YAS Podcast: East London Stripper Collective #144 Transcript
In this episode of YAS Podcast, hosts AM Davies (AMD) and Emily welcome Sam Sun from the East London Stripper Collective. The discussion covers the collective’s history, their efforts in decriminalizing sex work, and the diverse initiatives they are involved in, including their innovative tour of the ‘strip mile’ in East London. Sam also shares insights into the challenges faced by sex workers in the UK and the community’s unique relationship with kink culture. They highlight the importance of creating supportive, ethical environments within the industry and the collective’s ongoing efforts to humanize and advocate for sex workers.
*This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors.* Begin transcript after opening credits.
AMD: [00:01:00] Hey, y’all, AMD here for another amazing recording of YAS Podcast. Um, super special, exciting recording time. Emily is with me today. What’s up Emily?
Emily: Hey.
AMD: Hi.
Emily: How are you doing?
AMD: Hi. I’m fucking great and I’m really stoked about how good our backgrounds match and look, I’m just feeling more and more professional with every recording.
Emily: Yeah.
AMD: Um, I’m excited today ’cause you’re gonna stay on with me. Normally we have the producers pop off, but I don’t know, it just kind of felt fun to do like a group chat. Right.
Emily: Yeah. I love the group thing.
AMD: Yeah. So like this is your official first, like you’re hosting a podcast now? You’re a podcast hoster.
Officially today. Right now.
Emily: Alright. Yeah. I’m excited. Let’s do it.
AMD: Me too. So, today we, um, we have with us Sam Sun, Samantha Sun from the East London Stripper Collective. Come on in and say hello.
Sam: Hi, [00:02:00] everyone. Hi
AMD: Sam. You’ve been on this podcast before.
Sam: I have.
AMD: This is your second time.
Sam: Yes. Beautiful. Yes.
AMD: Yes.
Today you’re representing East London Stripper Collective because we want to know. What y’all are up to over there. Uh, it’s part of, um, this thread that we’re working on where we’re bringing awareness to a lot of the sex worker organizations all around the world and what they’re up to. Um, so I really just wanted to create like a library of recordings about what’s happening currently in today’s world with all of these amazing various sex worker organizations and the people behind them. So that’s what, and Emily, you don’t know that much about the East London Shipper Collective, do you?
Emily: No, I don’t. I’m so excited.
AMD: Yeah. So we’re gonna want you to ask questions so that Perfect. Because what you don’t know, also, the audience might not know.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
AMD: So you’re gonna be helping the audience today learn things that like, I’m like, oh, I already know [00:03:00] all of this, you know?
Emily: Mm-hmm. .
AMD: Yeah. So, um, so Sam, how are you doing?
Tell us, like, give us a brief synopsis of Eastland and Stripper Collective and em, maybe when you’re not talking mute, I’m gonna mute for the talk and so that our audience knows what is East London Stripper Collective and who are some, maybe some other people that couldn’t be here with you today that, um, you know, deserve recognition for their work, et cetera.
Um, yeah, thanks. So the East London Strippers Collective, uh. Right now is a CIC, which is the UK’s legal structure for a social enterprise. Um, as far as I know, the US doesn’t have a version of this. Like they don’t have like an in-between.
AMD: Mm-hmm.
Sam: But it just started really as a group of dancers who worked in East London specifically at a club called The White Horse, which is no longer with us, and we’re joined together by their, uh, joint agg grievances with their working conditions and [00:04:00] started producing all kinds of events from pop-up clubs at this old place called the Aquarium.
It had a swimming pool. I went in it, I can’t believe I didn’t get some kind of bacterial infection. Um, we run a flagship stripper life drawing, um, weekly life drawing class. As far as I know, we are the originators of that. And I am here to represent us as a director and a member, but we have had many, many founding and new members, um, one of which is Stacy Claire, who wrote The Ethical Stripper.
Um, I got a shout out. Maddie xx. Maddie Sexy on Instagram, who, uh, has been doing a lot of the slagmin. Is what we call it admin, but slagmin. Oh yeah,
yeah.
AMD: Yes. I love that.
Sam: Okay. We’ve had like lots of like veterans, um, I’ll shout out [00:05:00] Cheeky Love Carrie Gold. Um, we’ve had Lauren Elise as well, and we’ve, we’ve so many different dancers as our models.
Um, truly everyone from everywhere. We try to be international as well. So, um, AM has modeled for us online before Blaine Petrovia has modeled online for us before as well. So we’ve, um, yeah, just sort of been all over the place. I guess like what is different about us to a lot of sex worker organizations, um, in general is that we’re not a classic charity.
Like we’re not just doing advocacy. I think a lot of us are reckoning with the fact that in order to do this work, we have to make money.
AMD: Mm-hmm.
Sam: So we have to be able to create our own working conditions that repackage our erotic labor, the stuff that we learn in the club. Yeah. And [00:06:00] give it to the public in a way that allows ’em to be outside the club
and
is still revenue generating for us as a company.
And that revenue then keeps people in because it provides them with a sort of stable, um, harm redux place of work. Right. So yeah, that’s the, that’s the, uh, elevator pitch.
AMD: Yeah. Yeah. And how long has East London and Stripper Collective been operating for?
Um, as far as I know, uh, unofficially since 2013, so it’s been more than a decade, but we,
AMD: dang, that’s a
long time.
Sam: I know. But we officially incorporated in 2020 during COVID.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: I mean, so yeah, we’ve, I think, stood the test of time. I think a lot of these popup things die within the first two, three years. Yeah. So I’m really proud that like, we’re at a place where it feels resourced, it feels stable and it feels like it’s, it’s been handed [00:07:00] over before, so I feel comfortable knowing that it can be handed over to a next sort of generation of dancers again.
AMD: That’s awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. I really like the idea of that, doing a bunch of work and then being like, okay, now you do it. You know? Yeah.
Sam: It’s delegation
AMD: because it’s so much work. Right? Yeah. Um, and something that I was impressed by, um, a while back, um, I know we didn’t discuss this in our pre-conversation, but the work that East London Stripper Collective did with FKA twigs, you know?
Yeah. That very, like public work that was like all about, because I’m big on this changing public perception, but it really, like, for me, I, I saw that as like an avenue to reach people to change public perception because. It’s, it was done through such a well-known person. Right. Emily, you know who FK twigs is, right?
Yeah. [00:08:00] So, and I read the comments, I was obsessed with the comments at the time because, um, there were so many people who were like really pissed off
Sam: Yeah.
AMD: That she gave her platform to a group of strippers. Do you feel comfortable just like kind of rehashing, like what that was like at that time? Is that okay to talk about?
Sam: Yeah, I, I, I think there’s, I mean, I won’t say anything that isn’t already on the public record, but
AMD: Totally.
Sam: Um, privately, I know my co-founder, so Stacy did a lot of handholding for, um, FK Twigs management. Uh, again, also privately, we have members in our team who are. Well, we’re, I guess, close friends of Twigs.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: Because they sort of grew up together on the scene, uh, yeah. In London for nightlife and entertainment. And so like, they have a sort of [00:09:00] closer history and knowledge of FK Twigs pre music fame.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: Um, but the gist of it really was just that she even released some music videos and has always done using sex worker aesthetics.
She has a song called Mary Magdalene. Like, she was never subtle about it, I think, but
AMD: Right.
Sam: We gotten to a point with the culture, I guess, where, unless you claim being a sex worker, like using hoe aesthetics is not, I mean Yeah. Like the, the dancers online aren’t having it.
AMD: Right.
Sam: So she released a music video.
Um, or a visual of her actually in a club. Um,
AMD: yeah.
Sam: And people sort of likened it to cosplay, which then in a weird way, I guess, ended up forcing her to come out as a sex [00:10:00] worker or as having done it at some point,
AMD: right. Former, yeah. Yeah,
Sam: yeah. Um, this is also during COVID and so what I will say is that regardless of how people think, she either gracefully or didn’t gracefully handle that situation.
She put her money where her mouth is. Um, personally donated 10 K to a fundraiser, helped raise further almost 20 K, and then split that between two groups. Uh, three groups Lysistrata, us, the East London Strippers Collective. I forget the third one.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: Might’ve been the Black Sex Workers Collective.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: Um.
We were able to distribute that money as just no strings attached emergency grants for people who were out of work at the time because mm-hmm. They would’ve been self-employed.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: Um, it’s not like strip clubs offer, like emergency COVID, self-employed funding. They’re not doing that.
AMD: Right.
Sam: Um, so yeah, [00:11:00] regardless of whatever people think about that whole palava, the fact that the fact that we were able to do that is, yeah.
Important to me and yeah. Like is, as far as I’m concerned, a net good.
AMD: Yeah, and I’m, I was just really pleased to see someone of that caliber be like, okay, like I, you know, I’m, I’m hearing what you’re saying, and like, it’s time to listen and like here’s, you know, there’s, there were actions that she took, you know, because the stripper community like went really, like went for her at that time also, like you said, it was COVID, and we were bored.
Um,
Sam: jobless. It’s jobless behavior. What
job,
Sam: which
is fine. We were jobless.
AMD: What else was we supposed to do?
Sam: Exactly.
AMD: Yeah. Yeah. But, um, em, did you have any like, questions around any of that or thoughts or anything? [00:12:00] Did you hear about that when it happened?
Emily: Uh, I did, I did hear about it when it happened, so I don’t have any questions yet.
Okay. I feel like
I’m still still learning. Yeah.
AMD: So as far,
Emily: but I do
remember when it
happened.
AMD: Yeah. Okay, cool. I wasn’t sure, we weren’t really hanging out then, so I didn’t know. Um, but you did mention like aesthetics, right? Um, and how she uses the aesthetics of, um, sex workers and strippers. And so that’s something that we do want to talk about.
Like, and it also brings up something that we didn’t talk about earlier for me, but like that, you know, you had mentioned earlier that aesthetics is what sort of draws young women it specifically into sex work because we’re using fem bodies, fem aesthetics to portray the work that we’re doing. Right. Um, I just wanna talk about that and also like it’s dawning on me that like, I mean, we’re just so cool looking.
Sex workers, we put a lot of effort into like how we show [00:13:00] up and how we present so that we can sell what it is that we’re doing. Right. And like that must be hard for people to not wanna look like us and act like us. I mean, do you agree or am I like wild? Like what do you think about that?
Sam: Um, yeah, I think there’s like, um, well I think if you, so Maddie, who is part of East London Strippers collective said in our Guardian article about, um, Anora, something that I think was really quite insightful, which is that now post COVID, post OnlyFans, post Cardi B post, you know, the zeitgeist changing.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: Sex workers are cool. Being a horse cool. Like being a successful horse. Cool. Caveat that,
AMD: yeah.
Sam: So there’s a certain level of cultural cachet. That that gives you everyone and their fucking dad wants to be able to [00:14:00] say that they had a sugar daddy or that they like scammed this guy into doing this thing, or you know, that they’re fabulous and glam and like Yeah, of course.
Who wouldn’t wanna do that? Who wouldn’t wanna be that? Um, but then like my art school answer to that is that I think, I think a true subculture is built off of actual experience, right? And the aesthetic that comes out of that often is rooted in some kind of functionality. So like ho aesthetics, hyper fem aesthetics are really just pulled from like trans femme aesthetics.
Right,
AMD: right.
Sam: Which is then informing. Like what hookers are into and where what strippers wear, specifically with the strip club like that is all based on Black American, like fem aesthetics.
AMD: Right.
Sam: There’s just like no way around that.
AMD: Absolutely. [00:15:00]
Sam: And like, I mean, I think of it also in terms of like, if you sort of, if you sort of like compare this to maybe like goth aesthetics,
AMD: right
Sam: Um, these aesthetics are like built into a subculture, which is built on experience. It’s built on gothic literature. It’s built on, um. You know, a sense like, like Victorian oppression and like, that’s what makes it juicy.
But when it’s kind of photocopy of a photocopy, when people just sort of take this, that like, yoink, I’m gonna take that now. Yeah. That I’m not gonna take any of the life experience that comes with it.
AMD: Right.
Sam: That’s when it gets i, I guess, quote unquote problematic. It’s not problematic. People can do whatever the fuck they want, but it, that’s what makes it not pass the sniff test for me.
AMD: Right.
Sam: I can sort of tell that’s not linked to anything and, and this yoinking of aestheticization [00:16:00] without any meaningful sort of depth
AMD: Right.
Sam: Connect to it. You’ll never get innovation out of that. You’re never gonna come up with anything interesting as a result. It just becomes this very postmodern, I’m gonna photocopy a photocopy, a photocopy until the thing that people are referencing is no longer, were strippers slash trans femme sex workers wearing at this time? At this place, it becomes, what do I think? What’s the idea of a hoe wearing, right? And I, that is kind of, I think where people come into, especially now in the digital age, like going into sex work. They’re coming into it having consumed the photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.
And then you gotta like tell them, well, did you look up how you would do your taxes of this? Did you look up how this would affect your migrant status? Did you look up how to [00:17:00] screen a client? Like, do you have someone who will buddy you? And none of this has crossed anybody’s mind,
AMD: Right. Yeah.
Sam: Did you know that like the club or OnlyFans actually takes a cut of your work?
Did you know that? If you put your face on adult work, you will never be able to cross the US border again. Like, well, not again, but I mean,
like that is increasingly,
AMD: it’s challenging. Yeah, it’s challenging. Yeah. Even, yeah, even as crossing the border, like legally as like not, and I wasn’t working, I was always terrified to cross the border.
If they found, if they decided to research me, look me up, if they looked in my bag and then they saw anything, anything that could be related to what I do, I was always terrified. Um, and I got, like, my computer looked through at Heathrow once and I was terrified. Terrified.
Sam: Oh God.
AMD: And I had nothing on me. I didn’t have, um, I [00:18:00] didn’t have stripper shoes on me.
I didn’t have stripper clothes on me, but my computer had like. Stickers all over it, you know, like telling stickers. And then luckily I didn’t have any, any incriminating things on my computer. But if I had one thing, like I was terrified, I got pulled aside and like targeted and all my stuff looked through because I was a female traveling alone.
Sam: Yeah. See, this is where I’m like, this doesn’t make for good aesthetics as it were.
AMD: Right.
Sam: This doesn’t make for good, uh, viral content. This doesn’t make for good fashion. But this is, I guess the reality. And I, I struggle sometimes with the, like, the balance between like, people should have fun, right? We should all get to have fun.
I don’t wanna gate keep pleaser shoes. You can wear whatever you want. I don’t care. It’s fine. You can wear fishnets, it’s fine. But then also, like, it’s weird to me that people don’t have like an innate [00:19:00] curiosity about, well. Why were people wearing pleaser heels? What does this mean? Who started it? Like there’s a, there’s like a root to this and people aren’t interested in it at all, which is Yeah,
AMD: right.
Sam: That’s my problem.
AMD: Yeah, definitely. And now that you ask that question, I’ve actually never asked that question. Like
who? Started,
Sam: I have an answer to this. This is from
AMD: wearing pleasers
first. Okay.
Sam: Tell us. I actually have an answer to this. So this was from, um, one of our good mutual friends from the Old Pros Podcast.
So Okay. Kaitlyn Bailey. Yeah. Told me this random fun fact. I never fact-check her because I don’t even know how I would go about fact-checking this random fact.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: Okay. But apparently like, so each state in the US has like their own obscenity laws and their own laws around like what you can and can’t do in a strip club.
Right?
AMD: Right.
Sam: So they all have like all random laws like anyway, [00:20:00] apparently in one of the O states. So it could be Ohio could be a different one. I don’t know. There’s a law that says that you have to be a certain amount of inches off the floor.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: And away from the customer for it to not count as prostitution.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: And if the stage is only a certain level of inches and you need to get the last eight. Pleasers. Okay. Which I was like blown away by, because I had always thought, well, you just look taller. It’s sexy. They’re easy to dance in. It’s like, no, of course this thing was created as a way to loophole yourself around policy that, policies women’s bodies.
AMD: Yeah. That is interesting. ’cause uh, when I was watching documentaries about strippers from like the nineties, the late eighties into early nineties, they were not wearing platform heels. They were either barefoot on stage or [00:21:00] they would wear these like, almost like ballroom type shoes.
Sam: Yes.
AMD: Like stuff like that. They were not wearing platforms, so, um,
Sam: so something must have changed in like the early two thousands?
AMD: Yes. Yes. Some, I mean, because they were, when I started in 2002. Emily, you also started around the same time as me. Did you not?
Emily: I did, yeah. Mm-hmm.
AMD: Yeah. And they were four and
Emily: it wasn’t,
yeah, it wasn’t, I don’t remember the being the typical would be the, you know, eight inch pleasers then.
I mean it was definitely, but then there was also a baby, so I’m like, maybe I was wearing five inches then and it seemed normal. I dunno.
AMD: Right.
That’s a good point. Like, I’m trying to think like how many people were wearing. I feel like the more, the longer I went on stripping the higher our heels got
Emily: they kept getting higher.
Yeah.
AMD: Time. That’s how, that’s how I feel.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Sam: It’s so interesting, right? Because like, because as an aesthetic, it no longer matters whether or not your club is subject to that policy. Right? Right. You wear it because everyone else is wearing it because you need to [00:22:00] signal somehow that you’re a working girl.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: And in the opposite, right, in some clubs in London that they’re like gentleman clubs. They want to be classy as if a stripper could ever be classy, which is just a funny concept to me. They have laws, they have like, not laws, but they have like rules against like girls wearing too high stripper heels.
They want everything to be like, like you can’t have more than a two inch platform
AMD: whack.
Sam: Which is right. Which is like crazy because I’m kind of like, what? What do, what do you think is happening in here,
AMD: Right.
Sam: Like at our house moms like, what do you think is happening in here? What do you think other people hap think happened in here?
Like I don’t, we’re not fooling anyone. Removing the two inch platform is not helping.
Emily: I’ve worked, I’ve worked at clubs where you had to wear ankle length gowns. Yeah. All the time.
Sam: Yep.
AMD: Yeah, they do that a lot.
Emily: Completely covering, but ankle length [00:23:00] gowns, you know,
Sam: this
is ridiculous because again, I’m like, what do you think is going on in a place like this?
AMD: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Wild. I love this. I love getting into the history of, of stuff I love. I, I’m constantly trying to learn about stripper and pole dancing history as the two are intrinsically connected, and mostly so that I can continuously prove to strippers that. It was, or to pole dancers, that it was strippers that invented all of this shit and where the, you know, the aesthetic is and the, the cosplaying and all of that is infuriating.
Sam: Yeah. Well, yeah, don’t get me started. Yeah, I’m sure. I’m
AMD: sure.
Emily: Is there, is there a way or maybe like some kind of advice or, or I don’t know, just ideas that we could give people who want to, you know, kind of emulate the aesthetics or wherever their, their play might be, but like that they could do so well [00:24:00] still, you know, being respectful and, and giving attention to where it came from.
And, because I feel like a lot of people would be like, so you’re saying like, I can’t wear fishnets, is what you’re saying. Right. And that’s not, that’s not what’s happening. But like any advice to what they could do, just to kind of, I don’t know.
Sam: I, I have a short answer and I have a long answer. Which one do you want?
Both probably
AMD: the long one.
Sam: My short answer would for people who can’t handle more than like 32nd tidbits at a time is just, just advocate for decrim.
AMD: Yeah,
Sam: it’s fine. Cosplay us. I don’t care. As long as you are doing everything in your power to advocate for decrim, fine. The long answer to that question is that like, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to like, I don’t know if I really agree with the whole cosplaying a stripper thing.
I know that it like it’s a thing, but I also like, I don’t think sexuality is like individual, right? Like people access their sexual [00:25:00] liberation in many different ways and like, who am I to say that you can’t wear a thing because it makes you feel good? But then, but then the other part of me is I’m like, well actually sexual liberation isn’t individual. I think it’s really neoliberal to think of it that way. Sexual liberation is intrinsically tied to women’s rights, women’s bodily autonomy, queer L-G-B-T-Q rights. Like we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t be where we are right now with like prep pep, like so many decades out of the AIDS crisis if it weren’t for like openly talking about what gay men we’re going through.
And if everyone treated it as like an individual problem, we just like would not be where we are today. So, so protected from it with like lifesaving medication that stops the [00:26:00] spread. So on one hand, yes, your sexual liberation is your own journey and nobody can tell you otherwise and you can do what you want and it’s all, it’s your body.
You can do what you want, but then. The smart person with critical thinking skills in me is like, it’s not just about you.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: How you feel, how you feel about yourself as a mirror about like through society, right? Like you, you can see, you see yourself reflected in others. Well, I would hope people do. If you have empathy, then you do.
So it’s not an individual thing. And I think once you inhabit that, like that should change, you know, the behavior and the behavior should always then reflect that you understand that. But I don’t know if people be thinking that deeply. I really don’t.
AMD: I don’t think so. But I think it’s still, I think it’s still good to hear it.
And I, and I think you make such a [00:27:00] valid point that it is a group thing. It’s not it, it isn’t just about you. And I do, I really love the short answer, like if you’re going, you know, advocate for decrim and quite honestly, like. Even if you’re not dressing sexy, advocate for decrim. Also that, because that’s another thing that criminalization of sex work affects civilians, women, it affects everybody.
And if you don’t understand that, then you should learn about how the criminalization of sex work affects you as someone who’s not a sex worker. If you’re like, why? Well, I’m not a sex worker. I don’t have to worry about this. Well, yeah, you do because it affects you today. It affects you all the time, and you don’t even know it.
Sam: Yeah.
AMD: You don’t At least, or you don’t know it consciously. Right. And so,
yeah,
Sam: I mean, like, it’s so pertinent in the states as well, right? Mm-hmm. ’cause it’s, it is criminalized. Mm-hmm. And that being criminalized for so long, lay groundwork for the current repealing of abortion rights.
AMD: [00:28:00] Absolutely. Yeah.
Sam: Like this is all about.
Being able to control an underclass and women’s bodies.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: Ultimately.
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[00:29:00]
AMD: So what kind of work around decrim is East London Stripper Collective doing?
Sam: So, okay. The, the, for people who don’t know in the UK it is legal to buy and sell sex. So technically prostitution is not illegal. I say prostitution is a legal term, not as like a derogatory
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: So it’s not criminalized the way it is in the states. However, all of the stuff around prostitution is criminalized. Right. So the definition of brothel keeping is if, let’s say me and you just wanna share a flat and we don’t, like, I just need you to be there to be buddy so that I’m not being fucking assaulted in the next room.
AMD: Sure.
Sam: That is considered brothel keeping. Right. And that is illegal.
AMD: Right.
Sam: And one of us will get done for quote unquote, like. Stuff like pimping, what you would understand is pimping. Um, they recently tried to introduce some bills that would [00:30:00] have criminalized, like the friends and people who drive sex workers around.
AMD: Mm-hmm.
Sam: It didn’t, it, it died in, it didn’t get voted on, so it’s effectively dead. And we helped with, you know, the writing to mps to get around this, but
AMD: Nice.
Sam: It’s, it’s a lot of like playing whack-a-mole with lots of like, smaller bills that come up and you have to sort of keep on top of things, right?
Because
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: Obviously the wider sex work in general, so stuff around prostitution specifically is like wider, it affects everybody. But then you have all these little amendments to things like online safety bill, which massive, it was our, it’s our version of FOSTA/SESTA that passed, which means things are a little bit more difficult, actually, a lot more difficult for people who work online or the licensing system for how strip clubs operate.
Whether or not [00:31:00] one council or one borough decides to shut all of them down. Whether they decide to, you know, those things are like, oh, they are tough. They are thankless work. You are emailing like pencil pushers at a council who are underfunded. Um, and it is playing whack-a-mole with all these like smaller ones to make sure that the landscape still stays as sort of safe for work as possible.
AMD: Yeah, yeah.
Sam: So, yeah, we like tell people to sign things. We signpost people to research. Um, funnily enough actually, um, for all of my cynical misgivings and like my pessimism about stuff, I’m our data from our newsletter, and it shows that people are the most engaged when we give them a call to action.
AMD: Nice.
Sam: So our audience do want to help. Right. They just, I suppose it’s not up to them [00:32:00] to keep on track of the whack-a-mole. We have to point people to the mole. And they have the hammer.
AMD: Right. Exactly. I mean, that’s the whole purpose of. You know, having the organization and doing that work, right? Like it’s, ’cause you’re the ones that are on top of that information and like, it, it’s why it’s such important work.
And like you said, like often thankless, like it’s a lot of tedious work that y’all are doing on the backend and have to pay attention to these laws.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
AMD: And then read the long reports and read the legal jargon documents and read them as a group and understand ’em. I mean, I’ve been there, I’ve done it.
I know how hard work that is. And you’re just like constantly doing it, you know?
Sam: Yeah.
Emily: Are there, do you have legal advisors that work with the organization?
Sam: So we have a couple, again, they’re also very whack-a-mole, if that makes sense. Okay. Like they’re like pop up here and there. We have [00:33:00] some as part of the Sex Workers Union.
So, um, they’re separate to us, but they’re fantastic. They’re the sex workers Union in the UK. If you’re a sex worker of any kind, join the union. So they have legal advice there. English Collective of Prostitutes have their own legal team and they sort of, I think they specialize quite, like, quite obviously on like criminal, the criminal aspect.
So if people are being prosecuted or they’re being issued things like a prostitute’s caution, that’s where their effort is going to. And then they’re going into bigger policy change for us. Um, we kind of work on like a pizza by the slice king of way, like we don’t always need it because so many of us have the legal knowledge already around SEV’s.
We don’t often need to consult with licensing officers or, you know, solicitors. Um, we have a [00:34:00] mistrust as well of solicitors who work in licensing because their answer to everything is always more licensing. And our answer is, well, no, we need to decriminalize the, the entire shebang. But you can’t tell that to a licensing like solicitor because that means less work for them.
AMD: Mm.
Sam: It’s against their interests to be in, like, see, yeah, we, yeah, we, we, we, we go get legal advice, particularly around employment law when we need it, but. The real hard hitting legal stuff, we tell people usually to go to the union or to go to English collective or prostitutes. Hmm. And they just come to us for fun things.
AMD: Yeah.
That’s really interesting. That was a really good question, Emily, because it’s like you, I wasn’t taking into account like how strategic that you also have to be, even with other [00:35:00] like professionals who seemingly wanna help because they also don’t really a hundred percent get it. Like it’s, so would
Sam: you wanna hear some
tea grassroots?
AMD: Yes. Yes.
Sam: Okay. So I’m not gonna name names because like can’t name names, but there’s like a really big pink party here. So like we wanna talk
Emily: What does it rhyme with,
sorry.
Sam: Well, there’s only so many. There’s only so many here, so that’s okay. It’s one of the bigger ones. It’s not the biggest one. But it’s one of the big, more sort of well known ones.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: So it’s a kink party and, um, I mean this good dives back into like how people have solidarity and how they like, you know, access their sexual liberation.
The kink community are full of upper middle class people with too much money who wanna wear latex and get spanked, and they have absolutely no interest at [00:36:00] all in like, the wider impacts of who’s providing that work. Who’s providing their domming, their subbing, like who, like the ecosystem. They’re just interested and going to a fucking party and getting spanked in a dark room, which I’m fine with.
Everyone is allowed to have fun. I just find these people tedious now. Um, one of their parties got shut down by one of the councils in East London. So they hired on a licensing lawyer and I, over the past couple years, I have seen their motherfucking faces across different places in the UK. Amber Lynn talking about licensing and his, their licensing lawyers, uh, his solution to the issue of needing a sexual entertainment license venue, which is what strip clubs need.
It’s what, like, let’s say like porn shops need, that’s a very old school [00:37:00] reference. No one goes to porn shop anymore, where like a sex store needs, right? Um, kink parties tend not to need those because they are popups, right? So the venue just has them once a month, a call it a day. His solution is to have a new license that is specific for kink venues and I’m like, you fucking moron.
That just creates a two-tiered system where some kink parties who can afford to get that license will have it and get to operate overground. Do you know what happens to the ones that don’t? They go underground. Do you know what happens undergroung? exploitation. That’s where all the fuck, they’re not covered by, you know, the eyes of the law and it particularly in kink parties where they have to deal with a lot of sensitive issues around consent and potential sexual assault in their parties.
Why would you create the conditions for more of that? This doesn’t make anyone [00:38:00] safer, but it does get one specific lawyer in the UK more work to provide more licenses. Doesn’t make any sense. Every time I see ’em I’m like, this, you could just off, you could just do decrim. And they’re like, it’s a different thing altogether.
And I’m like, is it,
AMD: it’s really not,
Sam: is it? It’s from a legal perspective. Yeah, sure. But I’m like, if what you want, it’s for local counsels to get off your ass so that people can just go have a fun party where they get spanked in a dark room. Then the, the long-term solution to that is decrim, I don’t know how, I don’t know how clear, how much more clear I can make that delineation.
But then people think they’re really different from us. People really think that them getting spanked in a dark room has nothing to do with us. And I’m like, you’ll be shocked.
AMD: Because it’s considered obscene and what we do is considered obscene. I mean, that’s just one, [00:39:00] that’s just one thing, right?
There’s a whole list of things. Yeah.
Sam: They think
they’re normal people
who just are like,
AMD: no, it’s considered obscene by the government, not by me. Yeah. I don’t think it’s obscene, but you know. Yeah. That right there. Um, and I’m sure that there’s sex workers working at the kink parties also. Are there not, or are they just civilian people spanking each other
Sam: and I’m like you-
I mean, everyone turns a blind eye. This is sort of the central conceit, I think, of a kink party and I’m like, I’ve worked at the door at a couple of these. Do you not think I have eyeballs where I can see someone who is obviously a client of someone else? I know what’s going on here. You all know what’s going on here.
AMD: Sure.
Sam: No one’s turning a blind eye because you didn’t see any money, like trade hands, and you don’t really know what that relationship is like, but that is happening. In your parties in your doors to think somehow that decrim has nothing to do with you is ridiculous. [00:40:00]
AMD: Right.
Right.
Sam: Who’s to say that like, sure, you could introduce a kink license, but who’s to say that?
Like they wouldn’t add, um, clauses into that kind of license that says no exchange of money. That would basically like license out the sex work. Right. They don’t think that far. Right. So that’s my beef right now with the kink community, which is. Which is why I spend most of my evenings now. I’m like, I’m gonna stay home and play video games.
I don’t wanna spank any of you in a dark room anymore. I’ve had enough.
Emily: Had enough.
More spankings
for you.
AMD: I love that. Um, so circling back to talking about history and talking about what East London Stripper Collective does, you had mentioned that, um, y’all are doing these tours
Sam: mm-hmm. Of the strip mile.
Can you fill [00:41:00] us in and give us all the details on that? Sounds super interesting. So just let it all out.
So East London used the, the area that we work in is called Shortage. And Shortage is now a gentrified hellhole. But before that it used to be this really fun melting pot of working class local people with, um.
A lot of like migrant workers who were building the financial sort of center at the time. Canary Wharf is really close to Shortage and the city, which is what they call the financial center here. Um, and because of that and because in the eighties, sixties, seventies, eighties, there wasn’t sexual entertainment venue licensing, right?
Like you could just have hoes in your pub if you so pleased with a regular bar license. Loads of strip clubs opened [00:42:00] in the sixties all the way up to the eighties and the nineties and the early two thousands before this licensing got introduced.
AMD: Mm.
Sam: And so East London birthed a culture of like, kind of like dive bars basically.
Nice girls used to be paid to show up. There was never any poles. Girls would just mince around a pool table. We didn’t have like a tipping culture and we still don’t really in the UK ’cause you can’t really lob pound coins at a dancer. That’s not really appropriate. So girls would go around with a pint glass and all the customers would just put a pound in, a pound in the pipe.
And then you would gather from, let’s say like 20 customers, you get 20 quid from 20 pounds and then do your little dance, take off your clothes while you’re at a pool table. I don’t know, sometimes you could go in on a sundae, get some roast potatoes, have the best roast potatoes of your [00:43:00] life, right? And watch someone get their kid off.
It was amazing. And so when I started in the industry around like 2014, a lot of these, the veterans I call them now, had just sort of finished their run of the early nineties, uh, early two thousands in the 2010s. And because gentrification so off like fucked East London so badly, we decided that it made sense as a group of strippers who are also artists who are really interested in culture and, um, heritage and history that we would dig into the sort of untold history of some of these strip clubs. So we covered some places that have shut and some that are still open. Attached some stories behind it. Some places are haunted. Yeah.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: Haunted strip club vibe. Some places are great to listed buildings [00:44:00] like you can’t touch ’em, they’re historical buildings.
AMD: Oh nice..
Sam: So even though they’re shut now, you, they, they can’t be touched. They can’t just always be sold off to a developer. There’s one place I’m thinking of, I’m really hoping that they bequeath it to us because I’m like, you can’t touch this place. A developer can’t touch this place. You should just give it to us.
We would run it.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: Um, and part of what we’re doing is we’re inviting some of the veterans who I’m still in contact with, who some of us are still stripping today, like they’re still doing burlesque and working to host these tours and give their stories. And it’s been amazing. So we’ve run like two so far.
Um, we spent all of the first half of the year researching it, and now we’re delivering it, I guess. Um, and it’s just, yeah. It’s just a great little peek into like the stories that people have, like what their audition would’ve been like. Like there was a time when you had to bring a CD to your audition.
AMD: Oh my God, I remember that. Yeah. [00:45:00]
Sam: Or, um,
Emily: or like did work where you had to put, um, a quarter in the jukebox and then wait for your song to start.
Sam: Yeah.
AMD: I never had to put a quarter in a jukebox. That sounds like from the fifties or something.
Sam: Yeah. There’s like a, there’s,
I used to work in a club.
I’m, I’m not that old, but I used to work in a, in a pub, a fucking dive that was that old and they didn’t have a sound system. You had to go to the jukebox, put in and then you’re ready, you know,
Emily: run back to stage.
Sam: Yeah. Our version of like a dime. So 10 P coin pick from the same songs. Thank God they had Mariah Carey, thank God.
Because otherwise what would I have done? They had some Britney as well. And then that was it. You just picked, that’s what you had to do.
AMD: Amazing.
Sam: Um, so yeah, we’re running those now.
AMD: That’s awesome.
Sam: We’re trying to run them on a monthly basis until the end of the year. We’ll probably skip most of winter and then hopefully try to get to a point where we can do them twice a month on the weekend.
It’s just been really nice and um, I got [00:46:00] some props as well. I was able to get, uh, some printouts of what these places look like on the inside. So fun fact, one of the haunted strip club, that’s a grade two listed building, one of the customer comments, and this is how we did a lot of research. We go, went on Facebook and Google reviews to t trawl what the clients used to say.
This client went, lovely ceilings, rough girls.
And then you look at the photo, wow, the ceilings are really nice,
AMD: amazing.
Sam: Yeah, I love me. A good haunted strip club. I used to work in one. It was amazing. It was terrifying. It was a really scary one though. It was pretty scary. Are they scary haunted or are they just like, it’s just like simple or
AMD: like what’s
it like?
Sam: Well, I mean, the one that we’re talking about right now, the reason why they believe it’s haunted is because when they were, uh, renovating it in 1979, they found two, [00:47:00] two dead bodies and a rusty pair of scissors underneath like the foundations rights.
AMD: So we’re fine. We’re fine.
Sam: I know, so there are reports from clients and the girls themselves that things would move in the middle of the night.
There would be weird sounds like. But I mean, for me it’s just kind of goofy walking by in the daytime to see this empty derelict building that has probably housed literally hundreds of years of East London pub history. Um. And then it’s funny to think that it’s heyday is as a strip dive bar.
AMD: Love it. I love it.
That sounds awesome. So you’ve done two so far, you wanna do more?
Sam: Mm-hmm.
AMD: And were the first two, were they like pretty full? Are people like into it? How, and, and are you walking around or are you, are you on a tour bus? Like what’s that like? [00:48:00]
Sam: So it’s just a mile. It’s just a mile walk. There’s 10 of these clubs all down, one single street of one mile, which is amazing.
AMD: That’s awesome.
Sam: So we start them from one place and then we walk them from that station down shortage High Street. And then we end off at our home at the Crown and Shuttle, which is a pub now, but. Used to be a strip pub. We host life drawing there. We have a great relationship with them. They’re super lovely.
And like all pubs have like a function room here, so you can like do all your private stuff there. And we take everyone upstairs, give them the final history of the building. So this one is the one with a pool table.
AMD: Hmm.
Sam: This one also, like the old owner died of a o like od in the office after going on a bender with a bunch of Brazilian strippers.
So he like died there. And every single time, every single time we run something there, I’m like, he is having the best time like we are doing him justice, this old man. [00:49:00] Um, and then we, we give them the strip experience from the veterans of what it would’ve been like to experience like a strip tease in the seventies, eighties, and nineties.
AMD: That is so cool. That is so cool.
Sam: Just, you know what I mean? It’s like on a Sunday afternoon, you can get your roast potatoes, you can get a chicken tender.
AMD: Love the roast potatoes.
Sam: Right. You can ha and just sit down with like a pint. Someone comes over with a tip bucket, she’s like, tip please, you put in your pound.
Or, I mean, we encourage people due to inflation to put in like dolla bills instead. Yeah.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: Gimme like a five pound note.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: And then she’ll give you like a, you know, a whole act. Because at the time, poles hadn’t in like infiltrated the UK yet. Like people weren’t dancing on poles. They were going around the tables and doing like a little ambient number.
AMD: When do you suppose Poles did come to the uk?
Sam: Um, some places like still did, but like most, [00:50:00] most of the pubs were not going to invest in them. But like the pools were there from the eighties, but it was eighties from the, like, those, the pubs that were not interested in getting a license, they just wanted some sexy girls to come in on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
AMD: Right.
Sam: They weren’t gonna invest in a pole. They were like, just dance wherever, do whatever you like. The rules were literally do whatever you want as long as it makes money.
AMD: Right. And they got paid to come in, which is like, not now when you are paying to go in. Yep. Wild. Because they used, used to pay strippers in the US to show up to work too.
And then when I was working, I didn’t have house fees. I had to pay out all my dances and I had to tip everybody. But then I remember then drink fees happened. I was like, what are y’all doing with this? Like, so I watched drink fees happen towards the end, but I remember we didn’t pay, you didn’t have to pay up front to show up to work.
Sam: Nope.
AMD: And then it changed. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I think [00:51:00] Vegas, this was the first place I paid to show up to work. Because you didn’t pay out on anything else.
You just
Sam: Oh, yeah.
AMD: You didn’t pay out on dances. It was impossible to keep track of that. Um, like on the floor. But in the rooms you would pay out on dances.
Sam: Right. Interesting.
AMD: So, but on the
floor, like I could just, like, that’s why I would spend most of my time on the floor. ’cause I’m like, I’m keeping all the money here, you know? And then
Sam: Right. You can’t keep track of me.
AMD: Right. And so they, so they did implement a house fee ’cause they couldn’t keep track of you as we as easily.
But that’s, and then after that it just, I don’t know, it just skyrocketed. It’s just
Sam: I know, it really changed. I know it did. It really did change a lot.
AMD: Um, before we close out, what are some other things that we need people to know about Eastland and Trip Collective? Some, like, about what it’s like to run it.
What, what other projects are coming that you want people to know about? Like any, anything or any person that we should know more about? Anything like that. [00:52:00] Um,
Sam: I mean, we always have things in the, in the pipeline. We always do too much as, you know.
AMD: I get that
Sam: way too. Way too much. Mm-hmm. Um, the thing that we are in the midst of launching though, um, is.
Turning the website into an agency. You know how like strip, like online strip club agencies are always, they look like they were built in 2008. The website looks like it’s gonna give your laptop like a venereal disease. You’re so, yeah. And you’re like, it’s gross. And you’re just like, why I, there’s no way This is legit.
Yeah. So we’re trying to do the total opposite.
AMD: Mm.
Sam: Our website as much as possible is gorgeous because me and Maddie have learned how to hack, uh, WordPress.
AMD: Mm-hmm.
Sam: I’m trying to get. I’m actually trying to get chat, GBT to give me code, custom code to build [00:53:00] out a quote generator, because what I’m trying to avoid is people constantly emailing me going, how much does this cost?
Well, how much does this cost? What if I want someone to sit on a cake? What if I want someone to pour champagne? I’m like, I just want people to be able. Right, you’re looking at the admin, right? Yeah. I’m an admin person, so I’m like, ah, that’s a lot. It’s a lot. So I’m trying to see if I can build custom code for people to just, okay. You just enter in all your wants and needs into here.
AMD: Okay.
Sam: And based off like your location and like how far you are from East London and, um, the time and the amount of girls you want, we can give you a general quote. And if you lock in at that quote, then you know, you pay your deposit.
It’s easier for everybody involved.
AMD: Sure.
Sam: So that I am not fielding these time wasters questions.
AMD: A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Sam: So that’s like, that’s awesome. That’s like live on our [00:54:00] website now. Like we’ve been taking lots of, um, private bookings. We do a lot of hen do’s, so that’s Bachelorette parties for
lesbians, which is really sweet.
AMD: Okay. hen do?,
they’re so, yeah,
Sam: they’re called Hindus, so Du Okay. And Stag Dos, that’s like our version of a Bachelor and a Bachelorette,
AMD: because there’s hen and there’s stag, but a hen do means it’s for, it’s for lesbian women. Is that, am I getting that right?
Sam: No, it’s just a hen do is for women, but like a lesbian.
We’re just, it’s just for lesbians, so it’s like, there’s no, there’s no,
AMD: oh, I’ve only heard
it called Hen or stag. I’ve not never heard the do at the end of it.
Sam: I guess that because English people like to put do at
the end, end of something.
AMD: Okay, got it.
Sam: To,
to signify an event. So like you could go to a Christmas do for your workplace.
AMD: Oh, it’s a do. Okay, got it.
Got it.
Yeah. Okay.
Alright. Learning. Learning.
Sam: Yes. The English. Yeah. The British. British English. Yeah. Can’t stand them. [00:55:00] Um, yeah. So you’ve been doing a lot of that. Um, it’s been really, really, really nice. Um, we’re getting a little bit more into private bookings because we’re trying to build out a sustainable to business model.
Right. Ultimately the thing we believe, regardless of whether or not it’s, I mean you could make the argument that it’s super neoliberal. I don’t really think it is, but we believe that there is a way to do this kind of work that is fun, that is ethical, that is well paid, fairly paid, fairly priced that like can be, um.
Yeah. Sustainable as a small sort of grassroots local business, it doesn’t have to be huge. I’m not trying to become like, I’m not trying to become like OnlyFans, that’s not the point here.
AMD: Totally.
Sam: Right. Like I’m trying to have a place that people can access regular work, where people who wouldn’t normally [00:56:00] think to book a stripper because they think they’re, you know, either priced out or they’re, you know, it’s not for them, it’s not queer enough.
They don’t, or they’re just scared of these awful fucking websites.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: I just want somewhere for them to go where they can, they can take part in what we do and part of us delivering the service, I think is how we humanize ourselves
AMD: mm-hmm.
Sam: To other people. Mm-hmm. Is you sort of don’t realize what booking one of us is like until you’ve done it and then you sort of realize, I’m like, oh, like, yeah, this person is a human being and this is a form of labor, but it’s also really fun and it, it doesn’t, doesn’t like need to be stigmatized the way it is.
AMD: Right.
Sam: And anyway, we’re trying to do that. That’s not, you know, we don’t know if this is [00:57:00] gonna work, but as far as, as far as we know, the competition,
AMD: Right
Sam: Sucks. It’s not like there’s other places to go book an ethical stripper. Every other place takes a massive cut. Yeah. Almost over 50%. Every other place will like. The customer will book someone off the website and, and the, the agency will just send whoever’s available. You end up going to the gig with someone who’s like already mad at you ’cause they didn’t expect you to come.
AMD: Right.
Sam: These are not the conditions for safe digging. Right?
AMD: Yeah. Yeah. And also I love that. I think that it, it’s important that we do these things ourselves to a certain degree because like you said, then we’re paying somebody else. We’re being exploited by other people. Like my fav my favorite thing when people are like, oh, a woman owns the strip club.
Oh, that must be awesome. I’m like, that’s not just ’cause they’re a woman doesn’t mean they understand sex workers. You know,
Sam: there were so many
clubs in our tour that were owned by women [00:58:00] and they, they are the ones who got taken to court by the union for breaching workers’ laws. Yeah. So it doesn’t preclude you from any of this stuff.
AMD: Right, right.
Sam: I think for me it’s less about women owned and more about worker owned, like
AMD: Yes, that’s what I’m saying.
Sam: I’m, I am accountable to my community. Right. This is part of our legal structure and this is sort of part of just the manifesto of how we work. Like I am not here out just for myself. I’m accountable to the community and I’m also accountable to like the job.
If I want a healthy strip like industry for future dancers, then I have to have done something about it. And so we’re all trying to like band together to do that and our lovely roster of girls that you can book, but also girls who like show up to meetings and do the organizing and do the thinking are delivering like a very unique and different [00:59:00] kind of strip experience that people haven’t really had before.
AMD: Is it really just- Is it just female strippers that you’re dealing with?
Sam: We have like, we have like one male stripper, but he also like moonlights as like, like he, he works, he has a corporate job, so like he doesn’t sleep. I’m like, so you have time to work out, strip on the weekends, do your corporate job, do you sleep?
So we have like a couple, but like we’re not really in the business of platforming male strippers.
AMD: Right.
Sam: Unless they’re gay or queer. Okay. Or trans. Mm-hmm. Just because like for example in the uk, like if you wanted to go see male strippers, you would just go see Magic Mike. Magic. Okay. The live show. Yeah, because it’s on
the west end all the time.
AMD: Unless you wanna see a male stripper being femme, they’re probably not.
Sam: No.
AMD: Are they being femme at Magic mic shows?
Probably not.
Sam: No. They’re
doing the, they’re giving you the whole Channing Tatum [01:00:00] experience, which is fine. That’s, there’s something,
AMD: it’s fine if that’s what you’re into Yeah.
Sam: For everybody, but,
AMD: right.
Yeah. Got it. Yeah, no, I was just curious ’cause you use the term girls a lot, so I wasn’t sure if you’re also work with trans workers or if you work with non-binary dancers or if it’s just So I was just,
Sam: we do,
um, basically I use girls in the most non-gendered way. The walls, the girlies, everyone.
AMD: Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Um, yeah, we have a lot of trans mask, um, dancers as well. Like, I can’t speak to their experience, but I, I think they have a unique relationship to sex work.
AMD: Mm-hmm.
Sam: Um, as trans men.
AMD: Yeah. Um.
Sam: Yeah. In ways that I, I, I wouldn’t know. So yeah, we have them on our roster as not just like people you can book, but also like for us.
AMD: Mm-hmm.
Sam: It’s good to like have a vibe checker of like, Hey, like [01:01:00] if we just like plopped you in a gig, is this safe?
AMD: Sure.
Sam: Like, would, would you? Absolutely. How much outing of you guys do we need to do? Because like, I don’t want you to like walk into a client situation and they not know, and then they find out,
AMD: yeah, I agree.
Sam: And then they’ll put you in a less safe situation. But I also like who you get outed to is up to you.
AMD: Yeah.
Sam: So stuff like that,
AMD: but that’s why
Yeah. But that’s why it’s great that you’re all working together and then you can have those types of conversations where maybe in a normal agency, a trans mask or a trans man, a trans male sex worker wouldn’t be able to have those types of open conversations with like,
oh, absolutely not. Agents and stuff,
AMD: you know, so that these
Sam: agencies would not give a shit. Yeah,
AMD: totally. They would not understand that at all. We just released an episode on June 26th with, um, Jack Parker talking all about this subject, by the way, for our listeners.
Sam: Ooh, so interesting.
AMD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay, Sam, so how do we, [01:02:00] we gotta find Eastland and Shipper Collective. We have to follow Eastland, we have to do all the things. What is the action? Where do we go?
Sam: You can find us on eastlondonstrippercollective.com So that’s our website if you would like, if you can’t book us, ’cause you’re in the States or whatever, you can follow us on Instagram at East London Strippers Collective.
Um, and that’s it. We are not on Twitter for obvious reasons, or X and we used to be on face, well we are on Facebook, but like I am not a dinosaur so I don’t use Facebook anymore.
AMD: Got
it. You’re so funny. That’s awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on here today and talking to us about what all this such important work that you’re all doing. Um, and I just love hanging out with you and spending time with you. So extra bonus [01:03:00] for me, and thank you Emily, for joining us for the whole
Emily: thank you for having me on.
This was, this was fun and informative.
AMD: Yes.
Sam: Ah, thank you both.
AMD: Yeah, thank you. And, um, to all of our listeners, don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe to the show. It helps with our optics, it helps for when we’re applying for grants and things like that. The more numbers we have, the better it is. So if you love us, please show us.
Thank you so much and we’ll, uh, we’ll talk to you next time. Bye.