# What does 'dancer' suggest as a vocation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 30, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455 "2016-11-30T14:37:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/41 "2016-11-30T19:26:50Z")
I think a dancer would refer to themselves as a dancer when the context was already clear. A dance instructor referring to themselves as a dancer while in a dance class is a lot different from them referring to themselves as a dancer during small talk at the bar. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/42 "2016-11-30T19:34:52Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > … > Also, I think it’s really weird to identify your job aspirationally - someone might just be working as a regular joe to pay the bills but aspire to be manager one day, but saying that your job is ‘manager’ because that’s what you really want to do comes off pretty badly. Lots of people work two unrelated jobs. One for love, the other for money. I’ve certainly done it. As did the woman in my prior post upthread. That’s a very different thing from labeling yourself as the promotion you hope to have some day. One of my complaints about American society is that if someone you just met asks “What are you?”, many people will respond with their occupation. IMO an occupation is just a job, a way to earn necessary money. I might like or even love my job, but it isn’t my essence; it isn’t what I _am_. An actor / teller is far more likely to \*be \*an actor even though they spend 10x as many hours a week performing teller work. One is what they _are_; the other is what they _do_ to eat. I once saw a t-shirt which read > [@T-shirt](#): > > Oh, you’re an opera singer? > Which restaurant? I saw it on a young man who was indeed in an MFA program as an opera singer. And who was bringing me my lunch in a restaurant near campus. The irony was especially ironic in that one. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/43 "2016-11-30T19:55:29Z")
Just “dancer” without any other adjectives, is going to be “Exotic” (read: erotic) Dancer. “I teach dance” or “I do interpretive dancing” or “work in a dancing school” will be used simply BECAUSE “dancer” will always be assumed to mean “stripper”. And: if you are even close to attractive, stripping is easy money. An old maxim: “Many young women have put themselves through Grad School on their backs”. Stripping is not as lucrative as turning tricks, but at least you don’t need to worry about diseases. I knew (vaguely) a woman who I was told did stripping. I was chatting with her in the Union building while a middle-aged man was renting a room. He very nervously motioned her to follow him. They headed back to the room. Her rent was earned that evening. Welcome to reality. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/44 "2016-11-30T20:00:07Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Lots of people work two unrelated jobs. One for love, the other for money. I’ve certainly done it. As did the woman in my prior post upthread. > > That’s a very different thing from labeling yourself as the promotion you hope to have some day. Saying that your vocation is ‘actor’ when it’s really ‘waiter’ is exactly labeling yourself as the promotion you hope to have some day. And yes, I and a lot of other people don’t think highly of people who claim that their job is ‘actor’ when it’s really ‘waiter’. And I have no earthly idea why you talked about people working two unrelated jobs. > [@](#): > > One is what they _are_; the other is what they _do_ to eat. The one that they _do_ to eat is their vocation, the other one is not. Remember the title and OP of this thread, this is about someone who identifies their job, not their general identity or aspiration or whatever else. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/45 "2016-11-30T20:02:57Z")
My aunt was a dancer. The kind who took dance classes, gave performances in community theater, and made her money another way. I don’t know how she self-identified her profession to others. Even now in her 60s, you’d look at her and think, “dancer”. She just has the posture and bearing. I wouldn’t assume anything just going by the word “dancer”, unless she was giving off other signals that you haven’t communicated. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/46 "2016-11-30T20:12:48Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Just “dancer” without any other adjectives, is going to be “Exotic” (read: erotic) Dancer. > > “I teach dance” or “I do interpretive dancing” or “work in a dancing school” will be used simply BECAUSE “dancer” will always be assumed to mean “stripper”. Always? Because like half the people in this thread have said they wouldn’t assume that. > [@](#): > > And: if you are even close to attractive, stripping is easy money. > > An old maxim: “Many young women have put themselves through Grad School on their backs”. That’s not “an old maxim”. It’s an incredibly shitty thing to say because it undermines educated women both by implying that they are likely whores and that they had an easy path that was not available to men. I am really convinced that the whole “tricking/stripping your way through law school” thing is that a lot of men would feel weird knowing that a woman is only fucking them to feed her kids, or because she’s a miserable addict who hates her life. That’d almost be like exploiting someone. So they just decide that she’s just some bitch taking the easy way out on her way to being a lawyer. Though, of course, men can be whores, mostly to other men, but no one suggests that turning gay tricks is “easy money”. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/47 "2016-11-30T20:15:22Z")
It would depend on context, but the thought that she may be a stripper would at least cross my mind unless context indicated otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/48 "2016-11-30T20:27:51Z")
Suggesting that women learn to exploit sexuality is hardly controversial. It does not demean in my eyes. Another old maxim: “Do not take offense when none is intended”. You denounce the Grad School saying, but through in Law School? Isn’t Law School a Grad School? Knowing that a woman once turned a few financially viable tricks does not make her a “whore”. Huge difference. A really, really critical difference. And: I can’t imagine a john being concerned with the reason she is there. For meeting Mr. Right after turning a trick a month for 4 years? I really don’t think most would ever find reason to suspect. A quick fuck is a quick fuck. College students are notorious for them/ If some of them pay incredibly well, so much the better. If you can’t imagine a hooker who does not meet the stereotype of junkie with bad teeth and an abusive pimp, I feel sorry for you. Virginity is pretty rare in Grad School. So? What’s new? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/49 "2016-11-30T20:31:41Z")
Many strippers are qualified as dancers. Maybe not for the ballet, but just as well as a dance teacher, chorus girl, team dance squad, etc. There are a lot of strippers who are just women who take off their clothes, but there is still an art form of stripping that requires skill and training. So while ‘dancer’ has become relatively synonymous with ‘stripper’ in an unqualified sense, and the growth of strip clubs has created a lot of unskilled performers, let’s not simply disregard every dancer in the adult entertainment business as just an unskilled woman taking her clothes off. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/50 "2016-11-30T20:41:07Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Here in Austin, there are numerous art/music/drama/dance majors who work as baristas or waitresses or cashiers or sandwich makers or \_\_\_ (fill in the blank). > > To be sure, there are numerous “gentlemen’s clubs” here, but if I met a young lady who told me “I’m a dancer,” I’d be more inclined to think she was a Twyla Tharp/Martha Graham wannabe who majored in Fine Arts at UT, and who dances professionally when she can, but usually works at a “real” job to pay the bills. > > Of course, my impression might change depending on how she looked and carried herself. See, in Houston or Dallas, it’s the other way around. Enormous cities with lots of titty bars, and precious little in the way of fine arts universities or professional dancing opportunities. I’d guess the strippers probably outnumber the others by quite a bit, especially if aggregated over some time period. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/51 "2016-11-30T20:45:59Z")
IME the majority of young women working in strip clubs will, if asked, claim they’re working through school to be a nurse, a teacher, whatever. IOW, something “respectable”. I have no idea whether that’s the honest truth, or they’re saying that to salve their own conscience, or they’re hoping to play the sympathy angle for more money from the customer. IOW, that I’d be willing to tip better for a good cause like education, but not if it’s just going to her next crack fix. Years ago I ran a small business in Las Vegas with about 20 women working for me. Ordinary low-wage office drone work, nothing “interesting”. It turned out one woman was a stripper as well. She was married, had a kid, was stable and conscientious and was one of my best workers. Really had gone to (junior) college and started stripping then. Just kept it up a couple nights a week for pin money. There was nothing skanky about her or her husband. They were workin’ class folks with workin’ class sensibilities. But so were the rest of my non-stripping employees. I thought it wouldn’t be quite right to go to her club when she was working, so I never did. Which is not to say I haven’t seen some strung-out skanks in the same line of work. It takes all kinds to make a rodeo. Ref the gathering kerfuffle above … I see a vast difference between stripping and selling actual sex. I also think people ought to be free to do what they want without needing my or anyone else’s moral imprimatur. But suggesting that there’s a wide moral divide between a crack ho walkin’ the street and a college woman selling an “arrangement” is IMO misguided. Sex for cash is sex for cash is sex for cash. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/52 "2016-11-30T20:46:52Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > I’d assume that she dances in shows or teaches dancing as a sideline. But then I’m in L.A. We have no shortage of dancers and/or strippers here. > > It would also depend on how she presents herself - from the women working as strippers or other sex work that I’ve known, they always have a sort of “stripper vibe” even off duty - their hair and makeup and dress are geared toward the maximum appropriate sexiness of whatever situation. If she gave that vibe, I would definitely interpret it as “stripper” or “in-call stripper-and-occasional-prostitute.” However, without it? She legitimately dances for a living. I agree. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/53 "2016-11-30T20:58:08Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > “Dancer” meaning “stripper” would not occur to me, but [list=A][li]I have lived a sheltered life, and [\*]My wife and I took dance lessons and the teacher referred to herself as a “dancer” and was fully dressed at the time.[/list][/li]Regards, > Shodan I don’t think anyone who’s spent as much time on this board as you have could possibly qualify as having lead a sheltered life. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/54 "2016-11-30T21:12:02Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > IME the majority of young women working in strip clubs will, if asked, claim they’re working through school to be a nurse, a teacher, whatever. IOW, something “respectable”. I have no idea whether that’s the honest truth, or they’re saying that to salve their own conscience, or they’re hoping to play the sympathy angle for more money from the customer. IOW, that I’d be willing to tip better for a good cause like education, but not if it’s just going to her next crack fix. I had a roommate once who was in vet school and stripped for money while she was in school, and she spent an awful lot of time reading veterinary medicine books with no audience if it was just a cover story. I have known several other people who stripped for money back in their college years, and I think that plus things like doing camshows or do custom erotic videos are becoming more common. None of the people involved look especially ‘skanky’, and their current lifestyles range from crazy to white picket fences. > [@](#): > > I see a vast difference between stripping and selling actual sex. I also think people ought to be free to do what they want without needing my or anyone else’s moral imprimatur. I don’t actually see them as significantly different in the way that I think you mean, though I also don’t have a problem with either. Oddly, from what I’ve heard the most financially successful strippers make their money from absolutely not selling actual sex, but by leading men into thinking they have much more of a connection than they really do. It’s a very manipulative thing and the people that I know all said they couldn’t stomach it, but apparently getting a well-off middle-aged guy ‘in love’ with you could be extremely lucrative if you’re willing to lead him on for months or years. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/55 "2016-11-30T21:45:41Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I don’t think anyone who’s spent as much time on this board as you have could possibly qualify as having lead a sheltered life. 😃 Yes, but I’m old. > [@Chris Rock](#): > > A woman came up to me on the street, and said, “$200- I’ll do anything you want.” I said, “OK - paint my house.” IIRC there was a Doper who was an exotic dancer/stripper. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > It turned out one woman was a stripper as well. She was married, had a kid, was stable and conscientious and was one of my best workers. Really had gone to (junior) college and started stripping then. That must have made class more interesting. Vulgar curiosity - how did you find out she was a part-time stripper? Did she list it on her resume, or did it just come up in conversation? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/56 "2016-11-30T21:56:06Z")
From outside America — and most of the rest of the world does not have much of a strip-club/gentleman’s club scene, at all ( the USA probably does following on from 19th century dancing saloons, improved by Playboy and the West Coast in the 20th ) — I would think: a/ Shipboard entertainment as on cruise ships, and the same thing on land. b/ Ballet. c/ Ballroom Dancing. Yes, thinking the first is downmarket compared to the other two, but that’s the one job adverts usually mean. And in America, also those tall Las Vegas and Follies Bergère type dancers ( who could knock a man out cold if mistaken for prostitutes ). \* - Plus, as well as strip-clubs and Las Vegas, America also has much of a monopoly on the recently revived Neo-Burlesque scene. Which is basically girls in corsets. ( But doing it ironically. ) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/57 "2016-11-30T22:09:56Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > … > That must have made class more interesting. > > Vulgar curiosity - how did you find out she was a part-time stripper? Did she list it on her resume, or did it just come up in conversation? > … Hah hah, very funny. My bad for serving up that fat one. All the women worked at open desks in a couple big rooms. And of course they chit-chatted to pass the time. Over time everybody got to meet everybody else’s husband, kids, BF du jour, whatever. A regular hen party it was all day every day. So naturally when she went to leave for her evening job folks wanted to know what it was. Remember this was in Las Vegas, where being totally cool with \*outre \*stuff is just expected of all locals; it’s in the water. So she told everyone. In the same matter of fact way she might have said “I waitress at Denny’s” as one of the other gals did. And everybody went “Oh, cool.”, “How much to do you make?”, “What does Rick think?” etc. IOW, a total non-event. A yearish later she was turning 30 and her stripping income was failing as her look aged out the top of the demographic. Then she got pregnant. Once she started showing the growing baby her income zoomed up. She said she had a cast of regular admirers and they came through in spades (and Jacksons) for the baby. She finally quit both jobs at about 8 months. We went out of business before she tried to return. But I’d have taken her back gladly. Gosh I miss those gals. We had a good gig going until we suddenly didn’t and they were a pretty happy crew. The stripper, the M-\>F sex-changing transvestite, the 70yo woman with no legs, the one married to an Elvis impersonator, the daughter of the Boston Irish mafiosi, the recovering/ed boozer, and all the rest of the more “normal” ones. It might have made a good cast for a reality TV show except everybody got along too well. Without shouting and [del]cursing[/del] bleeping it just isn’t good TV. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/58 "2016-11-30T23:14:01Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > In the area you describe, I’d be inclined to think she probably aspires to be a professional, artistic dancer but currently works at a kids dance studio giving beginning tap and ballet lessons. I Wouldn’t assume exotic dancer or stripper without any additional info. Its my experience that such people who give dance lessons self identify as ‘teacher’ or possibly ‘dance instructor’ so as not to be ambiguous to the parents of their protoge’s. Simple “dancer” doesn’t have that baggage of needing to clarify that they aren’t a stripper. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/59 "2016-12-01T02:04:31Z")
Depends on who you’re teaching dance to. When you’re teaching ten women age 18-65 how to flamenco, you don’t need to worry about parents who might worry that a stripper is going to teach their li’l darlings ballet. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455/60 "2016-12-01T03:10:14Z")
A dear friend of mine did pay her way through nursing school as a stripper. She had been dancing for several years and as she reached her middle 30’s she decided she needed to get some longer-lasting skills. She’s now an RN. So, that’s a data point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-dancer-suggest-as-a-vocation/773455.md?page=4)