YAS Podcast: Strippers Are Workers Victory #123
In this episode, we chat with Madison Zack-Wu, the powerhouse behind Strippers Are Workers. From her first days stripping in Seattle at 18 to leading a campaign for stripper rights, Madison’s journey is nothing short of inspiring. We dive into her work on groundbreaking legislation in Washington, the changes in the industry, and the fight for decriminalization and safety. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in sex worker rights and the power of grassroots organizing.
AM (00:00.593)
Hey everyone, I’m here with a super special guest, someone I’ve been wanting to have on this podcast for a minute now, but she’s so busy, understandably. Hi Madison, will you please say hello to our audience?
Madison (00:15.534)
Hey everyone, happy to be here. It’s my first podcast, so bear with me, but really stoked to have this be my first podcast.
AM (00:25.825)
my gosh, I didn’t know this was your first. I’m honored.
Madison (00:30.574)
No, I’m so excited to have my first be a stripper run stripper podcast. Like that’s amazing.
AM (00:36.369)
Yay. Absolutely. And for those of you who don’t know Madison, you are with your run the organization, strippers or workers, right?
Madison (00:46.062)
Yep, yeah, I kind of go by the formal role of campaign manager of Strippers Are Workers I’ve been on the campaign since 2020, but in this role for two and a half, almost three years now.
AM (00:59.921)
Okay, great. You said the campaign, you’ve been on this campaign since 2020. Okay.
Madison (01:05.166)
Yeah, yeah, I was joined up on the email list and contact list going to maybe a couple meetings or something. Yeah.
AM (01:10.385)
Okay.
Okay, so we definitely want to talk about how strippers or workers got started and how you got started with them. But I think it’s important for us all to know like your origin story, how and why did you start stripping? What was that like for you in the beginning? Because I’m assuming that you started stripping in the state that you passed this bill in, which is Washington State. Am I getting that right?
Madison (01:35.886)
Yeah, you’re totally correct. My first club was in Seattle. So I started stripping when I was 18. I kind of the simplest version is I came from a dysfunctional household for those reasons that impacted my mental health and other things. And so I dropped out of high school when I was 14 and I had been picking up some jobs, obviously like.
pretty close to minimum wage, not very many hours, and also bouncing back and forth between high school diploma and GED programs and wasn’t getting very far with that. And by the time I was 18, I had to live on my own and self -support and it was like, shit, like currently jobs are not working out very well. I probably need to go back to school and get my high school diploma and even a college degree.
And so I was trying to figure out the best way to do that, right? Like a 40 hour a week job, barely getting by at minimum wage and going to college just seems absolutely impossible. And so only a few months after I turned 18, I went on auditioned at a couple Seattle strip clubs, got a job and that’s how I started. And it was great. I mean, I got an apartment shortly thereafter, had enough money for that. And then I was able to start school like the following quarter.
AM (02:37.361)
Night.
AM (03:03.633)
Okay, great. So you started stripping and went to school at 18 all at the same time. Wow. Amazing. And so 18, I mean, I’m not trying to ask how old you are, but I’m just wondering like, what was different back then versus now? Like, is there much of a difference than you saw when you first started when you were 18 versus like up until the bill was passed?
Madison (03:08.846)
Yep. Yeah.
Madison (03:32.142)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s definitely a difference. I started right at the tail end of when the money was still decent. I would say over the last several years, the money has gotten progressively worse and worse. And so when I started, there were still a weekend nights here and there where the club would be packed and you could make good money. But that fell off within the first year or two of me starting and then also when I started,
AM (03:55.313)
Okay.
Madison (04:01.582)
Here in Seattle, there were still a lot of concerns about vice cops coming in undercover and potentially busting you during lap dances. That concern hasn’t been as prevalent lately. And yeah, I mean, the dancers, the newer dancers, I think have changed a little bit for several years. It was a lot of long -term OGs who were around and then you’d get a few newer ones cycling in.
AM (04:07.281)
Hmm.
Madison (04:30.062)
And since the pandemic especially, I feel like it’s largely new dancers, like a new generation and a lot of high turnover. And so I think there’s just not as much longevity in the industry anymore, at least here in Washington.
AM (04:39.057)
Right.
AM (04:45.425)
Sure. Right, right. So as far as like the, you know, getting raided during lap dances is definitely something we want to talk about because that is, that was part of the problem with being a stripper in Washington and like being in constant fear that you’re going to do something illegal, but also like, am I going to use this word right? Innocuous? Like just like,
so mundane, like the smallest little thing could land you in handcuffs. Am I getting that right?
Madison (05:21.614)
Yeah, I mean, pretty much anything that could be considered prostitution here. Our definition in Seattle and also at the state level of prostitution is really, really vague. It talks about erotic contact of genitals or other intimate body parts for money, right? And so it’s like when you break that down, it’s very much.
AM (05:27.504)
Mm.
Madison (05:46.574)
up to interpretation. Like we’re talking about maybe if I touch someone’s belly button for money, it could be prostituted. And so here in Washington and Seattle, because we have like the state laws that are a little bit more vague or don’t get into the weeds, and then we have local laws depending on the municipality. And the laws in the
AM (05:48.529)
Totally.
AM (05:52.945)
I’m sorry.
AM (06:09.521)
or.
Madison (06:11.47)
Various municipalities are very, very similar and they’re all very strict, but I’ll mostly talk about Seattle since 10 out of 11 of our Washington strip clubs are in Seattle. But we haven’t, it’s basically been illegal to strip on stage and get naked and be tipped by a customer. Like that’s been illegal. The moment that a customer is within a certain amount of feet of the stage, illegal. Let alone if they come up and tip you or like tuck it in your thong or something like that.
And then lap dances have been illegal. In theory, by law, lap dances should be floating air dances a certain distance away from the customer, but also you can’t erotically touch yourself and you certainly can’t take any of your outfit off. And then if you’re taking money upfront for a lap dance, that’s also you. It’s just like everything, right?
AM (06:42.289)
Mm.
AM (07:02.417)
So what are you just vamping? Like you’re just supposed to vamp? Is that?
Madison (07:06.03)
I don’t know. I don’t know. And then nudity is defined. Having your ass crack out. It’s every part of the job from start to finish is illegal here until very, very recently. And the reality is that while SPD and other Seattle and Washington governments
bodies have really stopped enforcing a lot of the strip club criminalization laws, maybe around 2017. It’s not that the laws changed, it’s that like police interests and priorities shifted a little bit, primarily actually to raiding massage parlors. But that doesn’t mean that the laws have changed. So people are still at risk of that. And actually, something I really want to mention is that the new Seattle City Council is
AM (07:47.889)
Mm.
Madison (07:56.334)
a lot more conservative than the previous one. And one of the council members actually just brought up recriminalizing prostitution later in. And so without having actual standardized changes to our laws, there’s always this possibility that public opinion, police opinion, government official opinion could change and then they start raiding the clubs again. And that’s one of the main things that I want to make sure is permanently abolished.
AM (08:21.969)
Absolutely. So what we should probably talk about then is how strip, what the work that strippers, our workers did recently, I mean, leading up to, and then the win recently, obviously been working for a while and what the bill is and how it sort of, you know, tackles these things that we’re talking about and how it can abolish permanently as you said.
Madison (08:52.11)
Yeah, yeah. So Strippers Are Workers was started kind of informally around 2016, but more formally in 2018, just by a bunch of dancers talking in the locker rooms, right? Like how a lot of these labor movements start, because stuff here has been really tough. I mean, I’m sure y ‘all have been on Stripper Forum and you see the posts on Stripper Forum, not that it’s around anymore, RIP, but…
AM (09:04.817)
Mm -hmm.
Madison (09:19.31)
people would talk about Seattle and Washington and be like, don’t even bother to try to work there, you know, it’s so bad. And, and that was largely because of the alcohol prohibition, you know, we’re the only state without any form of alcohol service on our strip clubs, which makes it so not profitable and also not desirable for most of the customer base. But also because of all these criminalizing laws and so the criminalization and stigma and also alcohol ban just made our clubs feel
AM (09:22.873)
Yeah.
Madison (09:50.126)
like uninviting gnarly places to be in, right? It just didn’t feel good as a customer. And so it just had all these snowball effects of you didn’t have a lot of young people coming in, you didn’t have a diverse clientele, the clubs had to really push to try to make as much profit as possible. And so they did that by like pandering to racism and racist clients and…
AM (09:56.273)
Mm -hmm.
AM (10:13.233)
Hmm.
Madison (10:15.278)
making the house fees really, really high, like 150 bucks just to start. What do I like? Making the dancers sell sodas. And if they don’t sell their four quota, you know, the quota for sodas, they have to pay it back. Wild shit background was big here. So all these things, right? And then exploitation because managers are really writing you for tips. And same with the security guards and other folks. So things were just have been so bad here.
AM (10:28.305)
Right. Right.
Madison (10:45.07)
And that is the reason why dancers started talking. And management is a large part of this problem and it needs to change. And so our organizing started in 2018. And then we passed our first bill, 2019, and we coined it the Dancer Safety and Security Bill and it put…
AM (10:54.737)
Mm -hmm. Okay.
Madison (11:09.902)
panic buttons in the clubs, customer blacklists to 86 them if a dancer makes a complaint. And then it created a labor and industries, which is a state agency, adult entertainment advisory committee, which is basically a fact finding research committee that does stakeholder inconsensus. So brought in dancers, club owners, management. And then Ellen and I did…
research through that stakeholder process to learn what changes need to happen to the industry. And that was really necessary for our process because it gives like an official institutional report to demonstrate some of the things that we all intuitively knew through our lived experiences. And that was basically like our data to show for the eventual big overhaul of like wanting to ask for all these things like ending back rent.
AM (11:49.425)
Mm -hmm.
Madison (12:05.614)
legalizing alcohol in clubs, capping fees, all those things that would have to happen at the legislature level. And so we could use that data to justify that because of course we’re talking about sex work, we’re talking about stripping, super stigmatized, gonna be really hard to get people on our side. So data was important.
AM (12:12.849)
Mm -hmm.
AM (12:23.313)
Right, yeah, yeah, wow, it’s a lot of work.
Madison (12:29.006)
Yeah, yeah. And then of course, we passed that bill in 2019, but then the pandemic hit 2020. Organizing was really delayed, clubs were shut down for a year. And we really only got started again in 2021 -ish, mid to late 2021. And that’s when we were ready to continue our organizing and introduce this legislation that would be everything from
AM (12:33.969)
Yeah.
Madison (12:56.558)
security guard minimums, because there weren’t any and some of these clubs to save on costs wouldn’t even have one security guard. That was my first home club. We didn’t have the… Not what… The manager would be the security. And the manager also was doing the soda drinks and taking people’s covers and also rallying everyone and DJing often. And that was our security.
AM (13:00.049)
Hmm.
AM (13:04.881)
Not, what do you mean? Say that again.
AM (13:10.481)
No.
AM (13:16.017)
Madison (13:22.446)
And on top of that, you know, like a lot of these clubs were really interested in security anyways, not only because it costs money to contract them or put them on payroll, but also because they aren’t kicking out violent customers because they’re trying to get as much money as they possibly can because they’re not making enough revenue to keep the doors open. And then that’s not me making excuses for management, but I do think that like that is a really natural outcome of the climate that.
AM (13:34.193)
Wow.
Madison (13:51.342)
the industry was put into. So yeah, our bill was gonna do minimum security, fee caps, because 150 to $200 a night is crazy and making people sell sodas or pay 20 bucks to leave to go to the bar or whatever next door. Ending back rent, abolishing it totally, alcohol legalization, club employee training on things like de -escalation. We wanted to standardize the practice of the club and also anti -discrimination practice.
AM (13:53.745)
Sure.
AM (14:02.705)
chickens.
Madison (14:21.198)
protections and equitable contracts, all this stuff. But obviously, alcohol legalization and decriminalization of dancer conduct, trying to keep us from constantly being under threat of policing, those are very controversial ideas, especially with older generation people. So yeah, the first year that we introduced it, I think was 2020.
AM (14:22.161)
Right.
Madison (14:51.47)
I don’t even know what year it is. It’s 2024 right now. So yeah, we started working on 2022, introduced it for the 2023 Ledge Session. It actually did really well at first. We passed through the Senate 40 to 8. We got it over into the House, passed through a House Labor Committee. But then the House like purposefully killed it. They dual referred us to a second committee, which is not very common.
AM (14:52.465)
Mm.
Right.
Madison (15:16.462)
And then that second committee refused to schedule the bill for a hearing, effectively killing it because it couldn’t move forward in the process. And that was a really hard hit. Also, the folks who did that were pretty clearly holding anti -sex work prejudice. So it felt like a direct attack in a very classic way that the institutional system treats.
AM (15:22.897)
Hmm. Sure.
AM (15:34.129)
Mm -hmm.
Madison (15:42.798)
strippers, even though we were like all really advocating of like, hey, like our environments are not okay. And also, we know that they can be better because we’ve all worked somewhere else outside of Seattle. And like, we need your help. Yeah. And they didn’t take it seriously. And so we came back the next year, which was this last session last January. And we did it all again. And somehow by
AM (15:52.337)
Right. We have examples. Yeah.
AM (16:00.977)
Okay.
Madison (16:09.102)
It’s still unbelievable, but somehow we were able to pass the bill and we got every single policy piece included in the bill, including partial decriminalization of stripping, which was more than I expected we would get. Because in order to get any sort of decriminalization of stripping, we had to preempt all local laws and localities hate that. And somehow we got a little bit, which is a really wonderful start because that means that that’s…
slightly less criminalization that we’re all dealing with while we’re in the club, but also that education is happening and that public opinion is changing and some of those laws have been changed, yeah.
AM (16:42.769)
Okay. Okay. So what do you mean by partial? Does it, is that similar to like the Nordic model when you say that or what, what do you mean by that?
Madison (16:54.158)
It just means that we didn’t fully decriminalize and abolish all of the criminalizing laws for stripping. So we got nudity decriminalized in the club. So you can be naked when you choose to be naked. There doesn’t have to be all these crazy parameters dictating that. So long as you’re not touching a customer, which is still close. It used to be that like,
AM (17:12.369)
Okay.
AM (17:17.713)
I see.
Madison (17:20.334)
you can’t touch a customer and you also can’t be naked. So at least now you can be naked without fearing the police And then on top of that, we made it legal for you to take payment upfront and to take payment however you want. And then also we made it legal for you to be close in proximity to customers without contact. Because again, beforehand it used to be you couldn’t be close to customers whether you’re touching them or not. So we’ve started chipping away at it basically.
AM (17:24.241)
Okay, I see. Yeah.
AM (17:49.009)
I’m just so confused by all of that. Why not just abolish strip clubs if they were gonna do all that? I mean, thank God they didn’t, but how can you even operate if everything you do is illegal?
Madison (17:51.694)
Yeah.
Madison (18:04.014)
Well, that’s the point. Yeah, that’s the point is that it’s unconstitutional to abolish strip clubs completely. The Supreme Court ruled that. And so the way that people and the government can carry out and demand stuff is by making it as difficult and horrendous as possible to be in that business. And it’s actually been pretty successful. That’s why Washington only has 11 clubs. That’s why dancers have been suffering so much. I really do think that is
AM (18:11.153)
Right.
AM (18:23.793)
Mm -hmm.
AM (18:28.273)
Yikes.
Madison (18:32.686)
the purposeful intent behind laws like this. And unfortunately, the laws are touted as being for public safety. But what they do is they insulate clubs from the rest of society without any concern or regard for what’s happening inside the clubs, particularly to dancers. And so it’s putting all of the burden on dancers. And I think that’s justified in a lot of people’s minds because we’re sex workers.
AM (18:35.633)
Mm -hmm.
AM (18:54.961)
Yeah.
AM (18:59.121)
Right. And I’m also confused by like, okay, for instance, I am a person who wants to own a club, hypothetical, not hypothetical, but in this situation, I’m a person who wants to own a club and I live in Washington state. Why on earth would I open a strip club with all of these laws? And so I guess I’m kind of wondering like,
Madison (19:18.83)
You.
AM (19:25.137)
what are you doing? And I see what they’re doing. They charged you, the dancers, a ton. But it seems sort of pinky in the brain -ish, like brain. You’re trying to take over this group of people. Because why else would you have this business where you’re just exploiting the workers? That’s all you’re doing in order to survive. I’m just trying to wrap my head around.
what managers and owners in the state are thinking.
Madison (19:55.374)
Wow.
Well, and I think you’re hitting a really important point is that there’s a lot of people out there that would probably run the strip clubs way better and actually have some care and humanization of dancers, but they’re not going to get into the Washington game because it’s such an irrational choice. And so the people who are in the game here are exactly the sort of people who are cool with exploiting dancers and cool with perpetuating abuse. And so.
AM (20:16.753)
Right.
AM (20:22.609)
Mm -hmm.
Madison (20:25.326)
we’re seeing the effects of criminalization play out in real time where it really is a top to bottom effect of just poisoning every level of this process. And we do have crazy bad zoning laws here, which make it impossible to even open up and license the strip club if you wanted to, let alone the fact that no one wants to. And so also we have a monopoly club owner here. He owns six out of 11 of the clubs and it’s…
AM (20:37.329)
Mm -hmm.
AM (20:45.873)
Right.
AM (20:51.217)
I got it.
Madison (20:54.414)
Yeah, so it’s like no one wants to get into it. Homeboy already has the money to get into it. If one of the clubs shut down because they’re not making money, he just buys it up and now he has tons of power over the industry. And if you get blacklisted from his club, you barely have any other options.
AM (21:09.585)
Got it. Will you do me a favor real quick and move your hair away from your mic? Yeah, thank you. I just started scraping on it just a few seconds ago. Thank you. Yeah, well, it’s extremely frustrating and I’m so like excited for you all that you were able to make these changes come about. And I guess, you know, one of my…
Madison (21:14.286)
Yeah.
AM (21:33.745)
questions is, like, I’m like, what the hell is wrong with people in Washington state, like, who are running it? I’m so confused. My question too is like, what is it about the history of the state that it became so conservative with alcohol and nudity? Like, why? What happened?
Madison (21:53.71)
Yeah, I’ll preface this all by saying that while Washington has the veneer of being a progressive liberal state, there’s many, many things in our state that are not progressive and not liberal. We have a lot of sleuthy, conservative, and paternalistic laws here. So it’s not just the strip club industry, though I do think
AM (22:03.025)
Hmm.
Madison (22:19.854)
our industry has been hit particularly hard. And I think it’s an easy one to hit because of sex work stigma. But yeah, we’re not the only ones. The history of strip club regulations is kind of wild. So in the 60s, there were Supreme Court rulings, you may know this already, but there’s Supreme Court rulings regarding the regulations of
AM (22:36.529)
Okay.
Madison (22:47.182)
porn industry and strip club industry. And basically the Supreme Court ruling was like, yeah, we assume that there’s all these negative outcomes that are going to be associated with the business and work of porn and strip clubs. And therefore it’s constitutional to regulate them in order to mitigate all those evil, bad things that are going to come from them. So things like limiting alcohol service, limiting nudity, limiting…
AM (23:11.153)
Okay.
Madison (23:16.366)
proximity to customers, zoning, everything, right? And so our whole country is allowed to use those types of regulations for these businesses. Now, how, to what scale and in what context those regulations applied, sorry, on what scale and how those regulations are applied depends on the state and the locality, all those things. But basically, in…
I think the 60s and 70s here in Seattle, we had a mob family, the Calacuchios, and they were doing a lot of mob insanity, right? Drug trafficking, human trafficking, killing people, all sorts of stuff. And they had a couple of strip clubs. And so our local officials decided to crack down on the Calacuchio family. They were gonna throw this whole book of strip club regulations.
AM (23:50.961)
Hmm.
Madison (24:12.142)
that is already constitutional and already things that they were doing, just they were gonna scale it up in order to target this one family. And I can see the justification there. These laws changed in the 80s, but it’s also very irrational because one, this idea that those regulations actually mitigate crime is not necessarily true. This idea that strip clubs are innately connected to…
increases in crime is also not true. And also it’s incredibly problematic to target a mob presence by changing regulations in the industry in a way that has no concern of how especially the workers within that industry are going to be affected by that. So incredibly problematic. And then 40 plus years later, we’re seeing the results and effects of that.
AM (24:55.857)
Right.
AM (25:04.273)
Wow. Okay. I had no idea. And that, yeah, you’re right. That’s not justifiable, but that’s wild. Thank you for sharing all of that. And so now you have, actually, actually, before we do that, I want to go here. Sorry, Mac, you got this. Where’s some of the laws that…
Yeah, that’s got to take a break. We already talked about that. We already talked about the laws that made you unsafe. Yeah, so I have this question about, because I was looking through your Instagram account, strippers are workers, and I saw someone or it was in the writing or someone spoke it that there is this logic in Washington state that more laws make it safer.
Madison (25:32.558)
Thank you.
AM (25:58.097)
for strippers, which we kind of just talked about, but what I’m curious about is like, have you been able to be face to face with someone and have that very specific conversation and argue against it? Like, did you have an opportunity to do that? And what was that like? And potentially did their mind change? Like…
Madison (26:20.494)
Yeah, so I think that comment is very true. I also want to point out that this idea that regulating strippers is part of the larger idea from white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, that the more you regulate and control people, the more you can get the results that you want. And so I think that this is just a version of that that’s being applied to strippers and sex workers more generally around the country.
I have had so many conversations with people who hold those beliefs. It’s absolutely a huge part of the anti -sex work, anti -trafficking industry. These nonprofit organizations that are doing anti -trafficking work while promoting Nordic model and demand stuff, they all really deeply hold those beliefs and those frameworks.
AM (26:54.801)
Yeah.
AM (27:16.401)
Right.
Madison (27:17.614)
And also a lot of old school white feminists who grew up in the second wave also really hold those beliefs. I do think that there’s a huge generational divide in particularly lawmakers, but also the public, where the younger generation understands that controlling and policing people, especially their bodies, is not the way to get liberation and healthy, self -determined autonomy. And the older generation just doesn’t really get that.
AM (27:26.065)
Mm -hmm.
AM (27:43.697)
Right.
Madison (27:46.702)
So I had a lot of conversations on this topic and they would take different forms, but ultimately it came down to these prejudiced beliefs that because we are strippers, there’s something innately wrong with us, that we are not credible, that we’re dumb, that we’re untalented, unskilled, uneducated, whatever it is. And therefore we need paternalistic,
AM (28:05.489)
right.
Madison (28:16.27)
daddy government to tell us exactly what we need to do and how to do it. And the fact is, is that that is not true. The government, which is primarily ruled by class whiteness and masculinity, does not know how the majority of strippers who are femme, non -binary, trans women, people of color coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds are.
people with disabilities, all these different things, that government does not know what is best for us. And so what that results in is all this harm of us having to function within this policed criminalized system and hoping that we can somehow get out of it. Get out of, what I mean by get out of it is get out of it.
AM (28:46.513)
Mm -hmm.
Madison (29:06.03)
with our own choices and setting our boundaries and being able to access resources that we need. But the fact is, is like all those things are so hard to do under that system. And so how those conversations usually went is trying to humanize ourselves and saying like, hey, this is my experience. This is my understanding of it. This is why it doesn’t work. And I think those conversations in more neutral to gray folks,
AM (29:15.953)
Right.
Madison (29:35.182)
or organizations did go better and eventually consensus was built and people came along and they’re like, okay, I actually can see that ultimately, for example, a dancer being able to determine what they say yes or no to really can only be determined by that dancer. And it doesn’t help anyone that that dancer is giving a lap dance constantly worried that vice could come in or that management can hold it against their head. Some people were open to that. Now the more,
AM (29:59.313)
Sure.
Madison (30:06.574)
The more tightly conservative groups or folks, I think some of those beliefs are so fundamental to their identity and their understanding of the world and the system. There is no changing that. And I don’t think that we ever will, to be completely honest. And so with those folks or organizations, the strategy was more about building more power than they had, being louder than they are.
AM (30:16.241)
Yeah.
Madison (30:34.926)
showing that we have more numbers than what they have or bringing in other sources that are seen as credible, like decriminalization -based anti -trafficking or anti -violence orgs or other things like that, and giving a different viewpoint. And the point of that is to not change that really, really conservative person’s mind. It’s to take away their power from really changing the outcome of us passing our bill.
AM (31:03.985)
I see. That makes sense. That’s a very wise and efficient strategy. Because I’m like, let’s change everyone’s mind. And that’s just not reality. But that’s what I want. Something is sparking. I’ve been in work situations before.
that aren’t great and I hear comments such as, and not just from management, but also from dancers, I’ve heard this, well, if you don’t like the way things are here, maybe you should work somewhere else. And I’ve always disagreed with that sentiment, with that rhetoric and with seeing what’s been happening in your state, like that is where you live, that is where you’re established, where you grew up, where your family is, where your friends are, where your heart is, that’s where you want.
live. And in your state, you don’t have another choice because all of the clubs were under this same rule. And I’m just curious if you ever heard management ever say that to you because you didn’t have anywhere else to go if you wanted to keep doing stripping.
Madison (32:24.43)
yeah, I think the general public says that. Not to say, I actually think the general public is pretty pro stripper and stripper rights, especially with like just the tiniest amount of education. But I think the folks who are anti sex worker, a lot of them say that. And management certainly says that. I actually, I guess I’ll spill some tea. I had a really terrible conversation with the Monopoly club owner here.
AM (32:32.561)
Yeah.
AM (32:49.873)
Mm -hmm.
Madison (32:51.182)
And he even tried to say the same bullshit to me. He was like, you know, you know that we are exploiting the girls because if we were, they would just like leave. And it’s like, dude, like that’s obviously not true. People have tons of reasons for doing this work, whether out of choice or whether out of survival or necessity. However, there’s not a lot of other clubs that they can go to. There’s not necessarily, certainly for me at 18, other jobs to go to. And…
AM (33:20.113)
Mm -hmm.
Madison (33:20.846)
something that really bothers me about that sentiment, no matter who it comes from, is this complete denial and willingness to dream bigger. Because if we measure everything by this idea that if it’s bad, you just need to like figure it out and leave, then no one’s engaging with this idea of like, if it’s bad, maybe it can be fixed, and maybe it should be fixed. And if everyone is saying you just need to
AM (33:31.921)
Hmm. Hmm.
AM (33:46.097)
Right.
Madison (33:49.902)
to leave and find something else, then the industry will never change. And we know that folks will always be coming in and out of this industry or industries like it. And all that means is that the older generation, previous generation that never changed anything is just leaving new generations to experience the same thing. And then the pattern never stops. And I think it’s okay to get really optimistic and think about.
making it work and it should work. I mean we don’t even have to get into justifying why people have the right to do the labor that they want with dignity and respect. To be able to think, yeah like why isn’t someone improving this? I don’t know.
AM (34:31.025)
Yeah, well, you all must feel so good about what’s happened. Was there like a celebration? What did you all do after hearing the news? Because just watching the Instagram post for you’re all watching the zoom like makes me cry. So it must have just been such an amazing moment. Can you tell us what that was like for all of you?
Madison (34:55.534)
Yeah, so I think everyone in the group was in, and maybe still is, in disbelief.
I will tell you, so I’ve been lobbying and I do the political strategy and stuff like this. And when we went into last session, I gave us like a 5 % chance of passing the bill. I did not think it was possible based on the previous year and how the bill was killed. And for the record, the bill was killed by people pretty high up in leadership within the house. So it’s just that power map does not add up, right?
AM (35:16.017)
Mm -hmm.
AM (35:23.185)
Okay.
AM (35:33.521)
Mm -hmm. Okay.
Madison (35:39.63)
And the couple days leading up to the bill actually passing the legislature, I was convinced we didn’t have the votes and I was convinced if we could get the votes, it was going to be super, super tight and like down to the wire. Just not feeling comfortable and confident to the point that we were negotiating with a Republican amendment potentially to get some Republican votes in order to cross the line. We ended up not needing it because we did have enough Dem votes.
AM (35:53.873)
Mm -hmm.
AM (36:04.369)
Okay.
Madison (36:09.71)
but that’s how tight it felt like it was gonna be. I was actually at the Capitol in the legislature when the bill passed and there’s the chamber, the voting floor, and then there’s wings on the side of it. And usually there’s viewing decks on top that you can sit, but one of our bill sponsors and like a champion let me come down onto the wings and like watch the vote.
AM (36:26.961)
Mm -hmm.
AM (36:38.001)
That’s cool.
Madison (36:39.246)
It was really cool and I just cried like I just cried. It was unbelievable. By the time it goes to the vote, because this is mostly political theater, once it goes to a vote on the floor, that means that they’ve already caucused and counted that it does have the votes. So in theory we did, but it was still just so surreal and intense. And ours was the last bill of the night to get voted on. It was at like 10 p at night.
AM (36:42.161)
Hahaha!
AM (37:08.113)
Stripper time.
Madison (37:09.422)
It was terrific, absolutely. And so the legislators were getting off the floor and I started crying and then legislators were just coming up and hugging me. And that was also surreal that it’s like there’s these people in power that cared and were invested and grateful. And so I checked back into the Zoom because I couldn’t be on it the whole time. I was on it at the beginning and then after the vote. And it was just…
AM (37:18.257)
so sweet.
Madison (37:36.334)
Everyone was just so happy and so relieved. This really felt like a last ditch effort to get stuff changed.
AM (37:39.121)
Yeah.
Madison (37:48.398)
Yeah, and I watch because I wasn’t there on the zoom when they saw the count come in. And I still watch the recording of them celebrating when the count comes in because it’s so it’s so amazing to see it and everyone’s relief and joy. And we’ve celebrated many times since then. We celebrated at queer venue like a queer nightclub here that partnered with us a lot. We did a small celebration.
AM (37:58.545)
Sure.
AM (38:07.249)
Amazing.
Madison (38:17.294)
like an intimate one at a local pole studio and we’ve gone out for drinks and we did a spa day, like all sorts of things. And it’s just been great.
AM (38:26.641)
That’s amazing. Sorry, I’m over here trying not to cry. I would like to challenge one thing that you’ve said multiple times, that is unbelievable. And I’d like to challenge that it is believable because it happened, and that it must maintain and be believable because we need to believe that we can do things and make things happen.
And we have to, we believe in you. So many people have been watching what you’ve been doing. And I think a lot of us believed in you. That’s, you know, why we were on board and we believe in us. We believe in strippers and that we are capable, opposite of what so many people out there think of us. So I’d like to challenge that, that we all start to believe in what you did and that it’s real.
Madison (39:25.23)
Yeah, that’s so beautiful. And I think something that is painful in this work is that I deeply believe in strippers and our community and our fellow communities of other forms of sex work. And I think that we are some of the most skilled, powerful, driven folks that I’ve ever known.
It is really painful to sometimes feel like the system is a Goliath that can never be won over. It feels sometimes like an impossible fight. Like the system is built in a way where people like us aren’t supposed to have power. And it’s true, like we did build power and I believe that power can be built.
AM (40:02.449)
Right.
AM (40:11.889)
Right.
Madison (40:19.534)
I just think that, and we did, we did build power, enough power that this thing could happen. And I also believe that things are changing. And I think, at least here in Washington, I see a lot of new lawmakers who get it. Yeah, it’s just…
AM (40:33.361)
That’s awesome.
Madison (40:40.623)
I have no doubt in us, I have doubt in the system.
AM (40:44.017)
Sure. Yeah, I get that. I get that. I have no doubt in us either, in strippers in general, sex workers, of course. And this, I feel like this movement that you have been a part of and that your team has done gives so much more of us hope because you did something on such a grand scale.
and you were tenacious and you were consistent, you persevered, you pushed through even though you had dips and failures and setbacks and losses. And that’s something to be really proud of. So how do the rest of us do it? Because you guys probably have a playbook or something.
Madison (41:39.182)
yeah.
Madison (41:46.414)
The playbook is build as much community power as possible. The idea behind grassroots organizing is that our voices together has more power than the system. And in order to effectively do that, we have to build relationships, we have to build strong community, and we have to come together willing to push forward. That is the playbook. We’ve seen that.
through our work, through so many of our ancestors’ work. And on top of that, then it’s about messaging and like strategy. You figure out who has the power, who is with you and who is against you in those power positions, and how do you leverage both sets of opposition and support in order to get where you need to go. And…
that is largely done through information gathering, which is information gathering is largely from network. So that’s a different type of relationship that really has to come from other people in power and outside of like our own community of sex workers and strippers. And with that information, you start strategizing of like, okay, who do we need to try to move? What vote do we need? This person has a lot of power and is against us. How do we pressure them?
to move in the way that we need or how do we make their vote unimportant and not a huge loss in comparison to the other support that we have. And with all of that strong messaging is important, being really clear about what the goals are, what the problem is, why this is important, tailoring it to make sense to folks. People…
In lobbying meetings, they’re oftentimes 15 minutes. So to get someone’s vote, you might only have 15 minutes. You have to be really, really on top of that messaging in a world that translates to people. On social media, people are just going to see like a little bit unless they’re closely connected. That messaging needs to be strong. And I will say when it came down to the vote, before the bill passed, the couple of days leading up to that, a lot of the work that was being done was happening behind closed doors.
AM (43:49.393)
Right.
Madison (44:08.494)
from legislator to legislator. And the legislators who were supportive had all that messaging. They were inoculated. They understood what the issues were, and they had those points and those ideas and those facts, and they were able to communicate that to their colleagues. And so it’s messaging from bottom up. It’s coalition building with as many supportive, like -minded orgs and communities as possible and doing that reach, and then just trying to keep pinpointing that power.
AM (44:10.641)
Thank you.
Madison (44:37.934)
And sometimes that looked very particular, like reaching out to specific legislators, having a bunch of public email or call. Sometimes it looked like journalism releases. Sometimes it looked like demonstrations, you know, all these different ways to show power and it depends on the situation.
AM (44:38.449)
Mm -hmm.
AM (44:57.809)
Mm. Mm. Amazing. Amazing. A mountain to climb is what it sounds like. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing all of this and enlightening us and teaching us and for the work that you and your team have done. It’s tremendous. Thank you.
Madison (45:06.894)
Truly. Yeah.
Madison (45:26.254)
Thank you so much. Yeah, of course, I’m so happy to be here. And I do think change is coming. I do think power can be built. It obviously has been built and I think it will continue to be built. And we’re seeing that around the country. We’re seeing huge labor reform, but also sex worker rights movements. So many orgs, sex worker orgs and stripper orgs are popping up around the country and people are starting to learn. And we’re also electing.
AM (45:27.473)
You’re welcome.
AM (45:33.873)
Hmm.
AM (45:38.801)
Yeah.
Madison (45:55.246)
younger people to our government who are a little bit more plugged in and get it. And so change, I think, is inevitable. It’s just incremental. And sometimes it’s really fast, like our bill. Our bill was incredibly fast on the relative scale of things. And sometimes it’s slow, but it is happening.
AM (45:56.625)
Yeah. Yeah.
AM (46:14.321)
Yeah, awesome. Is there anything that we missed that you think is important to share before we close out?
Madison (46:22.478)
I don’t think so. Do you want to hit the management question? I’m okay either way.
AM (46:26.897)
sure. Yeah. Okay. So one last question, just because I’m, I personally am super curious is, did you all collaborate with club owners and or managers for this? Because it also benefits them technically. So were they like in on it or what?
Madison (46:52.462)
Yeah, our relationship with management has always been very dicey. They actually retaliated against some of the original founding members way back in the day and showed up and they’re like, hey, you two owe five grand of back rent that we can’t show receipts for and you got to pay it in three days or else you’re out, right? Stuff like that. And a lot of our issues and a lot of…
AM (47:03.121)
Okay.
Madison (47:19.758)
the things trying to be solved in the policy were explicitly in response to management, exploitation and abuse and racism and discrimination. So we’ve never been friends with management. They were in the process. They had their own lobbyist. They were showing up and lobbying for their own interests. They also created their own fake worker coalition. They created a shell nonprofit.
And then they hired a few dancers to work at it. And then they would show up and say that they’re repping dancer interests, even though management was feeding them information. Like one of the things that management was telling the few dancers that were involved in this group is like, all right, y ‘all tell us what you want and us owners will go advocate for you, which is just like so problematic. So they tried to do everything they could.
AM (48:11.761)
Yeah.
Madison (48:14.414)
They were really, really supportive of alcohol legalization unsurprisingly, because like you said, that benefits them, but they pushed against every worker’s protection. They pushed against security minimums, they pushed against fee caps. They gave up the back rent pretty early on, but I think they had an issue with that. They were just not with it except for alcohol. They basically just wanted alcohol legalization and for everything else to stay the same.
AM (48:21.457)
Right.
AM (48:40.657)
Okay, but that doesn’t work.
Madison (48:43.342)
It doesn’t work. And I think the nice thing was that no one in the state, government official, public, dancer, whatever, was interested in getting the club owners what they wanted. And so it was pretty easy and relatively fast to build enough power where their opinion on that stuff was just not important in the conversation really. And we ended up having a lot more sway over how things turned out than them.
AM (49:05.233)
Right.
AM (49:12.465)
Yeah, because you were organized and you had an actual like real thing that you were talking about and theirs is like all fake. Like you made a fake nonprofit. Do you know how hard it is to file a nonprofit? Like you just made a fake one. Like for real ones are hard.
Madison (49:31.008)
Yeah, they certainly tried, but no one cares what the strip club owner says about not being able to properly cap fees or whatever, or how hard it would be. And it was all like corporation threats. It’s the same playbook that every corporation ever has. And so it’s just very easy to read into and because…
they’re not a very big industry and they don’t have a lot of money. I think it just ended up not causing a lot of issues. Obviously there’s corporate playbooks that work, but they tend to be larger and more powerful. And it was on our benefit that a lot of people in the legislature, that same prejudice that makes them not trust dancers is increased exponentially against club owners, right? So in some ways that’s for a benefit and it’s super valid in my opinion.
AM (50:00.017)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
AM (50:17.041)
Okay.
Yeah, because then they were making themselves more present, like visible. And like any like logical, intelligent person could obviously see that their arguments were for exploitation. And like, and so they it almost sounds like they made the case against themselves. Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah.
Madison (50:43.63)
Yeah, I don’t think they certainly did. They come across, they come across, I collaborated with the lobbyist a little bit towards the end, where it was like to the point where the club owners had basically bowed out and they’re like, okay, we can’t ask for really many or if any changes to the policy, like Zaw has complete control of this. And then it just became, they still had to do the bare basics through the process or their…
lobbyist was paid to do the bare basics and there were times where I told them it was like at this point like don’t have the Monopoly club owner come in anymore like he comes across so sleazy and so weird because he is but he just comes across bad and it’s like no one needs to hear from this dude like don’t let him show up so
AM (51:26.8)
Hehehehehe
AM (51:33.009)
Yeah, yeah. Got it. Okay, so no, we did not work with the club owners and managers. It sounded like, well, not surprising. I’m just wondering if there’s ever a time where we’ll find ground with them. But until then, I suppose not for now.
Madison (51:55.854)
Yeah, and you know what? We don’t need them to be happy.
AM (51:56.689)
Yeah.
AM (52:01.777)
You’re right. Obviously, you’ve proven that. So it’s amazing. Let’s do more of this all across the country. Yes. Can you please tell everyone how to find more information about you and strippers or workers?
Madison (52:05.198)
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.
Madison (52:12.974)
Yes.
Madison (52:20.206)
Yeah, Strippers Are Workers is probably best kept up to date with through our Instagram. It’s strippersareworkerswa. And then we also have a website, strippersareworkers .org. There’s a little bit more detailed information there. One of the dancers will be updating it soon, so it should be a little bit more current, but that’s also a great way to get involved or to even donate.
And then I’m on Instagram, my handle is gsd .gc8. Terrible handle, no one’s gonna remember it, but I’m around too. So.
AM (52:57.201)
Awesome. And speaking of donating, is it okay if I talk about our collaboration? Okay. So speaking of donating, as you may see on social media right now, when you shop in the YASDRIPPER store at yasdripper .com, 10 % of all the profits go directly to Strippers Art Workers. So shopping at yastripper .com.
Madison (53:04.942)
Yes, absolutely, please do.
AM (53:25.809)
support strippers and the very important work that they’re doing. You can also go to strippersourworkers .org and donate directly as well. We will be advocating for direct donations as well as shopping in the store to help all boats rise. Well, this has been such a pleasure and honor and I’m sorry for crying. I’m kind of a softie. I like really give a shit about this work.
So thank you for holding that space for me. And thank you so much for being here.
Madison (54:01.07)
No, thank you so much for having me and for Yes The Stripper podcast to be so supportive of SAW and wanting to do a partnership and help elevate us. And also everyone, please go buy something from YesTheStripper .com. This stuff is so cute. I love it. And this has really been my pleasure. And it’s so great to connect with you and be talking about the work. It’s so important.
AM (54:12.881)
Thank you.
Absolutely, same.
So important. Thank you. And listening to the work is so important. And please be sure to share this episode and talk about these things with your coworkers, fellow strippers and civilians. Honestly, they need to be educated. Hello. All right. Well, that wraps up this episode for Yes, a Stripper podcast. As always, thank you for listening. See you next time. Bye.