I am a stripper.  There, I said it.  But typing that into a document is radically different from saying it to people.  And I suppose it should be.  We don't really need to be forthright with every person we meet, happily admitting we are passive aggressive, narcissists, clinically depressed, masochists, knitters, scrabble players.  Really it does not have to be so extreme as a pathology.  People collect things; they put much effort into organizing and archiving their collections.  Some join clubs, online or face-to-face, where they spend a considerable amount of their time interacting with like-minded people talking about the things they like. 

This is what normal people to do:  they like to talk about the thing they are into.  My husband talks endlessly to anyone who will listen about music.  He thinks sometimes that he does it too much, that others are annoyed by his enthusiasm, but frankly I think – and I'm sure others do, too – that his passion is charming, maybe even inspirational.  I, however, do not have that luxury.  The other day I was bombarded with an overzealous bartender who kept disturbing my companion and I with his mundane 20 questions.  He asked:  "So, what do you do?"  I took a deep breath and held it for a moment. 

Whenever someone asks me that question, my neurons start firing.  I have to think quick because most people have a pat response and if you hesitate for too long the other person either thinks you are lying or are a loser who really doesn't do anything.  I don't really mind if people think I'm the latter.  It's that when you take that extra beat to think about how, this time, you are going to answer the question that people think you're going to fluff up your credentials, making yourself a "freelance executive" when really you walk some rich bitch's dog twice a day and pick its shit up with a newspaper from the garbage because you forgot the plastic bags at home.  This is not my problem. 

Far from it.  In fact, my credentials are probably way to fancy for where I really am in life.  Technically speaking, I am a doctor.  And I say technically, which I know is a peculiar way to put it, because I am a paper doctor.  That means all I did was spend a really long time in school where you learn how to fabricate how the crap you are studying is legitimate.  So that now I have the "doctor" before and the title "Assistant Professor" after my name, you would think I could easily answer the question with "I am a professor."

But you see that answer is both too easy and imprecise.  First of all I think I tricked my college into hiring me so the title after my name feels a bit like a farce.  If I was a real academic I would be a professor at Harvard or Princeton.  I would wear ascots and a cable-knit sweater with suede elbows patches even in the summer.  Plus, I am much more than that designation signifies.  Of course this is true for any human being:  we are not one-dimensional objects with singular intentions who follow robot-like logical progressions.  We like to dabble, to experiment, to try new recipes in the kitchen and new classes at the gym.  Maybe even take in a film we've never heard about on a whim.  And that's a good thing.  You can't assume that because someone gets married when they are 23 and starts popping out babies and moves to the suburbs that they are boring and oppressed and uninteresting and uncreative.  That very well may be the case more often than not but you cannot make that hasty generalization.

You see, and here's where we get to the crux of the issue here, I am a stripper.  I use the choreography of striptease to create narrative performance art pieces.  Even now I am qualifying it by throwing that "performance art" crap in there.  Occasionally I tell people I am a stripper (though of course not when I'm talking to the overzealous bartender or are on a job talk for a professorship).  I think I do it for shock value.  I don't really claim it.  I don't tell my parents that I'm a stripper.  I have told them that I do burlesque, but I don't reiterate it in that name.  I use the words "variety" and "vaudeville" when describing my performances to certain people more often than more loaded terms.  It's not that I care, ultimately, what people think of me at a show.  In fact, I strive to give people some version of being that may very well be over the top, theatrical, "beyond" expectation so that in that context, I often push the boundaries of respectable decorum.  It's that I care what they think of me offstage.  This is a terrible way to be.  Unfortunately, I don't want people to have certain perceptions of me. 

I am not as strong as others. 

It's undeniable that in the majority of the mainstream population's mindset, burlesque is synonymous with striptease.  I can't undo that in a 5-minute conversation nor in an interaction with, say, a grandparent.  Nor do I care to.  For those I have more time with I may explain the situation.  I tell my students in The History of Burlesque course that I teach once a year at New York University that I am a burlesque performer on the first day of class.  This is because 1) they'll find out eventually; and 2) I am proud to be involved in the community that is the subject of the course.  I find the history of burlesque and its current incantation fascinating, conceptually complex and layered, and just plain fun; this makes sense in a drama department that your teacher both studies and does the thing they are teaching.

I would never, however, tell my students at the college I teach at that I am a burlesque performer.  I do not tell my colleagues nor the administration; every semester that I fill out my "Outside Activities Report" for the Dean I feel a pang of anxiety.  Of course one does not have to divulge every little thing one does but because the thing that I do is also bound up with my academic work and because I make some money at it and because I spend a shit load of my timing doing it, then technically speaking I should put it on my report. 

Imagine:  "Other Outside Activity:  STRIPPER:  Taking my clothes off primarily in nightclubs and/or theatres; sewing said costumes for said disrobing; updating website and myspace accounts; booking shows; sending out press releases, etc., etc."  If I could get credit for stripping as an "academic activity" I would be set.  I imagine seeing my co-workers on Monday, me blurry-eyed from 3 hours of sleep, them puffy eyed from eating too much salty popcorn in front of the television the night before: 

"How was your weekend?"

"Fine.  How was yours?"

"Fine.  Too short."

"Oh yeah.  Me too."

You see, I am a coward.  I don't have the guts to run around telling everyone I am a burlesque performer.  Because, really, if you say you are a burlesque performer than you should be prepared to tell people you are a stripper.  Not all burlesque performers strip and burlesque is not reducible to stripping.  But it's rarer than not that folks who do burlesque don't strip.  So I suppose what I'm up against here is a bit of an existential crisis:  I want to change the world's perception of burlesque at the same moment that I want to preserve it.  I don't give a shit if the average American thinks that Michelle L'Amour is going to hell for her "striptease" version of Snow White on America's Got Talent.  (It's easier to dismiss than to educate.)  On the other hand, I feel an itch to "legitimize" the performance form through my "respectable" and "reputable" academic gaze.  It's a terrible place to be in but also fun and liberating:  I feel a little like Superman, that I have this alter-ego that comes out to save people from their drab little lives and live it up a little.  So maybe it should be a secret.  For if Superman ran around telling everyone he was Superman, it may take away from his super powers.  He's got the secret mojo going for him.  And so do I.

POSTSCRIPT:  Less than 24 hours after writing this, I presented a paper at a conference called "Carnal Knowledge."  While setting up the equipment, one of the organizers casually quipped:  "Last year we had a stripper.  I draw the line somewhere."  Indeed.  This was my perfect opportunity to "come out," to preface my talk with the admission that I am a burlesque performer and by that you probably instantly think stripper so, OK, yes, I'm a stripper.  I had my eloquent response all written out.  But because the keynote speaker went 40 minutes over (whose talk, by the way, was an hour and ½ treatise on the big black male penis and the small white male penis!) I did not have time for any "ad libbing."  Or so that's my excuse.  And so I wait for the opportunity to claim this moniker.  But I suppose if you are still reading this, then someone already knows.