REFLECTIONS OF A HUMBLE STRIPPER

I spent my entire life feeling like I had to gatekeep myself. Being taught to make myself smaller and not draw attention. Rebellion looks different for everyone but the day I chose the love of myself over the fear of judgement was the day I truly starting living.

Becoming a stripper was simultaneously one of the proudest and most confronting moments of my life. My story started with growing up in a cult with my mum, under the crippling fear of judgment from her and the church, from my absent but looming father, who is Muslim, and from a culture I always felt alienated and disconnected from whilst growing up. I was either never enough or too much. I struggled so long to try and fit the mold.

I spent most of my adolescence in Isolated and conditioned to feel shame around my myself, my desires for freedom and expression, my body and especially the idea of sex and pleasure. The fear was so ingrained that I would have panic attacks before bed every night because I believed I wasn’t worthy and would die during my sleep, doomed to eternal hell. My mums dooms day prophecies a constant echo was all I had guiding me. I lived in fear for so much of my life as a result.

Becoming a sex worker - and one that enjoyed it as well- I can safely say is not something that my mum would have prayed for…

In my journey of understanding and healing my relationship with myself this was a pivotal moment of growth and expansion. I remember thinking to myself, What is the most confronting way to face this fear of being seen and judged for simply existing and being unapologetic in my expression?

I never realised it would be one of those moments of awakening, Of feeling so comfortable in my skin, more-so than I had ever felt on the street. It was like entering a complete world of fantasy where I was encouraged and rewarded for being myself, perfectly imperfect.

Through dancing I connected to an energy that exudes so much power, sensuality and has continued to help me uncover the confidence in myself that lay dormant. I’ve had the honour to get to know and love some of the most special and beautiful, crazy women so intimately which I will be forever grateful for. Some of the most realest and magical souls that mirrored back to me unconditional love and acceptance. despite the air of competition, sisterhood and respect was always paramount. Girls would always come first. If someone tried to bring someone else’s reputation down there would be no mercy.

I saw how their belief of themselves made them glow and manifest the life they desire. I felt so held and safe when they chose to impart their wisdom onto me. Dancing gave me the freedom to transcend the limitations I had set for myself and take back my power. It allowed me the space to focus on my creations and find my voice. It even allowed me to tap into the ability to orgasm purely from someone playing with my boobs 😂😂

Dancers are masters of the human condition and some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I have so much respect for those that pioneered the road that I’m now allowed to explore with less stigma. They taught me to know my value and how to ask for it.

I’m also thankful to live in a country that the judgement is not a life sentence and public shunning - despite its still inherent dangers. Physically and socially.

To get on a stage naked and say “ hey! look at me, give me money,” requires so much courage. To face your own shame and feelings of inadequacy whilst holding space for the inevitable comparison and criticism. 

This job requires you to face rejection, instability, pure ignorance, and its worst - disgust and arrogance - all while you are interacting in your most vulnerable state.

The club is the ego’s playground—status, money, and beauty are its currency, a reflection of the world at large.

To work as a stripper you see the shadow of society. Underneath it all, I saw that people are battling demons of loneliness and craving connection more than anything, but using perverse ways to try and claim it.

You come face-to-face with the egos and insecurities of others—and most importantly yourself. Slowly, you peel back the masks people wears to protect themselves. The question is how are you meant to find connection while navigating the transactional aura of mistrust and manipulation? A by product of this world we live in, and what keeps up perpetually suffering.

Some people want to humiliate you. Some try to control you and push your boundaries. Some will lie straight to your face.

You hold space for so much pain, unhealed energy, and projection.

And it will get to you at some point.

One way you’ll be forced to face yourself.

Either in love or in fear.

Moments as a women when you face the reality of the harshness of this world,

It might be after some man looks you straight in the face and calls you nothing but a dirty stripper or whore.

They might jeer at you about your relationship with your father and point out that no one will ever love you.

That you’re unattractive and how much they’d rather a dance from someone that looks the complete opposite.

The inevitable line crossing of unwanted and harmful touches. Both Men and Woman feeling entitlement to you body and forgetting that you are in fact a human being.

It might be when you come home at 6 AM after working 11 hours straight with no money. Rejection after rejection slowly watching your self worth plummet.

You might start to think - “If only I was more attractive, or had bigger boobs or fit the standard of beauty, maybe then they would see my worth”..

It might be when you feel like you have to live a double life because of the shame from a society that still views sex work as sinful—less valid—simply because it found a loophole in capitalism and challenges its very nature.

Those that stand proud online in their identities and stories often suppressed and demonetised for their “corruptive influences”.

Or it might be in those moments where you try to balance your sense of self and authenticity while resisting the seduction of the material world—the extravagance that is ultimately shallow and empty. Our human attempt to harness god and master reality through will alone.

Maybe its what you think you need in the moment? Once you have all the validation and money in the world. Maybe then you’ll be happy… Maybe then you’ll be free.

But the cycle of satisfying and feeding into your fears and ego will keep you perpetually trapped. I’ve experienced that in more ways than one.

My hot take is all you needed to realise that freedom starts the moment you let go of fear.

Maybe I was always drawn to this occupation because I’ve never been one to enjoy following the rules. Or accept exploitation with no questions asked.

I’ve always been seduced by a curious thought.

But the thing is every single time i’ve faced my fear its never been as bad as I thought. It hasn’t been a comfortable experience, to say the least—but no journey of evolution ever is.

The biggest fear I had to face was my mother and my fear of hell. Who as a result disowned me, caged in her own repressed fears and judgments. I would receive the occasional email telling me the devil has my soul.

The thing is, I don’t give a fuck what people think anymore. Not even her anymore.

I wanna be honest. This is my life.

I’m insane. I’m probably a pagan witch. I’m probably the devil or maybe mum was right and i’m going to hell. 😂😂

but I’ve never felt so free in my life. I believed everything and everyone was out to kill me or take from me, and I had to survive. But now I’m learning how to thrive in abundance and surrender.

I’ve liberated my mind, body, and soul, and I just don’t care.

Projection of fear is someone else’s battle, not my own.

Men and suppressed women hate to see a girl-boss winning and empowered because that’s what they desire more than anything for themselves. Liberation from their caged mind and from the fear of themselves.

It was the beginning of my journey of trusting myself again and now I’m gonna do whatever my intuition encourages me to do—because its been working so far

—-

Shame around pleasure, sex, and the body is deeply rooted in cultural, religious, and archaic conditioning—all based in fear of the unknown, the fear of separation, the fear that if women feels embodied and desirable in themselves - they may not even desire or need men.

We have denied and been cut off from our energy—an energy naturally connected to pleasure, sensuality, and creation.

And when society tries to suppress that, it creates a disconnect between pleasure and worthiness.

A void of creativity and openness that’s been attempted to be filled with the pursuit of perfection.

Filled with noise and the illusion of business and progress.

A pursuit that causes all of us suffering, disconnection, and distrust for one another.

Reclaiming your right to pleasure-through connectedness to the self—is a sacred act of coming home to our divine nature.

It’s an energy of healing.

That’s why people spend so much to experience it. That’s why they try so hard to control it.

When you feel comfortable in your skin and your spirit, you no longer search for external validation in the purchasing of things or the desires of to please other people.

If women were confident and free in expressing their sexuality, it would challenge the very structures of control and insecurity that this world relies on.

We wouldn’t be fighting each other for dominance to prove our worth.

We wouldn’t be shaming those wild, shameless the parts of ourselves that have long been buried.

We would remember it exists already, in abundance. We would collaborate. We would build through healing and deep understanding.

That why no matter how much shame the dominant and fearful masculine energy tries to impart on this world as a means of trying to control the unknown

It can never really kill our source of creativity and their desire to take part in it. These places will always exist, because these pockets are a result of a repressed culture—it always creates vacuums.

All women would be seen as powerful, autonomous beings whose worth isn’t based on submission and how well they follow orders, but on their inherent ability to create, experience pleasure, and live fully in their bodies.

To be fully free.

To be fully liberated.

I don’t know, but that sounds like a win-win for everyone especially with the state of the world we live in.

This is my vision for the future.

I’m just searching for peace, acceptance, and safety—like all of us.

I am not afraid to express myself.

There is so much power in vulnerability. It is the very fabric that heals.

That is something Men need to face. To face that truth that surrender is not weakness.

To face centruties of opressions

because in truth there is no separation. We just cant see past because of all the pain we’ve endured.

We are cut from the same cloth.

I know the story of shame is one that many people struggle with. Man, Woman, In any form you express yourself.

But what I’ve realised through all of this is—shame is not real.

It is nothing more than the fear of rejection and abandonment from safety and from receiving love. The world will not end if embrace the unknown instead of avoid it.

Fear keeps us abandoning ourselves. safety and love already exists within all of us.

i’ll wrap up with one more little thought.

The strip club is definitely an accurate portrayal of the underworld, but why did it feel like home?

Maybe Men are right that Eve was the bringer of death. But in death there is always rebirth.

And the most ironic part is i found god there too.

Shes a stripper 🤭🤭🤭

So I give praise to the most high, to all the beautiful women in my life and to the duality of the feminine because hell has no fury like an empowered woman’s scorn

☥☥☥☥☥

Hana