“By stripping, you’ve taken the easy way out!”

Oh, really?

Okay.

In that case, I challenge you to enter a room full of men and separate them from your rent. Tonight. Within eight hours. Remember—strippers don’t get paychecks, and every dime you make must be personally hustled.

I challenge you to make this money while being only one among dozens of other attractive women hustling for the exact same dollars.

I challenge you to have the same charming conversation eighty times over the course of eight hours with increasingly drunk and nasty customers.

I challenge you to make yourself seem like eighty different men’s exact fantasy eighty different times in eight hours at $10 a pop.

I challenge you to work in a field where your very body is the product you sell, and yet still keep a loving self-image (among other things, I was recently told that my breasts are not “real breasts” because they are “small and ugly”).

I challenge you to listen to such misogynistic venom throughout the night that you find yourself clutching your steering wheel on the four a.m. drive home sputtering ” fuck you, fuck you” to the silent darkness of the night.

I challenge you to understand that, even though you’re socking away money so your family can have a better future—when the world finds out what you do, you are to them only a “bad mother,” a “bad wife.”

I challenge you to be a “dumb slut” in the eyes of the world when your heart is beating with brilliance and art.

“Taking the easy way out,” huh?

Okay.

I challenge you to be a stripper.