Free Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles by Lynn Waddell Page B

close. I can call him on his cell and he’ll show
    up in minutes.”
    Joe pioneered a rather laissez-faire approach to managing dancers.
    His dancers are free agents, essentially operating as vendors in his mall
    of flesh. He doesn’t pay them, and they don’t share their earnings with
    him. They only tip other employees—the waitresses, door girl, man-
    ager, and bouncers. At night, dancers are expected to tip out thirty-six
    dollars, which is less than half the rate of most other clubs.
    In addition to their tip-out to other employees, dancers feed the
    jukebox. They prefer that to tipping a DJ because it saves them money
    since DJs typically demand 10 percent of a dancer’s tips. Plus, DJs
    bring their own drama, Mary says. “A lot of times DJs play favorites,
    try to get the girls to pay him more, and all kinds of stuff. Some are real
    slimeballs.”
    Mons dancers set their own hours, allowing them to attend class or
    raise families and still earn as much as six figures a year. Most don’t
    proof
    work there longer than seven years, Mary says. “More than not, they
    see it as their ladder to something else. A lot go to college. Some leave
    and then come back because they want to make extra money. They may
    want to buy a house or pay for their kid’s school.”
    Standing nearby, Alana, a twenty-three-year-old dancer whose
    white, lacy pull-up bra glows against her chocolate skin, says she’s
    working her way through design school. She likes working at the Mons
    because unlike a local topless club where she worked, she doesn’t have
    to perform in a private VIP room and is not expected to do more than
    dance. She says, “That other place was basically a whorehouse.”
    ap
    With money so good and the hours so loose, Mary says that Joe has
    Mar
    no problem getting Playboy centerfold–quality dancers like Alana. She
    t
    notes that he prefers petite women and insists that they stay trim.
    Fo
    “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and some men complain that they
    gni
    would like a girl with more meat, more curves, but this is what Joe
    K e
    likes,” she says with a sigh. “Like that girl,” she says pointing to a dancer
    ht
    on the stage who weighs no more than 125 pounds. “She’s pushing it
    9
    but she has nice curves.”
    4
    Feeling thoroughly dejected with my physical state, I call it a night
    even though closing isn’t until 5:00 a.m. As I squeeze past a horde of
    incoming customers, Mary calls out: “You know you can’t write about
    this without getting a lap dance. You’re going to have to come back.
    And bring your husband!”
    I laugh. That’s not going to happen.
    Crack Whore Stories
    Mons may garner the most glory, but it is but a small, though highly
    touted, piece of Trampa. The area has forty-three topless and nude
    clubs. The phone book and adult business directories list more than
    120 other erotic businesses within Tampa’s city limits. Name a medium
    of sexual pleasure and Tampa has it, homegrown. The city is heavily
    spiced with pornographers of film and books, XXX theaters, swing-
    ers’ bars, fetish clubs, massage parlors, lingerie modeling, and adult
    bookstores.
    Then there are the unlicensed outcall services and advertised paid
    escorts. Tampa’s prostitutes don’t just work the streets, hotels, and
    tourist haunts; they get on jets and fly to meet Johns across the coun-
    proof
    try. One madam tells me she based her operation in Tampa Bay because
    of the beaches and the convenience to Tampa International Airport.
    Paul Allen, publisher of NightMoves, Tampa Bay’s leading adult-
    entertainment guide, naturally relishes the flourishing local flesh in-
    dustry. “It isn’t quite the holy land, but it’s a very adult-friendly at-
    mosphere,” Paul told the St. Petersburg Times ’ Christopher Goffard in 2002. “We’ve got beautiful girls, beautiful weather. We’ve got the
    best attorneys we’ll ever need. And guys like Joe Redner have laid the
    groundwork.”
    Paul says