Tamara Kandakher
Staff Writer
@anima_tk
On his website, Antonio* is dressed in various uniforms ranging from sailor, to construction worker, to cowboy. His most popular outfits are a fireman and a cop, but sometimes his clients prefer him naked. Antonio is a male stripper making a living in Toronto.
- Male strippers have it the hardest with small wages and feisty women. wikimedia.
Antonio is 37 years old. He maintains his fit body by hitting the gym five days a week. He never planned on becoming a stripper, but after being laid off from his job at a factory, the comparatively fast-paying world of exotic dancing became a viable option.
His ex-girlfriend, also an exotic dancer at the time, saw his struggle to make ends meet and suggested that he strip part-time to get back on his feet. Antonio reluctantly accompanied her to a male strip bar to see exactly what the job entailed. Twice he went home discouraged, terrified by the prospect of taking it all off in front of a crowd of drunken women. Only on his third visit did he build up the confidence to try it out.
“The rest was history,” he says.
When he was called back to his old job, Antonio was already stripping regularly. He continued to do both until his factory closed down in the 2008 economic downturn. Seizing the chance to try something new, Antonio took a correspondence course to become an insurance broker—he is now an established broker with a growing list of clients.
Antonio continues to strip on Friday and Saturday nights at an Etobicoke strip bar, and makes up to $150 in tips per night plus a base fee paid by the bar. He also typically receives several requests per week to dance at private parties where he can make anywhere from $150 to $250 depending on the location.
Though the job pays a lot, Antonio still finds that stripping is not the best job in the world, as some might believe. Antonio says while most women are happy to see a good performance, some of them expect to see you take it all off, which is a service he no longer offers. Mix that with copious amounts of alcohol, an occasion to celebrate, and a strict no-sexual-contact-allowed policy and you have a recipe for trouble.
“Sometimes women get upset and try to pull down my underwear,” he says. “I’ve been bitten, I’ve been followed home several times. They become so obsessive.”
His biggest pet peeve is when a drunken girl comes on stage and ruins his signature dance routine. “I’m a performer and I like to be in control,” he says. “I hate when they come on stage and act stupid.”
The biggest obstacle Antonio faces is the stigma people have towards his profession. People generally believe that male strippers choose to be in their profession because they find it fun, whereas females are always thought to be forced into it because of a lack of ambition or skill to pursue other goals.
According to Antonio, there is only one difference between female and male strippers: women consistently earn more than men. While male strip club patrons have always been willing to drop entire paychecks on women, women are not yet ready to spend so much to see some skin.
“It’s a completely different business,” says Antonio, referring to the hours of operation of male strip bars as opposed to female ones. “You can’t really compare the two, considering the hours we work.”
Male strip bars are typically only open two nights a week from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., while female strip bars are open seven days a week from about 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. There is also a higher demand for female dancers as there are dozens of strip bars around the city. “Ladies’ Nights” at strip clubs are a relatively new phenomenon.
Despite all of this, Antonio doesn’t regret becoming a male stripper. Even if his job gives him a hard time occasionally, there is never a dull moment.
He’s danced in backyards, at camps, in corporate offices for women of all races and walks of life. He’s entertained at hundreds of birthday parties ranging from 19-year-old clients to 80-year-old clients. He’s stripped for women for their bachelorette parties, and had the same women come back
to him to celebrate their divorces.
Recently, he stripped out of a Santa costume for a group of 60 women all over the age of 65. “In 12 years, I think I’ve danced for three generations,” he says. “There’s been some great experiences.”
At the moment, Antonio is preparing to quit stripping completely—he knows his time is limited. “I’m 37 years old now,” he says. “I’m not 25 anymore so I have to make the most of it.”
*Name has been changed for confidentiality
