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[title]‘No one look please!’ shouts Black Venus, stripping off a Nike tracksuit and pulling up a shiny black slingshot swimming costume. ‘Not that you’re not gonna see it later!’
It’s just off 10pm and Time Out is backstage at Sex and Rage’s Black Pride lesbian strip club party, hosted at the Dalston arts centre, EartH. Five performers are tending to their outfits — putting on dangling diamante earrings and exchanging beat-up trainers for Cinderella-esque, translucent heels. Everyone performing is a queer BIPOC sex worker.
‘We really represent the words ‘‘sex’’ and ‘‘rage’’’, said Venus, martial artist, self-defence instructor and Sex and Rage founder. She hoists up her leg onto a counter and slips her foot into a patent stiletto-heeled boot. ‘I think a lot of people are very angry about not fitting in [at other nights out] but are very sensual, very in tune with their bodies, and they want to have an opportunity to express that.’
Tonight’s event is one of a number of strip club collectives that have emerged in the UK in recent years, pioneered by women and non-binary people belonging to marginalised groups. Many parties are actively reinventing the traditional strip club model, throwing events in rented spaces with policies that prioritise performer safety and well-being. But throwing these sorts of parties isn’t always easy; organisers often face stigma and discrimination from hostile venue owners and staff who are skeptical about hosting sex worker-affiliated events.
Baring it all
Venus launched Sex and Rage in 2019, with the goal of demystifying sex work through sex worker led multidisciplinary events hosted online and across the capital. The collective has hosted erotic readings, ‘sensual’ dance workshops and screenings of documentaries centering the lives of sex workers and queer communities.
Throughout her twenties, Venus worked in strip clubs in central and east London, where she was one of the only Black women there. It was an isolating experience. Staff members frequently made comments about her look, her hair; even her smell. ‘Being a Black stripper is hard,’ she said, ‘Black women in particular aren't seen as desirable by men in those contexts.’
In 2022, she launched Sex and Rage’s first strip club party. Dedicated to a lesbian and bisexual audience, the events would spotlight performers who were themselves queer sex workers. Any guests who behaved disrespectfully would be asked to leave by security.
Taking inspiration from the Blaxploitation movies of the 1970s, Sex and Rage parties celebrate ‘big-ass ’fros’ and funky music from the African diaspora: Afrobeats, soul, soca, dancehall and R&B. The nights are ‘a way of getting back at the rejection that [Black women] experience on a daily basis,’ said Venus. ‘We attract super-talented performers who are just really different — they don’t fit in with the mainstream.’
London’s strip club legacy
Strip clubs in the UK can be traced back to 1830s Paris, where a scandalous new form of dancing was emerging: the Cancan. Performers wore frilly petticoats and kicked their legs high into the air, revealing their underwear. When the Moulin Rouge opened in 1889, this controversial dance ballooned in popularity.
Word caught on in the UK. In 1932, a recently widowed socialite named Laura Henderson opened up The Windmill Theatre in the building of a former silent cinema in Soho, remodeled to look like a windmill tower. To get around theatre obscenity laws, Henderson is said to have put forward an argument to Lord Chamberlain, who was then stage censor. Why is a naked woman standing on stage any different to the nude portraits and sculptures at the National Gallery?
Chamberlain acquiesced. Women could be naked on stage, as long as they stood still. This legal loophole gave rise to a new form of erotic dance, where nude women would assemble behind the stage curtain, striking a static pose when it rose. Soon, feathered fans were introduced to the dance, covering performers’ genitals while they were moving.
The Windmill Theatre stayed open throughout the Blitz, but in 1964, it finally closed its doors. By that point, strip clubs were proliferating on Soho’s streets – and in 1968, the Theatres Act overturned centuries of censorship, meaning that nude performers could move on stage legally. Out-of-town football fans flocked to Soho strip clubs after away games, congregating in the likes of Naked City, Queen’s Club and Sunset Strip.
Between 2012 to 2022, the number of UK strip clubs dropped from 350 to 150
A decade later, strip pubs became popular in the East End. Unlike the city clubs, strip pubs had a more playful atmosphere, with more emphasis on actually dancing. At the White Horse, a wooden-paneled Shoreditch boozer owned by three generations of women, a group of strippers befriended one another, forming the East London Stripper’s Collective (ELSC) to fight against club closures in Tower Hamlets and advocate for better working rights.
Gradually, though, in the 2010s, gentrification and rising rents caused many venues to shutter. Between 2012 to 2022, it’s estimated that the number of strip clubs in England and Wales dropped from 350 to 150, according to Prospect. In 2016, the White Horse closed its doors. The East London Strippers Collective were so devastated that they hosted a New-Orleans style funeral in its honor. ‘It feels like Shoreditch is finished,’ one ELSC member told Time Out at the time. ‘Nothing really wild and random can happen here any more.’
Dancing with the law
Since their inception, strip clubs have existed in a frenetic dance with the law. Today, UK strip clubs must have a sexual entertainment venue (SEV) license to operate. But their future remains precarious. In recent years, councils across the UK have been pushing for a nil-cap policy which would require all SEVs to close, with some leaders claiming that strip clubs are linked to violence against women. But members of the Sex Workers’ Union disagree, stating that closing strip clubs would put thousands of strippers out of work or push them to work in unsafe, unregulated environments.
Venues do not require an SEV if sexual entertainment takes place less than once a month, and, in most cases, when drama or dance performances incorporate nudity, a licence isn’t needed at all (assuming their primary purpose isn’t ‘sexually stimulating’ the audience). But according to Maedb Joy, founder of Sexquisite, a sex worker-led arts company that puts on shows in London, Manchester and Bristol, many venues seem to be unfamiliar with licensing laws and are reluctant to host their events.
Joy says that Sexquisite would fall under the theatre licence, seeing as a typical event involves a variety of artforms including poetry, comedy and drag. But club owners often freak out when they hear the words ‘sex worker cabaret.’ Joy said that one Manchester venue attempted to cancel an upcoming Sexquisite show after a change of heart, telling her it was because the show incorporated pole dancing and the venue was nearby a school. Sometimes venue owners just ghost her when she approaches them about hosting an event.
‘People are scared,’ Joy said. Throwing sex worker-led parties requires her to have a robust understanding of licensing laws so that she can push back against bogus claims. Still, overcoming prejudices is a challenge. Many people view sex workers as ‘dingy or not to be trusted,’ she said. ‘There's so much stigma that exists against us. Maybe if they spoke to us, they’d realise we're really cool, multifaceted, interesting people that are just trying to make work within queer nightlife.’
A strip club renaissance
In 2019, Harpies launched Europe’s first LGBTQ+ strip club party at Metropolis in Bethnal Green. Since then, a number of queer-focussed strip club events have popped up across the UK. Nancy’s Girls, a Chester and North Wales-based pop up, hosted their first ever LGBTQ+ event in February, featuring a performance by drag star The Royal Serenity. Cybertease, which began as a virtual strip club over Zoom during the pandemic, now hosts drag, cabaret and burlesque performances by unionised sex workers in east London.
Many of these parties have actively adopted policies that address inequities in the traditional strip club model and culture. For instance, many UK strip venues have a ‘house fee,’ requiring strippers to pay up to £200 to perform, which can leave them in debt to the club at the end of the night. One former stripper who worked in an east London strip club around five years ago recalled a manager who would do cocaine during shifts and take the side of aggressive customers who nonconsensually touched them, particularly if the customer was a big spender.
There’s this constant anxiety that I’m going to lose money
‘We’re rebelling against the cis-het strip clubs,’ said Rachel, co-founder of Harpies, ‘showing that if you operate them in a different way, you can experience just utter joy and empowerment.’ At Harpies, performers are not required to be nude if they don’t want to be and they are guaranteed a baseline of £100-a-night (although they usually take home much more). Meanwhile, Cybertease adopts a ‘socialist’ model, where everyone takes home the same amount of money.
‘When you’re in a normal club, at the back of your mind, constantly there’s this anxiety that if I don’t make any money tonight, I’m going to lose money because I still have to make my house fee,’ said Ally, a co-founder of Cybertease.
More financial security allows performers to relax and enjoy themselves. ‘That’s one of the major things that I think really separates Cybertease,’ she says. ‘There’s not that tension in the air. In our clubs, we’re working together. We’re a team.’
Make it rain
Around midnight, the Sex and Rage performances kick off. Jao, who has a shaggy platinum mullet, struts onto stage to a sultry blues rock track, before spinning upside down on a pole, smoking a cigarette.
Then, there’s a steamy femme/masc roleplay. Nisha wears white lacy lingerie and fishnet stockings and straddles Venus, who sits back on a chair in an unbuttoned shirt and suit trousers. The goal is to ‘make it rain’ with fake dollar bills (bought for cash), then tips are split at the end of the night. It’s a titillating image: femmes flinging bank notes at the performers flickering in pink and blue floodlights.
‘This is a space with a lot of people who have been othered,’ shouts Saba, a 35-year-old filmmaker, over the beats. ‘No one is othered here. We’re all in community.’