I’m sitting in June Cade’s brightly lit office, with a beautiful view of Puget Sound, its lush islands, and the Seattle waterfront. June is general manager of the two Lusty Lady Theatres — one in Seattle, the other in San Francisco. She has been managing the theatres since 1981, during which time she’s taken them from being run of the mill peep shows to being quality theatres for sexual entertainment, where dancers are more likely than not to bring some real playful sexual energy to their job, some interest in real human contact — some genuine erotic presence, however theatrical, amplified, or camp.
June is explaining her business philosophy by way of telling me how she consistently “beats down” the competition from other “Live Nude Dancer” shows. It’s a story worth telling because, according to June, the way to be successful in the live sex entertainment business is to treat the people you deal with — dancers, staff, customers, even neighbors and civic leader types — with courtesy and respect.
June is no naive idealist. She knows she’s in the sex business, and that a peep show is, in the end, nothing more than a peep show. At the same time she believes strongly that sexual business is as legitimate as any other, and therefore no excuse to treat other people, or be treated by other people, as anything less than full, first-class human beings.
“We hire women who like what they’re doing,” June explains. “Then we protect them so they’re in charge of the situation, so they can be nice to the customers. It pays off for everybody. It pays off for us, pays off for the customers, pays off for the dancers.”
Overhead costs at the Lusty, according to June, are a great deal higher than at other live peeps. To begin with, dancers are paid decent salaries — $8 to $21 an hour, depending on experience. In addition, the Lusty believes in the importance of having an extensive, skilled administrative staff, and they pay their payroll taxes meticulously.
Because sexual entertainment is so controversial, it’s easy for people in sexually oriented businesses to fall into an underground, outlaw mentality. You think we’re mean and nasty, we’ll show you mean and nasty. You think we’re slime, let’s get into being slime. You think sex is about breaking rules, then to hell with all the rules. Like much essential work that no one likes to think about, let alone do, sex work often appeals to people with strong rebellious streaks. It also has a way of creating rebels out of less confrontational folks who just get tired of being treated as low-life all the time.
To her credit, June refuses to be exiled into this sort of outlaw attitude. She runs her theatres as upstanding business enterprises, not contraband. She is a respected member of Seattle’s downtown Business Improvement Association, and goes out of her way to maintain good business and personal relationships with the other downtown business people.
“Most adult business operators put themselves on the fringes,” June says. If they wanted to, she believes, they too could have cooperative, courteous relationships with the non-sexual businesses around them.
June was introduced to the Lusty in 1981 by her friend and lover, Bill Cooley, who owned the theatres. Talking with Bill and his show director (shift manager) in the course of being shown around, she asked why they didn’t they call a meeting of the dancers to discuss various issues that were being difficult. The (male) show director laughed at what he took to be her naivety.
“You can’t expect women like this to be responsible enough to come to a meeting,” he chided.
“Women like this!” June sneers, remembering the moment vividly. “He talked about the dancers as ‘women like this.’ That’s when I realized that this could be a fun job and that I could make a real difference.” She signed up to be general manager and see what she could accomplish, thinking that she would stay in the job three years at most. Twelve years later she’s still there, and can look back at how she has entirely transformed the Lusty, for dancers and customers alike.
“I’ve got to give Bill credit,” June says, remembering the man she describes as playful, funny, and generous. “He totally turned the business over to me.” She pauses, tears coming to her eyes, reaching for a tissue. Bill died in 1988 of a heart attack. He was 53. The business is now a corporation, with a majority of women on the board of directors.
The first thing June did as manager was to make the dancers’ dressing room off limits to male staff, who were used to being able to come and go at will. This infuriated the men, but June was adamant. For her it was a matter of basic privacy and respect. She also established a policy of hiring only women to be show directors.
“There are certain things men just don’t understand,” she says quietly. “Like about the dancers’ embarrassment. They can’t understand that just because someone has a job dancing without their clothes on doesn’t mean they’re not modest.”
June believes strongly that it’s just not possible for a male show director to do the job effectively. Part of this has to do with being sensitive to and respectful of the feelings of the dancers, as with the issue of dressing room privacy. Also important is that the show director has to be able to hold ground and not be pushed around or manipulated by the dancers.
“You’re dealing with sixty beautiful women, women who are used to getting their own way,” she explains. “Show directors have to be able to enforce standards without being domineering. They have to be able to treat women respectfully but not be bowled over by them.” It’s simply impossible, she believes, for a man to maintain some sense of objectivity and not be intimidated by the collective power of these beautiful, naked, unapologetically sexual women.
“Men get manipulated [by sexy women] and then they get angry,” she says wisely. The last thing a show director needs is to be carrying around resentment about being dangled by his cock. The Lusty did experiment with a male show director once after she was manager, June recalls. “It was a disaster,” she grimaces, without going into the details.
According to June, show directors need to be intelligent and sensitive about the sex entertainment business, but also realistic about it. “It’s important that people not try to make this into something it’s not, not to think we’re doing some great service for mankind. I mean, it’s a peep show, after all!” she laughs.
What does it take to be a good performer at the Lusty? The most important thing to June is that dancers be able to smile genuinely, to be seductive, to be openly sexual without going against their own standards — their morals, their ethics, their personal sexual beliefs.
“Dancers need to be comfortable with their own sexuality, and comfortable with men and male sexuality too. They also have to be able to genuinely interact with the customers, otherwise they’re going to get bored. Exhibitionism is also important — an inherent delight in being seen naked.” She laughingly calls the dancers “a group of little show-offs.” And more important than simply being raunchy is the quality of the sexual energy passing between dancer and customer, some sense of real (even if make-believe), honest (even if invented) connection across the glass.
What dancers don’t have to do is to allow themselves to be directed by the customers or to feel that they have to perform for customers in any way that doesn’t feel comfortable or natural. This is the primary way that the theatres protect the dancers’ work situation. Customers who are rude or disrespectful of the dancers, or who try to dictate to the dancers what they should do, are told in no uncertain terms that they’re out of line. If they persist, they find themselves out on the street.
In terms of personal appearance, the Lusty Lady Hiring Criteria are quite straightforward:
• No body or facial piercings (other than pierced ears) are allowed while working.
• No tattoos on arms or breasts. Tattoos elsewhere must be small and feminine.
• Your hair must be long and healthy. (At least past your jaw line.)
• You must have a waist and a trim stomach.
• Your body should be firm with smooth skin, a clear complexion, and a minimum of cellulite.
• An attractive smile is important; so are clean, healthy teeth.
• Your height is of no importance, but that you are well-proportioned in relation to your height is important.
• Overall, your look should be beautiful and healthy.
• Please be honest with yourself.
Women who are interested in becoming dancers at the Lusty apply at the theatres. They must speak and understand English fluently, have a valid state photo ID, phone number, and social security card, and be on time for their appointments. A show director will take them around, explain how the theatre works and what is expected from the dancers — mainly that they make eye contact with the customers, that they be seductive, and that they be comfortable with themselves about doing this job.
Women who are interested make an appointment to come back at a later date for an audition. June wants prospective dancers to take time and really think about whether they want to do this job. She knows that being a public sex object can be emotionally as well as physically draining. (Dancers, on the average, stay at the Lusty about a year or two before moving on.)
For their auditions, women choose stage names and bring their own costumes, as well as three or four songs to dance to. If hired, they start at $8 an hour and get a raise of $1 an hour every two weeks up to $21 an hour, if all goes well on the job. This means not only maintaining a good attitude with customers, but also being responsible, showing up for work on time, cooperating and getting along with the other dancers.
One thing that many dancers have a hard time understanding, June says, is that working as an erotic dancer is as much “a real job” as any job in the non-sexual world. Showing up late, flaking on a shift, or calling up to cancel a shift at the last minute are definitely not ok.
In other words, there are two sides to the coin of treating sexual work with real respect.
Spectator magazine, September 3, 1993
Copyright © 1993 David Steinberg
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