriends, school or really anything to cling to what is "normal." Realizing that she cannot live in both worlds, she returns to the subculture of the Adult Business, actually despising the real world. This leads to more dependency on drugs and alcohol, which now makes her 100% lost to this life. The dancers will continue living like this until they realize they can no longer stay at their "current level", and keep making money and getting the compliments. Once they realize this, they begin to master more perverse things to make cash, to make up for fading looks and dancer burnout.
The cycle then becomes even more vicious with depression, drugs, alcohol and body mutilation to stay thin. Finally, they realize they can no longer keep up with the new and younger girls and leave, going to one of five places.
They go to a very filthy, nasty club that’s full of girls in their position. Here they perform and do some of the most vile and filthy acts you can imagine to make money.
Some turn to prostitution, meeting customers outside of the club. The club now becomes a place for them to meet new "clients".
Some marry just to be able to survive. But the addictions to drugs and alcohol normally shatter and destroy these relationships.
Some actually do break away and go to school to become productive citizens, but the frequency of this is around 1 of 50.
They become society’s throwaway people. People used up – degraded, abused and even sold by the people who own these establishments.
Sadly, these young ladies over time, little by little, become manipulated, controlled and finally destroyed by a world that our communities have closed their eyes to. Thinking back, there are three girls that seem to stand out rather clearly as examples of what can and often does happen to a young, innocent woman who naively gets sucked into the sexually oriented business industry.
She was a pretty, intelligent 20-year-old girl who came into the business as a waitress. She was, from what I could see, from the upper middle class and a loving Christian family. She attended a state university and was fluent in several languages plus carried a 3.8 grade point average. She soon became interested in stripping. She started dancing and very quickly got caught up in the lifestyle of drugs, alcoholism and lesbianism. I watched her life deteriorate for about two years. She has, as far as I know, gone on to graduate from school. But, still after five years, has not left this subculture and only fallen deeper into it.
This young lady was also a nice, 19-year-old pharmacy major at a university. She too started as a waitress and soon converted to dancing. Her family payed all of her schooling and housing. She was from a wealthy family who owned several businesses from construction to restaurants. After about eight months, her family found out what she was doing and did everything in their power to get her to quit. But by this time, she was making enough money and doing enough drugs to think she could handle life on her own. Her family lost all contact, and she lost all control. She disappeared into this subculture and I haven’t heard of her since, and that has been over three years ago.
Another young victim was a medical student from a university. Her husband of only a couple of weeks worked in one of these adult clubs. Being newlyweds, they needed money but she did not want to dance. Soon after waitressing, she easily converted to dancing. The life quickly consumed her. She moved to another city for her medical career but soon quit school and started dancing at a club there. Divorce quickly followed, and she went on to another state doing drugs and making XXX films. I recently learned she has contracted AIDS after about two years in the pornography film business and is now working in a fast food restaurant.
THE MANAGER’S ROLE
As far as female employees in adult entertainment nightclubs, everyone you (as manager) hire you treat as a potential dancer. It really doesn’t matter if she’s hired as a waitress, hostess, or even a bartender.
First, you must make the girl feel at home in an environment that is so abnormal that most people have to be made comfortable. In fact, you could almost say they have to be "hardened" to the club life. This is easily accomplished by working there as many hours as possible and by having all of the staff treat them as if they were long lost friends. It’s important for the management to do this also.
Second, after a few weeks, because the girl is now your friend, as a manager you bring up how short you are on girls that night or how short the amateur contestants are. You ask them to please help, that they don’t need to take their clothes off, but the club just needs an extra body. Usually, they happily agree to do this. You then have them change into dancing attire, usually a skimpy dress, a teddy, g-string or a t-bar (which is a very small pair of panties). Often, the girls, having become used to the environment and having seen nudity daily, are intoxicated with the sense of being on stage and are lured out of their clothing by the other girls, customers, and promises of large tips.
Now, at this point, the manager’s job just starts. But, if the girl has not taken her clothes off, the manager again has to start in on her about needing more help on the floor. Again, most of the girls will agree to help the manager out. At this time, you tell them that things are not that busy, and you take them out for dinner, "my treat". Of course, the club always writes this off! So you go out, have some drinks and small talk with the girl. Returning to the club she now believes that you’re good friends, plus she is under the influence of alcohol. At this point, she easily disrobes on the customer’s request with the other girls welcoming a new dancer into their ranks. The experienced dancers will then go on about how beautiful she is and how much money she’ll make.
Of course, even now, she still might have not disrobed. But, by this point, you are her friend and can make her feel guilty about not helping out more and ask her to please disrobe, as without her, you’ll not make much money that night. She is needed. People who need her and customers who tell her how beautiful she is, surround her.
She now experiences a variety of emotions and, being human, needs to be needed. With this emotion fulfilled, she finds herself wanting to be complemented which she is, and she wants to make money, which she can. You then play on the "what more can a girl want?" and the subject of self-worth never really comes up.
At this point, if she still has not disrobed, you let her know you no longer need her for her position, but dancing is open if she wishes to still work at the club. This does not work unless she has incurred debts and needs the money, or she actually enjoyed the experience and doesn’t want to lose her new friends. If she stays, the manager must start training her to be a professional. This means changing almost everything about her including her personality; she must now be a passive/aggressive if she is to survive. This means that she needs to learn to say whatever it takes to make money. She can never talk about her personal life to anyone as clients can hear this.
What you try to do is get the girls programmed to have regular customers. A regular customer is a customer who believes that this girl actually cares for him, and now his fantasy world is complete. He comes in on a regular basis and she invites him back on certain days and times as not to interfere with other regular customers. This is usually set for the club’s slow times because when it’s busy she can make money without her regular clientele. Of course, with all of these girls having regular clients, the club is guaranteed a steady income and solid revenues. The club regulars are usually family men looking for an escape from the real world, and the girls are taught to prey upon them.
Mandatory meetings are set for all the girls. This time is really used for mostly programming of the girls and getting into their heads. You again let them know what you want and motivate them by whatever it takes. Soon the new dancer starts running around with the more hardened and seasoned girls, and they realize how much easier this job is being drunk, high or, more often than not, both. By now she’s working until 2 a.m. in the morning, staying out all night partying after work, and then grabbing a breakfast with the girls. They wake up, go to work, and the cycle starts all over.
They have no time to go to the post office, the dentist, or any other "normal" things. They are deep into the club scene and on the road to hard times and even self-destruction. At this point, school, family, and friends as well as everything else they once had faded into a world that no longer exists for them.
As a manager, at this point anything you say, ask or demand of the girl will gladly be done because the club is now their home. The girls don’t realize this is their only world now, and the club manager now has total control over what’s going on in their lives. The girls will even put up with degradation, verbal and emotional abuse and everything else the manager wants to do.
At this time the girl may feel fed up and leave, going to a new club thinking to herself that she finally made a decision on her own and things will be better. But, she is really just fooling herself. Now the manager at the new club does the same things, except now she has no friends to talk to and the manager knows that most of the time she cannot return to the old club, so he abuses her even worse than the first manager. Of course, she then drinks more and gets high more than ever, hoping it will go away. It will only get worse for her now.
Soon the dancer finds herself not being complemented as much or making the money she did at first. Because of the drugs and alcohol, she finds herself aging fast and losing her looks. Of course, this now leads to a downward spiral of more drinking, partying and drugs. Many opt for plastic surgery in one form or another because in their own eyes, their looks are what they are worth. With most people, if they gained weight or lost their tan, it would not be a problem. But, to a dancer, it would be devastating for them for days and even weeks and beyond.
CUSTOMERS
I’ve found that there are five categories, or groups of customers, that visit the clubs.
The first customer, usually 28 to 50, is married or recently divorced. He almost always becomes not only a pornography addict but also a "fantasy" addict. He is lured in for just a glimpse of the "other side". But, once he is there, the well trained dancer learns his weaknesses and strengths, and, knowing what buttons to push, soon has him as her "regular". He is soon there three to four times a week, seeing only one dancer, believing she is his girlfriend while being friends with most of the dancers. After a while, he may not come in on his lunch hour but after work before he goes home to his family. Soon bills are not being paid and clothes for his children are not being bought. I’ve seen them believe that this girl so deeply cares for him that he will try to borrow money from her. I’ve also seen regulars leave a 5-year-old locked out in the car in the parking lot for hours while they lived out their fantasies. Also, I watched a patron cause a fatal accident outside of the club. While waiting for the authorities, he walked into the club to see his "girlfriend" who was dancing that night. Those are just a few examples of how physically and emotionally tied to the club these people become. Unfortunately, this group usually makes up about 30% of the entire group, but about 85% of the group’s daytime traffic and 20% of the night traffic. I could write pages on customer number one as far as bad decisions he makes trying to carry on his "love affair" with dancers.
Customer two is the young adult 18 to 30 there for a bachelor party, birthday, college party and so on. A lot of these never come back except for special occasions. But a small percentage will become a regular, being addicted from day one. About 15% of these will return again and again to the club. This group makes up about 20% of the overall club business.
Customer three is the majority of your night business. He is 25 to 30, comes in maybe one or twice a month, and either feels a friendship there or maybe has a need being fulfilled. He continues to teeter-totter on the edge of becoming a regular #1. It only takes the right girl or the right experience and he easily falls into that category.
Customer four is the gentleman 45 to 70 or the 18 to 25 age bracket. He comes in only once in a great while for special events, special entertainers or business meetings. He usually makes up the rest of the 15% of the dayshift business and the minority of your night shift unless he is there for a special event. Most of the time, this will be the only time you see him. A very small percentage of these will become a number one customer.
The fifth, and most dangerous customer, is the person there merely for business, selling, giving and using the girls in his drug trade. Many clubs have several of these people all intertwined together in this dark world. They pull the life from and inflict pain not only upon the girls, but the girls’ families as well. With girls wanting and needing drugs, number five has them in his control as well as the club. He becomes a friendly face everyone wants to see. The bad thing is, many girls owe him money, so he either makes them another bad deal (drawing the girl in deeper), or beings her to his world altogether to be a pusher, to involved in a biker gang, or give himself sexually to a small group of dealers. The sad thing is, the girl will feel like she is among friends, and will try to drag others into this dark world with her.
OVERALL INSIDER OBSERVATIONS
Having been in the adult entertainment industry for years, I have seen everything from monies not being entered into registers to owners leaving with shoe boxes full of cash on a weekly basis. I have walked into clubs and witnessed 15-year-old girls working – with their parents’ knowledge. I’ve seen girls leave with customers, meet them outside, as well as literally perform sex acts while lap dancing for customers. Again, the bar may pay en employee to watch for this, but the girls pay them more not to see it. If these are "clean, upstanding businesses", why is it that day after day used condoms were found in the V.I.P. rooms?
The owners many times hide themselves through owing several corporation, one of which will finally own the club. Many times in liquor clubs, the liquor license is not even in an owner’s name, but a manager who was given stock to do this.
Even though the girls are private contractors, the clubs do have contracts with both stage names and real names on them. The clubs hire people to count every lap dance done in order to collect the percentage for the club, but yet the clubs claim there is no way to keep track of what the girls make. In turn, this allows the girls not to file taxes and also be on Federal and State Aid programs even though they may be making hundreds and thousands of dollars weekly.
Again the clubs claim the girls are private contractors, but many are told when they will work which makes them employees.
As far as the clubs themselves following written law, I have copies of the Judgment Entry that since the day it was handed down has not been followed nor enforced. The club owner himself said not to follow it. This club also is part of a very large club chain.
Maybe the reason that it has not been enforced is that a lot of local law enforcement not only frequents these businesses, but also date the entertainers. This is true as well of firemen and city officials who all get in free. In fact, not long ago in a club in Detroit, an off-duty police officers lost his gun and could not find it. Another became mad at this girlfriend who was a dancer. Upon leaving, he discharged his gun into the door, hitting the owner of the club in the face.
Violence does occur. Once during a dancers’ meeting, the manager had upset one of the girls who happened to be a member of a gang. She had him beaten up badly following the meeting.
Another manager tried to force himself on an entertainer. Again, her boyfriend belonged to a gang and a bomb threat as well as violence occurred at the club. He was not terminated but merely sent to another club.
Another manager literally held a gun to a girl’s head because she wanted to quit. He was still employed for years after that. Again, another manage went on a rampage in a hotel, and while he was there discharged a firearm. He was simply moved to another location, and is now in prison for attempted rape.
As far as the argument that the girls are only putting themselves through school, that is a farce. Very few of these even attend classes once they are making the kind of money that they do. Son they are working until 2, 3 or 4 a.m., and in no way, shape or form are they getting up and going to classes. Very few of these girls finish school
Another dimension to the concern surrounding sex clubs is the rampant tax evasion maneuvers exercised by the various employees.
TAX EVASION AND SEX CLUB EMPLOYEE
DJ’s(Disk Jockeys)
These people are paid in most clubs hourly but as well as their hourly wages the dancers are made to tip them nightly, usually the trip being 10 percent of what the girl made that evening. The DJ keeps track of how many dances the girls have done to insure this cut. Example: If there were 30 girls working a night shift and the average tip to the DJ is, let’s go low and say $15 then in cash income, the DJ just made $450. This income is generally not reported as the DJ receives his regular paycheck and usually only claims that.
DOORMEN
Again in most clubs the girls are required to tip the doormen out, as he walks them to and from the parking lot, and tries to insure their safety in the club as well. While the tips are not as good as the DJ’s, the doormen still could average $60 nights. Five nights a week figures out to $300 weekly in pretty much unreported income.
FLOORWALKERS
These are the people who count dances for the clubs to make sure that the girls pay the 33% they are required to the club for every dance done. These also are the same ones that are responsible for watching to make sure the girls are not doing things outside the line of the law. They make tips by turning their heads to illegal dances. In turn the girls up them better for letting them make more money by dancing a little more dirty than legal. I have seen floorwalkers leave with as much as $600 in one night. Again they receive a paycheck so reporting the extra income generally does not happen. The truly bad thing about a dishonest floorwalker is if one girl is paying him to dance dirty, soon all the girls have to do the same. In order to make any money at all, they too must alter the dances they do to illegal ones.
DANCERS
I would say by far the dancer is the worst offender of tax evasion in the clubs as she generally has nothing in her name and reports very little, if any, of her income. The dancers with children generally are on federal and state welfare programs collecting food stamps, checks and insurance while making hundreds if not thousands of dollars a week or more.
BARTENDERS/WAITRESSES
This group is probably the last tipped by the dancers, but again most clubs require that the dancers do tip. The reasoning behind all this tipping is it lets the club owners pay bottom dollar for help but yet the employees make good money due to the tipping program.
MANAGERS
The managers on the other hand are not tipped, but in a lot of cases if a girl does something wrong or doesn’t show up for work, he will fine her. In turn, most of the time that money never makes it to the register but directly into his pocket. The clubs knew of this. That’s how they get by with paying some managers as little as $7 an hour. Again, this money never gets reported as it too is untraceable cash.
I could easily fill an entire book with what I’ve observed in the adult pornography industry. I’ve seen countless lives shattered and unbelievable heartache. You would be surprised at the amount of "it can’t happen to me" or "I won’t be like that" that I have heard.
I’ve formed the National Association Against Lewd Activities (NOALA) with a few others to educate the public as to the manner in which these so-called Adult Clubs are sucking in well-intentioned young people seeking quick bucks for survival. Unwittingly the demands brought on by the abusive lifestyle leads to the degradation, if not the destruction, of themselves and countless others.
But it isn’t enough just to educate the public. It is vital that this committee recognize that it is the role of government to ensure the public health, safety and welfare of its citizenry. My testimony here today represents merely a tip of the iceberg.
Background checks, licensing as well as enforcing regulations are essential for the safety of clients, entertainers, and communities.
LOBBYING – TO AVOID RESTRICTIONS
Adult entertainment businesses use lobbying as a key to keeping new ordinances or legislation from being passed. This plays a very important role in allowing them to run these businesses the way THEY want to.
Large turnouts by entertainers, owners, owners reps, as well as attorneys, law students and even the ACLU at times are used to intimidate those in local government and to keep the new legislation from passing – by making the government body think that masses have formed on their own when in actuality they have been pulled together by a team of people paid to do just that.
Another thing not touched on is that in every club in the state where the new legislation is being considered, there are signature cards for the patrons to sign as well as information giving times and locations of hearings.
In fact one company I worked for had this down to a fine art. Every manager was required to attend all city council meetings in order to stay on top of any new legislation being proposed. They then were to buy the minutes from the meeting and fax or send them to the corporate office. If any new legislation was proposed, that information went to the person who was in charge of lobbying and to the corporate attorney.
Even if the proposed legislation involved a city, town or state in which the adult business had no entities, the club attorneys and attorneys would still come out in full force to defeat it, as it may have had an adverse effect on them at a later time.
Another tactic used so frequently is to bring in big gun attorneys from elsewhere to intimidate and sue as well as tie up in court the passed ordinance for as long as possible or until it ran the city or township out of funding. These businesses have plenty to spend on staying open and running the way THEY want to. From time to time the company would use a local attorney, coaching him and making him file the things they needed in order to make it look as though they were a local business.
In regard to the lobbying, the attorney, the funding as well as lawsuits, the adult businesses seem to somehow utilize the press to their advantage. The press simply didn’t deal with the real issues in most cases.
INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS
The entertainers who work in these clubs, even though supposedly independent contractors, oddly enough pay upwards of 30% of their income to work in these establishments. This does not include the unwritten laws of tipping, which are all explained to them by the management or other entertainers. This includes tipping the DJ in order to listen to or dance to the music they want to have played. They also must tip door men, floorwalkers, waitresses and bartenders in turn helping the club to pay the wages for the cheap labor which the clubs employ.
By the time a dancer is done she may have paid up to 50% of her income just to work. These employees do not report most of this income in my experience. One instance stands out clearly: an entertainer phoned me saying she knew that fines, or so-called reinstatement fees, were not being rung into the register. I in turn told her to write the management a check and ask for a receipt. At that point she was told to leave and not come back as the club did not give out receipts or accept checks for fines.
NINE REASONS FOR THE PASSAGE OF THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION
In closing, I would like to say that without regulation of the kind proposed by these bills – and mind you, this is merely the tip of the iceberg – businesses like these will continue to get away with whatever, whenever they please.
There are several reasons as to why this legislation is needed. The following, while not an exhaustive list, are the ones that come immediately to mind.
Helping set and ENFORCE regulation on a state-wide level will keep the criminals from moving from city to city, staying employed in the same type of business, never having to be but a ghost to the current laws. In other words, these regulations will help keep these lawless ones more answerable to the laws of the land and prevent them from preying on naïve young ladies, desensitizing them, duping them into gradual steps of so-called entertainment which ultimately leads them to their degradation and destruction.
Drug above and dealing run rampant in many clubs, almost always in the bathrooms, locker rooms, and yes, even offices. Again, licensing should help curb the offenders by letting them know it is no longer tolerated, and is being regulated on a statewide level in addition to local regulation.
It would keep known sex offenders as well as known felons from working, owning or entertaining in the clubs and adult businesses, as many owners in these businesses have a criminal record.
The licensing issue should keep the entertainers from soliciting in any way, which, as we all know, comes in many forms. In turn, that will help keep adult businesses as above-table as possible. It will also help keep the reasoned entertainer from teaching the new ones the so-called "tricks of the trade" which most of the time are illegal.
The hours of operation will help in curbing many of the illegal activities such as drug dealing, solicitation, and illegal dances due to the fact that the more intoxicated the entertainer is the more she is likely to do. It is a big plus on the safety and welfare of the entertainers, employees, citizens and communities as many of the late night people are truly drunk or intoxicated on other forms of drugs and literally do things they would never do if it were not in the late night situation.
State regulation on lap dances and lewd behavior will keep the entertainers from just being fined or as it is called in the business, "contract reinstatement fees", which most entertainers gladly pay as they make a lot more money than they lose – the dirtier the dances are. Dirtier most of the time means illegal.
The proposed legislation will put the entertainer in a position to pay taxes as she would no longer be an unknown person without an income. This, in turn, will keep the clubs above board on what they are being paid by the entertainers as the girls will need every writeoff they can get, including the stage fees. It will also keep the many girls who are on federal and state aid (while making hundreds of dollars a week) off these programs.
Several small clubs come to mind that it will really keep above board. I consulted on a few smaller clubs, and in the back room I found all paperwork hidden away that would ever be used to pay taxes. The pages were in total disarray as if they were just thrown in there nightly. What taxes were paid on, I’ll never know; but it was not on the paper work or register receipts I found or which dated back several years.
The next thing I’m sure it will curb is the blatant cash flowing out of clubs. One club I had consulted on, I found $672,000 in lost retail liquor sales. The owner, upon my telling him what I found, has not spoken to me since. He did, however, build a new house paying cash for the labor.
In closing, with great concern for our present generation and those will come after us, I encourage this committee to vigorously support the passage of the proposed 13-bill package and to move it with great haste. This is a significant package of bills because, if enforced, it will curb the criminality and lawlessness that is directly linked to sexually oriented businesses. Without its passage, untold numbers of lives will continue to be degraded, victimized and destroyed.
