Hey Honey Take a Walk on the Dark Side

The Chez Girls é um documentário fotográfico de Ondine Whitman sobre um peculiar grupo de strippers de Tenderloin, as esclavagistas da noir culture, da mera sobrevivência, encostadas à morte, às recompensas gastas, aos distúrbios da alma e às parafilias malvistas. A vida resumindo-se a uma mera confirmação fodida, a uma doença sexual transmisível, a um prazer em território de machos é uma ferida sinistra em linhas rectas que se cruzam. O post é dedicado ao meu amigo T..

" Karen was the smart one, always watching her back. She looked like she'd been around the block - a lot.
It was always business with Karen. Even when she was blow drying her hair - you could see her mind busy with calculations of the days revenue. She was charming in a crude sort of way.
I asked her once how she ended up in this particular dive. She was no beginner and I figured that with her 'abilities' she'd be in a better place by now. She gave me a thumbnail. . .What I can piece together is that she was a madame, had a good amount of girls under her, was doing well for herself, got busted and did some time.
I watched her calculated dances and her practiced come-ons and wondered if she would again turn Trick to Trade."

"Jezebel is probably the strongest woman I've met. I'd watch the coldness in her eyes as she stared at her own naked body in a mirror while she danced and then feel the suffocating warmth of her voice when she talked about her dying son.
Jezebel began dancing three nights a week and every other weekend when she found out her seven-year-old son had a brain tumor. Within weeks the tumor had spread. He was in and out of hospitals every couple of days.
One day you're an accountant, at a desk all day, phone calls, lunch breaks, errands, carpools. The next you're given a $20 bill to sit on a man, press against him, hold him, touch him - until he gets off. Trip."

"Casey was sick. Not take some Nyqil and weed kinda sick. More like, cough so much your throat bleeds, so weak you can barely climb the stairs up to the stage.
It was rumored she had AIDS, all anyone knew for sure was how hard she worked. She was at the club every morning and she closed the place every night. When things were slow she'd serve drinks for extra tips.
She told me how much she loved Marilyn Monroe, how she was so beautiful and talented. It was sad to watch Casey dance, sad to watch her drag her lifeless body across the floor, touch herself - not to be sexy but to keep from having to move too much. And the coughing, coughing on stage for minutes at a time. Most men would move to the back of the room, too ashamed and scared.
All this so she could get insurance to cover some of the medical bills.
You can only get the insurance if you're unemployed, and you can only survive if you have an income. So there you are getting paid under the table at a strip joint, just to stay alive."

"Daria was a night girl , which meant Friday and Saturday nights, bigger crowds, drunker men, more competition. This is the time when all the younger/hotter girls came out of hiding. When I first saw Daria, I didn't think much, until I saw her dance.
She came out on stage to "Jungle Boogie", and danced so fiercely that people were held paralyzed in their seats. She danced like she had something to prove.
By the second song she'd done away with her dress and wig. Now she just looked mean - but in a sexy, fetish sort of way.
Out of all the dancers she semed to have the most fun. Flirting with every guy, staring people right in the eye. She was not shy and she was not graceful. She was the perfect Punk Rock stripper."

"The first time I shot strippers, I wasn't sure what to do. This wan't a headshot/fashion shoot. I didn't just want to take some pictures - I wanted to change the world. Show that it means something different to each of us - to survive.
When I came face to face with strippers for the first time - I was shocked - none of them looked like airbrushed Barbie Dolls. They looked so real.
I got Lena and Mona on stage - the owner gives me one last set of instructions, "Make 'um hot."
Christ, could I have gone in a worse direction?? Two girls, lips to necks, hands on asses, lips and tounges, legs intertwined. B grade porn at best. What was I doing, these women were more then this - but I couldn't get past the obvious."