# Anthology of Exotic Dancer Character Types **URL:** \ **Category:** Men's Pheromone Advice & Field Reports\ **Created:** [April 21, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921 "2010-04-21T17:05:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Warren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Warren](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Warren)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/1 "2010-04-21T17:05:48Z")
NOTE: This post originated as a reply to Catlord’s question on another thread, on the Men’s Forum. I’ve decided to start a new thread, because it is a long post that really begins a different topic. Those of the female gender, welcome, but please understand this was originally written to a male target audience, so adjust your sensitivities accordingly. > [@catlord17](#): > > Warren would you say that strippers tend to be women who are emotionally damaged by their past, their work, or both? > [@Warren](#): > > Preoedipal. > [@catlord17](#): > > Can I trouble you for more explanation? Short explanation: Preoedipal would be, like, you know, before Oedipal. Longer explanation: **Anthology of Exotic Dancer Character Types** The _Oedipus Complex_, as described by Freud, is when the child grows to the point (3-5 years according to Freud) where he begins to have sexual desires toward the parent of the opposite sex and competitive (murderous) impulses toward the parent of the same sex. The development of a normal sense of guilt, amongst other things, prevents the child from acting on these impulses. A person who fails to develop a normal sense of guilt is referred to as a _sociopath_ or, interestingly enough, in the vulgar slang, a “mother fucker”. During the sexually repressive times during which Freud wrote, much of the psychopathology described revolved around the strictly enforced sexual guilt and repression. Hence much pathology was traced to emotional roots during the time when the conscience was formed and guilt was learned. This type of psychopathology was referred to as a _psychoneurosis_ or simply a _neurosis_. The really crazy people, who were totally out of touch with reality, were referred to as _psychotics_. Putting aside the question of what neurochemical imbalances may exist, the emotional regression that would be assumed to have occurred is to an extremely early period of infancy, even prenatal. On a good night, strippers are not this crazy or they would never even make it to work. In between the psychoses and the neuroses were the _borderline disorders_, which were not well understood in Freud’s day. These are your preoedipal issues. Since the times when orthodox psychoanalytic thought was dominant, the term borderline disorder has taken on a more specific meaning. These preoedipal disorders are sometimes collectively referred to, today, as the “boderline spectrum”. It covers a lot of different symptomology. If one asks specifically about the term _exhibitionism_, the psychoanalyst will typically discuss the exhibitionistic sexual perversion of the male flasher. He is fixated at the emotional level of the little boy who desires his mother and fears the jealous father will retaliate by cutting off his penis, which the Freudians referred to as castration. As an adult, the possibility of actual sexual contact still arouses unbearable “castration anxiety,” which he counters by exposing himself to women and children, whose fright not only makes him feel powerful, but reassures him that his organ is still intact. **Topless vs Nude: Penis envy and the histrionic character** The Oedipus phase for the little girl is quite different. Upon discovering that her little brother has an organ which she does not, she is beset with penis envy. She compensates by libidinizing her entire body as though her body were one large phallus. This is an explanation for female’s desire to make herself beautiful. One explanation for exhibitionistic tendencies in a female might be for her to compensate for the lack of a male organ by the flaunting of the feminine charms of her entire body. This would be completely inconsistent with a woman shaving her pubic hair and flaunting her humiliatingly penisless genital. And that’s my point, preoedipal, not oedipal. There are dancers, typically _histrionic characters_, however, who work at this emotional level. They work in topless clubs or in those strangely proper all nude gentlemen’s clubs, which have all kinds of rules about legal dance moves to prevent vulgar behavior. These are the clubs which might as well be topless. Women in this category live in constant, mortifying fear that someday the bar’s management will change the rules. They despise those nasty girls at the club down the street. They wait until the last dance of their set before they remove their bottoms. They lightly trim, but never shave their pubic hair. There is this strange hand gesture, resembling a straight arm in football. The arm is streched downward with the heel of the wrist resting at the top of the pubis. The fingers are outstretched tauntly, strategically blocking her view of her crotch in an apparent attempt to protect her from what’s “down there”. If you’ve been to several nudie bars, you’ve seen this fairly common maneuver. I remember a particular evening in a topless club when it had been someone’s birthday. They had all these long thin balloons. The girls would spontaneously grab a balloon, hold it between their legs and then throw it on the ground to pop it with their heels and giggle, thus expressing both sides of the penis envy coin, the wish for a penis and the “castrating bitch.” This kind of acting out is commonplace in a topless club, but virtually nonexistent in an all nude place. Histrionic characters – traditionally referred to as _hysterical characters_ – are tense, proud and attractive. Back in the 1930s, when the female castration complex was the cool thing for psychoanalysts to write about, the upright rigid bearing of these women was equated to the symbolic erect phallus, compensating for her penis envy. The extensor muscles are chronically tense, reflecting a hyperenergized sympathetic nervous system, symptomatic of repressed rage. The pelvic muscles are especially tense to suppress sexual impulses – all the more reason for her to prefer displaying her charms in a topless rather than nude establishment. These are the women who look great in fuck me pumps. Not only do the high heels make their otherwise tense asses wiggle, but the taunt calf muscles make it impossible for her to put her feet flat on the ground, anyway. If you manage to take such a woman home, massage her calf muscles; she’ll like that better than sex. If you don’t find a psychological explanation for strip clubs under _exhibitionism_, the word you’re looking for may be _scopophilia_. _Voyeurism_ implies that one is looking, without being seen, also not the right word. Scopophilia is a “love of looking”. It is often associated with the oral stage. Picture the child at the breast innocently making eyes at mama and touching her with its little hands. This is not so different from many of the interactions with girls at an American strip club, especially the merely topless ones. No one, who is realistic about the setting, believes the making of eyes and playful flirting is a prelude to sex. What touching there is is generally touching of the hands, an occasional hug. And if you disagree, you are probably one of those who find American strip clubs annoyingly frustrating. With the hysterical character, we have been discussing so far, this is where the problem begins. Freud described full blown hysterical neurosis as the result of being molested by the father. When the paternal “powers that be” objected, he decided the girls must merely be fantasizing, projecting their prepubescent lust. That controversy aside, there is agreement on an overly sexualized father-daughter relationship. This begins with the very young child, frustrated by poor mothering and turning prematurely to the father for acceptance. This is the origin of the oral rage and hypertonic extensor muscles. The father is quite possibly also frustrated by his wife’s cold intimacy. For whatever reason, the small girl learns to hold the father’s attention by flirtatious behavior. For her, it is not about sex; it is about attention, acceptance. She doesn’t even know what sex is, and any precocious introduction to the topic, for her young self, is clearly a nasty thing. Just because the histrionic stripper loves to flirt with you, doesn’t mean she wants to fuck you, quite the contrary. **Single Mothers: Virtual parthenogenesis** The mothers without fathers are a slightly different story. In her book, Out of Wedlock, based on research in Columbus, Ohio and originally published in 1954, Leontine Young described an, at the time, shocking pattern of white, middle class, attractive, educated single mothers in their mid twenties. They missed the stereotypes of juvenile delinquency or underclass illegitimacy. Ms Young noted that, “The urge for a child is a fundamental biological force.” These girls were uninterested in the father, to them no more than a “tool” or “necessary biological accessory.” What I find most instructive, in Ms Young’s work, is the generational pattern and the dissociated state in which pregnancy was typically achieved. Immediately before getting pregnant these girls were often virgins, conceiving their first time. They often had no memory of having sex with a relative stranger, in whom they had no further interest. Labor and delivery were, in most cases, remarkably quick and free of pain. The fertile animal seems to have simply split itself off from the rest of the personality and done what was necessary, at the proper time, to make a baby. The mother and grandmother, also a single parent, are delighted with the baby. In the phallocentric orthodoxy of early twentieth century Freudian psychoanalysis, this would seem to be a case of penis envy expressing itself as “baby as phallus”, replacing “body as phallus”. I met a girl at a topless bar in Los Angeles who seemed to have stepped right out of the pages of Leontine Young’s book. She was attractive and popular with many men, who saw her as a 10, though, to a few, who saw a fakeness about her, she was no more than a 2. By her own admission she was emotionally incapable of a relationship with a man. She raised her son, whom she spoke of as more a prized possession (penis substitute) than a person, with her mother. She had a frozen flame quality about her and eyes a man could see twinkle from forty feet away. She loved to dance and there is no doubt that her heterosexuality was thereby gratified. I hold out no chance that enough of her narcissism could be freed up for her to make an emotional investment in a man, a creature too different from herself. One night her mother came to see her dance and, as her mother’s prize, she obediently danced for her mother all night, completely ignoring the regular customers who normally tipped her quite well. **Oral Character: Not as sexy as it sounds** The oral character was relatively well cared for as an infant, but as she developed the ability to walk and talk and take care of herself in the most basic ways, parental support evaporated fast. Perhaps the mother was ill or injured or depressed herself. Perhaps there were too many other children or the parents lived a hectic lifestyle either feeding their own narcissism or, more commonly in postmodern America, just struggling to keep the rent or mortgage paid. There wasn’t time for the small child. In back of everything, the oral character secretly (unconsciously) longs for the carefree days of infancy when all needs were met. In adulthood, this longing may be filled with alcohol or drug abuse. She was forced to grow up fast, too fast. She learns to act strong and independent and to deny her own needs, but she is really weak and hungry for attention. One of the systemic consequences of this growing up too fast is that she never learns to regulate herself. Think of Captain Kirk demanding that Scotty make a forty-eight hour overhaul of the warp drive in only fifteen minutes. This is the world of the oral character, and in the real world edition, the Klingons (or their counterpart) blast her starship outta the sky on a regular basis. Everyone can see it coming but her. She’s been trained, since infancy, not to. She regularly starts out enthusiastic and energized to accomplish grandiose tasks and, like a Richard Rodriguez coached football team, collapses into abject failure in the third quarter. She gets fired from her job as a dancer because she is too exhausted to get to work and too exhausted to perform when she does. She has asked for more shifts than she can handle, fills in for other girls who call in sick, works full time toward a college degree during the day and drives back to her boyfriend’s hometown 100 miles away every night, because he needs her. He’s unemployed! After collapsing into a depressive stupor for a couple of weeks, she is quickly hired by another club because she is so energetic and enthusiastic. To some of us, this girl can be very attractive. I admire her apparent inner strength and determination, while at the same time I sense her inner weakness and loneliness, which tugs at my heart. I want to give her the love she craves, but she has trouble taking, she’s learned to be fiercely independent. Her first week or so as a dancer she is especially weak and wobbly on her feet. This is not a physically strong character, but an energetically deprived one. For me, the first immediate clue that I’m dealing with an oral character is the way the head reaches forward. In some ways her posture resembles a suit dangling from a clothes hanger. Countering/denying the oral longing and neediness, sheer strength of will seems to hold her up by the shoulders. If you get close enough to this girl, massage her shoulders, which are chronically kinked into the tightest knots your tired, sore hands have ever encountered. Her first few times on stage she is overwhelmed by what seems to be the kind of attention she secretly craved but has never been allowed to experience before. Thusly overwhelmed, early in her career, she will become quite obviously sexually aroused on stage. Recall that the histrionic character is rooted in oral conflicts. There is a kind of continuum between the two with the histrionic’s life maturing to be dominated by Oedipal conflicts and the oral character, usually a _Dependent Personality Disorder_ in DSM IV terms, struggling with the above described issues of need and independence. Massage both her calfs and her shoulders and the harder tension will tell you which character type you’re dealing with. A relationship with an oral character becomes an ordeal. The general cyclothymic pattern of her existence is a disruption, which alone can pound you into the dirt. If you try to interrupt the virulent pattern, you’ll quickly grow tired of trying to rescue her and, in her attitude of defiant independence, she’ll resent your help. Despite a sense of determination in all aspects of her life, she is weak and easily exhausted. She will turn out to be a selfish lover and a burden in ways she is unable to recognize. Her neediness will overwhelm her ability to love and her propensity to idealize her love object will lead to abrupt episodes of disillusionment and rage in a manner parallel to the overexertion / exhaustion cycle in her work life. **Bisexuals: Cock teasing lesbians** Be we male or female, our first intimate relationship is with our mother, during infancy. For boys that is a heterosexual relationship. For girls it is a homosexual relationship. Logically speaking, periods of stress are more likely to emotionally regress a woman’s libidinal object choice to that of another female. An immature woman might never make the switch from loving a female to desiring a man. Statistically speaking, there are more lesbians than gay men, and a straight woman is more likely to have had (and been forgiven for) a same sex erotic interlude, in her past, than is a heterosexual man. It is not unusual to see dancers, including those known to have strong heterosexual interests, showing affection for each other, even displaying obvious crushes. My own bitter observation, however, is that “bisexual” is often a euphemism for “lesbian”. With the homosexual/heterosexual distinction being so fluid amongst females, if you were a gay woman looking for work in a strip club, would you not bill yourself as bi? Sexual identity is most likely formed during what [Margaret Mahler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mahler) referred to as the _Rapprochement_ subphase of separation-differentiation. This is roughly the second half of the second year of life, more specifically 15 - 24 months. During the 1960s and 1970s Mahler’s research on child development showed that this was the period during which children displayed aggressive curiosity concerning what Freud called “the anatomical distinction between the sexes.” Freud put this childhood discovery much later, Melanie Klein much earlier. Mahler was observing, over a long career, the development of actual children rather than extrapolating from the recovered memories of psychiatric patients. Homosexuals, both male and female, are typically raised by a narcissistic mother. Rapprochement is a time when the toddler, having learned to walk and talk, is ready to take advantage of her new independence. She is torn between the desire to explore the world and the urge to cling to mama, on whom she is still very dependent. The good parent encourages the child to develop its independence but is there to reassure the child when she feels scared that she has gone too far and abruptly comes running back to cling to her mother to “recharge”. To the narcissistic parent, the child’s developing independence is insulting. The narcissist is unable to appreciate other people an anything more than an extension of one’s self. This is touched on in my section on Leontine Young’s description of single mothers. The narcissistic parent disrupts the child’s sense of existence as a separate being, its self image and sexual identity are never well formed. The father figure is generally absent either physically or emotionally and is sometimes abusive. The little girl is unable to learn a feminine role through healthy interaction with her father or through healthy identification with the mother. Her sexual identity remaining vague, she may choose “identification with the aggressor” if she decides being like a domineering, abusive father is safer than being the one getting abused. This will lead to a “butch” type lesbian. A revulsion to the father and masculinity, in general, or an obliviousness to its absent form may leave her feminine by default, but seeking an understanding of what that means. She may attempt to repair her inadequate feminine body image though relationships with women or by finding a job where she looks at naked women all day, e.g. a nudie bar! In all fairness, this woman’s dancing is not, for the most part, aggressively teasing or provocative. It is more smoothly graceful and aesthetic in a manner likely to appeal to another woman. That’s who she’s really dancing for. If she attempts to flaunt her sexuality before a generous male patron, she is likely to appear mechanical or, occasionally, sarcastic, if she has a streak of the butch in her. Frequently, I have seen her completely ignore a man trying to give her money. She is not trying to be rude or arrogant. She just doesn’t see him. Her mind is elsewhere. If you are to seduce this gem, you first need to show her that a man can be nonthreatening and caring. Then she has to find her true sexual identity. This involves consciously and unconsciously, emotionally identifying herself as a being with a vagina, which is perfect for grasping a male penis. She won’t learn this from looking at other women. She has to find it within herself. **Anal Influences: The so-called ‘masochistic character’** Freud’s anal stage of psychosexual development overlaps Mahler’s Rapprochement subphase. This makes sense: The _willfulness_, said to be a typical anal trait, corresponds nicely with Mahler’s rapprochement child establishing its independence from the mother. Freud’s work published in Germany between the world wars emphasized the issues of discipline and obedience, whereas Mahler’s work published in America, during the second half of the twentieth century, focuses on the issues of liberty versus security. These are just different perspectives on the child’s process of becoming a separate individual during the second year of its life. Many of us can recall, usually unsolicited, discussions of bowel regularity with parents or grandparents. Just a couple of generations ago, for reasons I fail to appreciate, Western civilization was far more concerned with the value of regular bowel habits. This and the fact that toilet training was begun earlier, than has become the custom today, generate little wonder that anality provided the lifelong symbolism for power struggles. A child, lacking the psychological – and often physiological – maturity to comply, perceived the imposed discipline as a sadistic attack and could not help but rebel. Overlay this, a few years later, with a good helping of sexual guilt and you had the makings of a full blown obsessive compulsive neurosis. The worst of this societal bullying has now been mitigated. Thank you, Doctor Freud. You will sometimes see middle-aged people who stand with their heels together and their feet apart, forming the angle of a square. This is not some form of ritualistic stance. This how these people normally stand. Their butt cheeks are tightly clenched and they waddle like pigeons when they walk. They were toilet trained early and harshly. They lacked the internal muscle control to avoid soiling out of turn and in a desperate maneuver learned to use the musculature of their hips to clench their butt cheeks and hold it in. Years later the habit persists, outside of consciousness. When a therapist helps them relax this “body armor” they are consumed with irrational panic and rage, associated with the need to clench decades earlier, when memories were still largely stored in a prelinguistic manner. The whole body is affected, and it is almost always about more than just toilet training though that’s inevitably part of it, when an insensitive parent’s discipline is harsh, inconsistent and incomprehensible. This person understands the world as a brutal place where any action might be violently punished. She is filled with anger, but develops a strong musculature to hold herself back. She is graceless in her movement and muscle bound in appearance. She is socially submissive despite inner resentment. She has a habit of intentionally (often unconsciously) being rude or sarcastic in a manner that provokes her target and gives her an excuse to release some of her own pent up hostility. In Neo-Reichian terminology she is referred to as a _Masochistic Character_ because of her self-defeating behavior. In this era of mainstream sadomasochism, the nomenclature is potentially misleading as it is not intended to imply that she is involved in sadomasochistic sex play, fetishes or perversions. But since you wondered… Oral sadism is more the bite of a single-tail whip, whereas anal sadism is more the pounding of a paddle. Oral sadistic might be piercing, candle wax or electroshock. Anal sadistic might be ballbusting or breast slapping. Coprophilia, well… You figure that one out. Proposed but never formally admitted into DSM-IV, _self-defeating personality disorder_ is a label that might get attached to this anally influenced character. Within the BDSM community she might be a SAM (smart-ass masochist), not universally appreciated for her sarcasm. This girl is particularly easy to pick out on the dance floor. She is thicker and heavier on her feet. Her pelvis appears to have a wider range of motion, or maybe she just dances nastier. With enough P86 and P88 she can be really sexy in her own way. If you get her excited or pissed off she’s the one who’s liable to spill beer on you. We’re talking an anal expulsive rather than anal retentive character. \*To be continued… - ---
**Author:** ![Warren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Warren](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Warren)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/2 "2010-04-21T17:06:48Z")
\*(continued from above) - **Emotional Object Constancy: The floor manager’s nightmare** She walks in off the street wearing old sneakers, loose jeans, a baggy sweatshirt, her hair tied back. Outside you’d hardly notice her unless it were as an apt example of drab androgeny. Thirty minutes later she takes the stage in a provocative costume, glowing like a princess. She looks at you alluringly. You are the same man who she saw picking his nose ten minutes earlier, who she saw puking on his shoes a week before, who would pique no interest in any other setting. Right here, right now, you are her knight in shining armor, hopefully a generous one. In the blink of an eye she is on the opposite side of the stage and someone else, no more qualified, is, for the moment, her white knight. She is as blind to his real world flaws as he is to hers. A very weak sense of emotional object constancy is almost a job requirement for being a stripper. I cannot imagine how mentally exhausting it would be otherwise, hour after hour, night after night. The psychoanalytic concept of _emotional object constancy_, _libidinal object constancy_ or often just _object constancy_ refers to a person’s ability to maintain a stable mental representation of another person over time. It goes beyond Jean Piaget’s concept of _object permanence_. By the age of about eighteen months (earlier by less stringent tests), a child can observe an object removed from view and returned several times and recognize that it is the same object. To a much younger child, an object removed from view ceases to exist, and when it reemerges, it is taken as a new object. Unlike object permanence, object constancy is more than just a cognitive concept. When the child feels strong emotions toward its caretaker, the task of representational stability is more difficult. Even when object permanence has been achieved, a child will perceive the mother it is angry at as a different person from the mother it loves. During the Rapprochement subphase of the second half of the second year, the mother the child flees from seeking independence and the mother it runs back and clings to for security are, in the child’s mind, not well integrated into a single object representation. It is the ability to begin integrating these two object representations into a single whole that brings the Rapprochement subphase to a close and starts the process of developing emotional object constancy. It is probably not until the resolution of the Oedipus conflict that emotional object constancy is solidly established. At that point, the child enters into what Freud called the latency phase. In adult life, I can think of nowhere better than a strip club to observe how splitting a libidnal object liberates intense emotion. Insofar as performer and patron suspend emotional object constancy and view each other as ideal partial objects, delightful passions are inflamed. Maintaining object constancy and viewing each other realistically ruins everything! If you’ve ever talked to the manager of a strip club, you find they spend 90% of their time worrying about scheduling, remedially, not proactively. Girls don’t show up for work. They show up late. They often don’t call. If your eyes are fast enough, you’ll notice on the inside of the dressing room door, in different clubs all across the country, a sign warning the girls what the fines are for being late. It is a huge problem. The same “out of sight out of mind” aspect of a weak sense of object constancy, which energizes her performance, creates havoc in virtually every other facet of the dancer’s life, as well as the lives of those she is involved with. **Asian Women: Too good for their own good** There is a popular, melodramatic Hong Kong movie, [Moon Star Sun (1988)](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Moon_Star_and_Sun/60027864?) co-starring _Zhōng Chǔhóng_ ([Cherie Chung - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherie_Chung)), “Hong Kong’s Marilyn Monroe” which plays on a common Asian theme. A poor girl working as a nightclub hostess falls in love with a young man from a wealthy family. They are engaged and she expects be married, but the man’s family disapproves so he promptly dumps her. She is left disgraced and broken-hearted. This is the inverse of the theme of [Pretty Woman](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Pretty_Woman/872251). It is said that had Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents been written by a Chinese, the father would have killed the sons rather than the other way around. Asian psychology is completely different. Society is controlled by shame much more than guilt. Shame develops in a child much earlier than guilt, so a preoedipal (pre-conscience, pre-guilt) regression in an Asian stripper does not free her from the same degree of inhibition as a Western stripper, whose culture attempts to control her through guilt. I have been told by Taiwanese men that they prefer American strip clubs because American strippers actually put on a performance with costumes and dancing whereas a Chinese stripper seems to think that showing you her sacred yoni is more than enough. Thinking and speaking in a tonal, pictographic language, Chinese (and most Asians) develop a brain lateralization which is unlike Westerners, whose brains confine language to one cerebral hemisphere. The neurophysiologist [Joseph Bogen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bogen) described hysteria as a functional commissurotomy, referring to the procedure whereby the corpus callosum between the two cerebral hemispheres is surgical cut, as in some cases of severe epilepsy. He describes “denial” and other psychoanalytic defense mechanisms in terms of the function or malfunction of the corpus callosum. One can see how different the psychological mechanisms would be in a culture where the normal relationship between the two hemispheres is more balanced. [Click for Cherie Chung video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6v54KvWs2Q) _Zhōng Chǔhóng_ (Cherie Chung, 鍾楚紅) liked to play the part of the “bad girl” in British administered Hong Kong, where cultures cross-pollinated. She played it to perfection. Eastern and Western men alike were enthralled by her unique, best of both worlds sex appeal. The typical asian-born dancer, however, has little confidence in the theme of the “bad boy” or the “bad girl” finding love and winning big in the end. At the age they enter the craft, most American dancers are still energized with the rebellious energy of adolescence, a rare and unaccepted spectacle in the East. With all her gestures and behavior, the American hysteric screams “do me now” while the opposite, dominant, linguistic side of her brain says, “No!” denying her own sexual desire. She has no conscious knowledge of the mixed messages she is sending, but a normal young American woman does the same sort of thing, with full conscious intention and a twinkle in her eye. It’s called flirting. The Chinese girl has her own brand of coyness, which flows with a completely different rhythm, more subtlety, less edge. I feel there is a cultural mismatch. A few years ago the Asian dancer was rare and exotic, as was Chinese fast food. No more. We dream of a _Zhōng Chǔhóng_, but the Asian-born dancer is more often shy and conformist, dull in a world of ostentatious scofflaws. I like Asian women, but the strip club showcases her charms poorly. Gegogi might, now, explain why I’m full of it, on this particular category… **Borderline Symbiotic Character: Rare and explosive** The _Borderline Symbiotic_ character type is the most immature character you are likely to meet in a strip club. She is emotionally regressed to the symbiotic stage, which lasts until about five months of age. The infant senses no distinction, at this stage, between itself and the mother. After knowing her, as an adult, for only a few seconds, you will begin to feel a deep sense of empathy and oneness with her, which, of course, is completely unrealistic for someone you just met, but that is her world, her only style of being with people. Reflecting her poor sense of contact with the real world, her poorly energized skin is pale and splotchy. She is typically a little chubby, as though still retaining her “baby fat”. As an adult she struggles to exist as an independent being. She bounces back and forth between fears of being engulfed and fears of being abandoned. There is a razor thin edge between these two fears and she easily flies into a completely unrealistic, virtually psychotic, rage. This is why it is rare to see her as an exotic dancer. It is hard for her to hold a job, but you’ll see her occasionally. In a world where the man is always wrong, even based on a lunatic woman’s accusations, I’d advise avoiding her. **Epilogue: Addicted to the stage** With the publishing, in 1975, of [The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant](http://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Birth-Human-Infant-Individuation/dp/B0002D6D8S), by Margaret Mahler, Fred Pine and Anni Bergman, the concept of the rapprochement crisis became as central to psychoanalytic object relations theory as the Oedipus Complex had been to orthodox Freudian psychoanalysis. As you can see from the foregoing, I believe it is also central to understanding the character of the typical nude dancer. In my analysis I have also relied heavily on Neo-Rechian forms of analysis, especially the Bioenergetics of [Alexander Lowen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lowen) and the eclectic works of [Stephen Johnson](http://www.amazon.com/Character-Styles-Stephen-M-Johnson/dp/0393701719). As they address the physical body types of different psychological character structures, the observations of those following in the footsteps of Wilhelm Reich are especially valuable in assessing the character of nude dancers. A common theme in the theories of adolescent development has been the idea that adolescence recapitulates earlier stages of development. Just as the small child separates from dependence on the mother, so the adolescent separates from dependence on the family of origin to find her way in the adult world. Unresolved issues from the corresponding earlier stage will tend to reemerge. Issues with emotional object constancy, at the end of the Rapprochement subphase, will reemerge as both job skills and liabilities for strippers. Immediately before the Rapprochement subphase is the Practicing subphase (9-16 months). Phyllis Greenacre described the child’s attitude at this age as a “love affair with the world”. Upright locomotion provides them a new visual perspective and a tremendous variety of novel adventures. I have seen newly hired young dancers who reminded me very much of a child at this age. They are awkward and unsure where they fit in, but excited at the new adventure. After a few weeks the girl has gained confidence. She knows she is attractive to men and she has learned how to entice them or not. She has learned how adult men and women react to each other in ways that aren’t covered in the text books or discussed within the constraints of political correctness. And then after a short bar dancing career, she is gone for good. I remember a particular dancer in her mid twenties. She was a single parent. Her husband was a marine. He had been killed overseas. She had decided to go back to school for a masters degree. She was an athletic woman, and she worked as a dancer for a couple of years, while she went to school in the daytime. And then she was gone. And I remember a more typical story. One evening I asked one of the older dancers where a particular lady was, whom I hadn’t seen for a while. “She quit, but you just wait. She’ll be back. They always come back.” And so they do, most of them. They crave more adulation than their whole integrated personalities are likely to garner. They need the narcissistic fix. They are addicted to the stage. Ask them. They’ll tell you. ---
**Author:** ![RisenAlpha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/54ee81/32.png) [@RisenAlpha](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/RisenAlpha)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/3 "2010-10-17T15:22:17Z")
Why can’t I nominate this post? This is so well written. ---
**Author:** ![Warren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Warren](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Warren)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/4 "2010-10-17T17:47:52Z")
If I do say so myself, JosieWilder, I think this essay deserves more reads than it has ever received. Unfortunately, it seems that Lounge posts do not quality for nomination. I didn’t realize that when I decided to move it over here. I would suggest nominating this post - > [@Using IG in a stripclub](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/using-ig-in-a-stripclub/37485/24): > > Catlord, I’ve written an explanation and posted it as a new thread: [https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921) Warren which links directly to it, from the thread where the question first arose. ---
**Author:** ![tacitus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@tacitus](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/tacitus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/5 "2010-10-17T23:02:44Z")
In real time you have to have a good background of personal experience… all of the above may be true in a formal academic sense, I think you develop a feel for authenticity, inauthenticity (or being a plastic personality)… soon you can tell particularly by the voice, even talking on a cell for a few minutes can give you a very accurate read of the general personality… I’ve noticed a tremendous connection between voice quality and personality structure… “unreal” personalities sound artificial, contrived… sort of like the street smarts that tell you you’re dealing with a con, too smooth, too practiced… impersonal pretending to be personal… maybe its’ alienation… you pick up on it, alienation and commodification, it’s obvious in the voice tone, the body, the capacity to be alive in the moment… you see this in guys too though… seems that what women pull back from, guys who are running routines with the lights on and nobody home… ---
**Author:** ![Warren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Warren](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Warren)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/6 "2010-10-17T23:49:22Z")
I agree with what you are saying, Tacitus. I do think it is possible to have someone who is completely sincere, not treating people as commodities, but who is, nevertheless, crazy as hell. ---
**Author:** ![Whitehall](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/pheromonetalk.com/whitehall/32/1087_2.png) [@Whitehall](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Whitehall)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/7 "2010-10-18T03:10:43Z")
> [@tacitus](#): > > I’ve noticed a tremendous connection between voice quality and personality structure… “unreal” personalities sound artificial, contrived… sort of like the street smarts that tell you you’re dealing with a con, too smooth, too practiced… impersonal pretending to be personal… maybe its’ alienation… you pick up on it, alienation and commodification,. Isn’t that personality type called a sociopath or psychopath? It comes from a lack of empathy for others. Yes, the voice is very telling. ---
**Author:** ![Warren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Warren](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Warren)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/8 "2010-10-18T05:46:18Z")
A sociopath (or psychopath) is generally described as someone who lacks a conscience. I think there are plenty of PUAs – or PUA wanna be’s – who are happy to implement any deception to “score” and who are, therefore, selfish and short-sighted, without being full blown sociopaths. Similarly, for women there are those who are, sometimes with good reason, angry at men and who deceive and manipulate, without being full blown sociopaths. A sociopath is someone who is incapable of seeing other people as more than pawns of his own will. In addition to his narcissism, he has a lust to harm and destroy. He (or she) gets off on this. ---
**Author:** ![tacitus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@tacitus](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/tacitus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/9 "2010-10-18T16:34:00Z")
Its’ fair to say that our culture abounds in deep seated personality disorders… and academic psychology abounds in theories to explain them… oddly, in the most “left brain” rationalistic industries, I’ve seen the most worrisome examples of narcissisitic personalty disorder (probably the most egregious ailment of our era) which definitely does have some overlaps with full blown sociopathic/antisocial behavioral problems… a courtesan-escort I know who has an established clientele in the San Francisco area (of both sexes, FWIW) gets a lot of these hard driving investment banker types who privately tell her that their lives, their marriages are “emotional wastelands”… so they do appear to acknowledge that their personalities have led them down paths that may not have been as good as they looked going in… I don’t think a true sociopathic personality has that degree of self awareness… the signal of the sociopath is a vacuous pseudo-sophistication with a hollow, almost non-existent inner life… ---
**Author:** ![Warren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Warren](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Warren)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/10 "2010-10-18T21:20:20Z")
I am reminded of that famous quote from John Maynard Keynes, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” Getting lost in the left brain makes it a lot easier to ignore the longer term consequences. I fear that many of the banksters are not so much lost in the details as they are just using the details, Keynesian rationalizations, to distract the sheeple as they steal them blind. How many billions do you have to steal before you wake up and say, “I’ve got more than enough. I have to live in this world.” When every country, where you can speak the native language, has devolved into a third world dystopia, what do you do with your billions? I think the banksters are addicted to the thrill of tricking the suckers. They say that sociopaths don’t learn. Of course, they do learn, but instead of learning to conform to the mores of society they learn how not to get caught (so easily) next time. Are the early lives, which clinical and academic psychologists describe, the cause of sociopathy or is it a genetic disposition that predisposes them to the early childhood patterns repeatedly observed? Are sociopaths truly soulless creatures, non-sentient holograms or virtual androids? Or are they truly deprived, mislead, immature souls? Or possibly wise, compassionate souls whose brain damage or genetic makeup prevent them from manifesting their full human potential? ---
**Author:** ![tacitus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@tacitus](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/tacitus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 11:04pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/11 "2010-10-18T23:04:53Z")
hard to sort it all out… corporate cultures have evolved massive internal pathologies… often these are perverse outcomes of looking for ways to motivate employees, probably reflecting the underlying personality disorders in the c-suite class… after all, to endure the stifling, game filled, back stabbing and coalition building in order to qualify as a success within those cultures outright demands wholesale suppression of the feeling function… sick cultures select for sick behaviors and sick worldviews… so I’d say that to some extent, sociopathic attitudes are the products of the environment… as it would be hard to be a relaxed, inquisitive, live and let live personality in a prison environment… the sociopathic _tendencies_ may exist in nascent form in many people, however they may become activated, nurtured, and honed in specific contexts. I do think there IS a relatively rare, yet thoroughly malignant personality type that is the “true psychopath”… some material I’ve read seems to indicate that there is a genetic link to schizophrenia, being that there is a statistically significant deviation from the mean in terms of psychopaths being the offspring of schizophrenics… more common, and highly problematic, are the “well socialized sociopaths”… I’ve met a few of these here in NYC… they are capable of absolutely bizarre behavior and don’t seem to realize how obvious, almost bordering on ridiculous, their ethical blindness is. I’m quite certain that the late stage darwinism on steroids that we’ve gone through HAS brought a cadre of very high functioning sociopathic personalities into the upper levels of business, particularly the finance sector, it is almost impossible to account for their behaviors, their attitudes, and the consequences of their preferences without assuming significant abnormality of their psychological drives. If you haven’t seen **Inside Job** … a fun documentary, although simplified to the point of sparseness, by all means do… one of the key insights is that the finance business leadership class seemed to be obsessed with cocaine binges, strippers, clubhopping, getting smashed whenever possible… there wasn’t any sense of social mission, it was all a live for the moment, kill as many brain cells as possible type of culture.. ---
**Author:** ![Whitehall](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/pheromonetalk.com/whitehall/32/1087_2.png) [@Whitehall](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Whitehall)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/12 "2010-10-21T02:49:56Z")
The big question is how do you identify the dancer that is easiest to hook up with later? Of course, a strip club is no place to look for love, but a good bonk sometimes might be acceptable, as long as it didn’t cost too much! ---
**Author:** ![Olfact\_Amorous](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/pheromonetalk.com/olfact_amorous/32/434_2.png) [@Olfact\_Amorous](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Olfact_Amorous)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/13 "2010-11-02T13:18:45Z")
I’m going to have to read this a few times before I really get it 😮 ---
**Author:** ![RisenAlpha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/54ee81/32.png) [@RisenAlpha](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/RisenAlpha)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/14 "2010-11-11T16:39:57Z")
> [@Olfact\_Amorous](#): > > I’m going to have to read this a few times before I really get it 😮 There was definitely a deviation from the original post. Warren did an excellent job of breaking down the personality profiles of strip club dancers and by doing so also broke down personlity profiles of many women that have emotional scars. This was further studied and compared with sociopaths that now run the corporations of our country. See? It’s really quite simple! 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![tacitus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@tacitus](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/tacitus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/15 "2010-11-12T01:14:22Z")
Ahhh. you MUST see **Client9** … phenom movie… the connections will be made all too obvious ---
**Author:** ![SteveO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@SteveO](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/SteveO)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/16 "2010-11-30T18:19:54Z")
This is such an important thread that I felt the lounge did it disservice. I also felt it is necessary to sticky it. ---
**Author:** ![Warren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Warren](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Warren)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/17 "2010-12-01T05:29:49Z")
Wow, thanks, Steve! I mean, it _is_ my life’s work, the product of a misspent youth, middle age and… what comes next? Ah, rejuvenation – I’m pinning all my hopes on [PQQ](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/vitamin-line-nutrient-pqq-finally-available/36432/12)! ---
**Author:** ![SteveO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@SteveO](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/SteveO)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/anthology-of-exotic-dancer-character-types/37921/18 "2010-12-01T15:59:51Z")
Now we can all vote for it for TOTW too…hint, hint