'tis true: "Being an office hermit, hibernating in a cubical is often more debasing and emotional draining than stripping."

The Modernist [Terminal 1] Juliana Beasley interview by Veronica Zambetti:

"In Lapdancer (powerHouse), Juliana Beasley compiles images she took during her eight years as a stripper into a homage to dancers, their customers and admirers. She brilliantly peels aside the sex industry's seedy surface to show the tender, banal, profound and playful reality of trafficking in sexual fantasy. The Modernist's Veronica Zambetti, a former dancer herself, talks shop with Ms. Beasely.

Stripping can be tedious but thankfully at least it is lively. Being an office hermit, hibernating in a cubical is often more debasing and emotional draining than stripping.

There are lots of begrudged dancers who resent the clients and regret their choices, for me it was really a learning experience. I had some ugly moments, but I learned to realise that people are certain ways at certain times in their lives and it is important to be accepting.

Did you start off as not very accepting?

I tried stripping when I was younger and I didn't last long because I was coming in as an angry little feminist and looking at everything as if it were in a text-book.

Which is never wise since men are not going to polite in that environment. How did you stop judging your experiences ideologically?

I started accepting people for who they were, then I started seeing that the customers were there for a reason and it wasn't only for sex. There was something they weren't able to access in the other parts of their lives. Truthfully, there were a lot of customers I respect and care about as people.

Which isn't as odd as it sounds since sex is only the surface of these encounters.

Dancing is an usual relationship because it is not just about sex, it is about feelings and our universal need for human contact.

...Although, many people might pick up the book and think the customers are pathetic, I learned over the years that they suffered from a common problem. Perhaps, they spend their days without human contact in front of a computer or perhaps they don't fit the standards of what this society finds attractive enough or affluent enough. Another possibility is their own inability to value their relationships they have with their spouses. Coming to lap dance clubs might be the only chance they have to sit and talk with someone of the opposite sex without being brushed off. Obviously it comes with a price tag. I hope that the people who pick up my book are able to look beyond the voyeurism of the photographs, read some of the text and see the lure of fantasy as a universal problem. Facing the truth is hard to handle. Stripping is big business and makes more money than Broadway shows."