[Interview with a Male Stripper 2]

An interview with a Colorado-based dancer about his career performing in strip clubs.

00:07Copy video clip URL Rick Bowlds sits on a couch and lights his pipe. 

01:28Copy video clip URL Bowlds talks about his clothes and his fashion sense. 

02:01Copy video clip URL Growing up poor in a neighborhood where “the only Black people getting by were the hustler and the pimp.” He talks about being a sex worker and a pimp and other work he did to get by. Of his jobs, he enjoyed dancing the most, he says. 

03:45Copy video clip URL He discusses the difficulties of working as a pimp. The only way one can get arrested for it is if a sex worker testifies against them. He claims that physical abuse of sex workers by their pimps “only happens in the movies” and how treating sex workers kindly is necessary, but that you need to “lay down the rules.” 

07:39Copy video clip URL Difficulties in getting men to become dancers/strippers. His own experience getting used to it as a job. 

08:49Copy video clip URL Working as a dancer, everyone involved in the business trying to hustle you out of money. 

10:05Copy video clip URL On being a sex object for women. “I don’t let it bother me. I’m having just as much fun as them.” He credits Women’s Liberation for allowing women to express sexual desires in strip clubs.

11:27Copy video clip URL The difference between Go-Go Dancers and strippers. Being voted “Mr. Indiana” in 1974 and coming in runner-up in the “Mr. Nude Apollo” contest in 1975. That recognition raised his pay grade for stripping/dancing. 

13:25Copy video clip URL Feeling a little like a celebrity. Being recognized in public. 

15;56 Another dancer who goes by “Cherokee” who felt a need to drink to get on stage, but got so drunk that he fell off the stage onto a patron when she tried to tip him. 

17:01Copy video clip URL The way that patrons tip dancers. “Women do a lot of weird things with those dollars.” Writing notes to the dancers. Patrons making propositions to the dancers. 

19:15Copy video clip URL Ladies-only nights at the clubs because “ladies don’t get as loose when there are a bunch of men around.” The difference between “mixed clubs” with men and women on stage and in the audience and a “ladies club where they just get all out of hand.” 

21:31Copy video clip URL Dancing at gay clubs and clubs with gay male patrons. 

22:55Copy video clip URL Being given the nickname “Coco” by a female stripper he worked with at a mixed club, which became his stage name. 

24:04Copy video clip URL The kind of women that come into a club: “All kinds of women, from 8 to 80. When I got into it I thought there would be mostly old women, but there are a lot of young women.” 

25:37Copy video clip URL The other male dancers that he works with. Not being very close to the people he’s currently dancing with because he’s also going to school and very busy. 

27:30Copy video clip URL Only two male strip clubs in Colorado. The clubs “back East” pay more because there’s more competition for dancers. Discussion of pay rates and tips. 

29:15Copy video clip URL Dancing at private parties, where the behavior is sometimes shocking. 

30:42Copy video clip URL One customer – a nurse in Fort Wayne – who was reliably his highest-paying patron. 

31:30Copy video clip URL On being propositioned: “As far as sexual offers… your wildest dreams. Anything you can think up has been offered.” 

31:50Copy video clip URL Most of the dancers he’s worked with being straight, except when he works gay clubs. 

 

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