I see the activity of swinging from a pole or dancing naked before strangers to be an exercise in vulnerability. You aren't even measured for your thoughts. You are seen as a thing, a pair of legs, a butt, two breasts, and a face that reminds them of someone they used to know and wanted to fuck. You are an art object hanging on a wall and they are on a bench. They look at the piece and go into a coma. You can't revive them as they experience an epileptic seizure. Their eyes are damp. They see themselves as inferior, then mad at you. You are completely exposed, but they are nervous. They feel naked. They feel ashamed. They know they can't have you. And you don't want them, because they allowed themselves. They have no grace, no discipline. They can't argue because the action of being there undermines their position. These aren't real men, because they have to visit kept women, women, who either need these jobs, or who enjoy controlling men, and laughing at how superficial they are. No, they understand that you can develop feelings, but they also know that they will never be the recipient of your real love. They aren't good enough. They are fallen. You are the God. You are their judge and executioner. We, or most of us, wish someone so beautiful could love us, because we don't love ourselves. We are judged guilty by beauty. We realize, we are only skin deep. We cannot possibly imagine that you take a crap just like we do, and binge on Netflix. You think about how you will make the rent, take care of your children, make it to retirement, how you are going to make it through another night with a bunch of losers, but with whom you are tied. It's a lie and it is strenuous, not so much for the actual physicality of dancing, but with the repetition, the utter boredom of this carnival act repeating over and over. The same questions, the same answers. The underlying humor. You'll say almost anything at this point becuase you have said almost everything. It's hard to keep making things up and you hate repeating yourself. You want it to end, but there doesn't seem to be an end. It just keeps going and you need more and more to make it through. You take more chances and then finally it all catches up, and there is one person who sets you back, one accident, one statement you wish you had held, one event you couldn't foresee. Someone crosses the line. "Suddenly, all men are experts on the matter" of your life and they have no idea. They can never be me. I understand all of it and I am the thing that is being watched, not the person inside. When someone recognizes this, I tilt my head up. It's actually quite simple. Instead of lusting after me, you watched what I do. What it might be like following in my footsteps. You take your own clothes off and stand in front of a mirror and you laugh. You dance and try to look pretty, sexy, lithe, and beautiful. It works for a while, and then you laugh so hard that you end up crying. That's when you love that person, who seems to get you. The one who completes your sentences, offers you a nice dinner, to take care of the children, to water the plants, to sit quietly and let you talk.