A few weeks ago, I got an email from a young woman from Slovakia. She was thinking about coming to Toronto to study and was considering stripping in order to cover the cost of living in T.O.

Helena wasn’t a newbie, she’d already been dancing for some time in Bratislava, so she was used to the way the system worked there, and it took some effort for me to explain that in Toronto, things are different.

In Bratislava, she said, dancers are paid strictly from the clubs: their shift pay, percentage of earnings from lapdances (for clubs that offer private dances), minus applicable club fees, averaging about $200USD ($150EURO) per night.

In Toronto, I tried to explain to her, a dancer’s earnings depend largely on herself. It’s hard to estimate how much an average dancer earns, because there is no such thing as an average dancer. Some dancers refused to work in any club where they doubted they could break a $500 per shift. Other dancers stopped the hustle as soon as they reached $100. Toward the end of my dancing “career”, $1,000-1,500 afternoons no longer surprised me, and I have even met a dancer who threw a fit when she realized that she wasn’t going to top $16,000 that month. And this was while most dancers I worked with complained about the economy and agreed to work for shift pay of under $100.

I sort of tried to explain all this to Helena, as well that the fact in most Toronto clubs, the money exchanges hands privately and no one, aside from the dancer, knows how much she’s made on a given day or night.

Maybe I didn’t come across convincing enough, or perhaps it sounded too vague, or seemed too good to be true, but Helena emailed me back, saying she’d found an international agency in Europe that would help her with becoming a stripper in Toronto. The agency, she said, even claimed to guarantee her a minimum income. Of $8,300 per month.

Alarm bells went off in my head. How can anyone make such a guarantee? It must be a scam, or a human trafficking scheme. Over the years in the trade, I’ve only met 1 woman who *may have* been stripping against her own will (I say *may* because I simply don’t know for sure). I’ve also seen a few documentaries and heard some stories from politicians who speak against trafficking.  But the TV stories were horrific and brutal enough that I wondered whether going with the agency that offered Helena such a guarantee, could be dangerous. So I asked Helena for more info about them.

I am not going to link to the agency’s web page here, but you can google it if you like, or email me for the link, but here is the deal they offered:

First, the quote from the email by the agency rep:

“..the club offers different guarantee to every lady, major of them are in the top $ 8,300.00 Dlls Can per month. Of course if you make more money than your guarantee the club will pay you.

I understand that the club offers you let say $ 8,300 less 10 dlls daily DJ , licence 500 dlls and the fee of your agency wich is 20% of your incomes, assuming you make just the guarantee or less $ 1,600 for your agent. (exclusivity for country, they don’t hire ladies without agent, then even if you go straight the agency fee will be deducted and give to the agent who has the exclusivity) . As the licence is collected just in the first month, your numbers would be:
Guarantee 8,300 Dlls CAN
Less:
DJ 31 days 310 Dlls
Agent 1,600 dlls
Licence 500 Dlls
Net for you 5,890 Dlls for 31 days worked

The second period of 31 days will be
Guarantee 8,300 Dlls CAN
Less:
DJ 31 days 310 Dlls
Agent 1,600 dlls
Net for you 6,390 Dlls CAN”

Despite the ridiculous rip-off that is the agency fee, the agency website also mentions that dancers are paid in tokens which are then converted into cash, and the dancer gets paid once a month. The agency website states that table dance tokens are paid to the entertainer at $5.00 a token,  and an average dancer makes about “50-120” tokens per shift. (Wait, what? If a token is payment for one table dance, then it looks like the club is getting $15, and the dancer- only $5 for her dance (dances are generally priced at $20 per song).

And then we get to the particulars:

• If Entertainer does not make over her guarantee then a charge of $10.00 per day we will deducted at the end of contract term.  95% of all entertainers make over their guarantee.

Wait, what’s that? Turns out that the income guarantee is not the amount the agency or the club guarantees to pay the dancer…but the amount that dancer is EXPECTED to generate, or face penalty of $10 per day.

The club also offers one free meal per day, allows $50 per day cash advance, which will be deducted from her pay each month, and, should the dancer not make her guarantee, she’ll be charged for shared accommodations with other dancers…

So, at the end of it all, our numbers really begin to look like this:

$8,300 (if you are lucky, working everyday, at 1 $5 token per song)

Minus:

-$1,600 compulsory fee to the agency

-$300 DJ mandatory fee

-$300 DJ and staff tips (if you want to keep good relations with the staff, tipping is a must)

-$500 dancer license (it costs less than $500, but this is the number the agency gave)

- The club requires dancers to have 2-3 approved costume changes per night and offers advances toward costume purchases. Expect their own costume sellers and high prices. A few costumes and a few pairs of shoes later, here goes another $500.

-You can’t live on 1 meal a day, and if you are only paid at the end of the month, you’ll need those daily $50 advances. Trust me. That’s $1,500.

1,600+300+300+500+500+1,500= $4,600

That’s $4,600 that a dancer will owe before she even sees any of her own money. And it’s very unlikely that a dancer will make the required $8,300 in the first month, so deduct another $10/day.

It’s not hard to see, before long, she’ll be indebted to the club and in no position to refuse any kind of work.

And this is all assuming that the agency is legit, and the above numbers and facts are all correct, and there is no actual coercion involved…

…although the club that the agency mentions on their website has a horrible reputation and there have been numerous articles circulation about its suspected involvement into sex trafficking.

There is a ton of money to be made in the sex trade, and there are a ton more leeches who would stop at nothing to suck the $$ out of the earners. The agents who claim a $1,600 monthly fee for nothing, are a good example. Pimps who exploit women in return for “protection”.  Recruits and suppliers of girls for non-consensual sex work. Sex work is dangerous enough as it is, but when it involves international migration, agencies and middle-men, it becomes that much more risky- you just don’t know who’s waiting for you at the destination, or what their motivations might be.

It may seem easier to sign up for a guarantee of $8,300 per month and take your chances, but is it really worth it? In the end this may cost a lot more than a just few (thusand) bucks. Really, it’s best to do it on your own, one step at a time. No one can guarantee you success, except your own skill and hard work.

Learn How To Make $1,000 Per Night Stripping!