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jakeyjake's review
A cool memoir about strippers in 90s San Francisco unionizing. I'd have read a memoir about starting a union in your workplace OR a memoir about life as a stripper, so to have both in one... !!!
readingnookreviews's review
5.0
How is everyone not talking about this amazing memoir!? I was fascinated by Neon Girls and finished this in a day! I loved reading about the author’s changing feelings along her experience in the sex industry, and how there really wasn’t a conclusion regarding if stripping is empowering or exploitative. Jennifer Worley does a wonderful job showing examples of situations where it really was both (empowering and exploitative), and how many people felt one way or the other due to the purpose/nature of their work versus how powerful they felt in the moment. I loved the way these beautiful women bonded together to fight back for change and sex workers’ rights. The author explains and exposes stage rules, hiring practices, discrimination, and more. Neon Girls is fascinating, riveting, feminist, and inspiring, offering an inside look into an industry that is rarely seen.
Thank you so much to Harper Perennial for my gifted copy of this amazing book! Release date 6/9/2020
Thank you so much to Harper Perennial for my gifted copy of this amazing book! Release date 6/9/2020
zinelib's review
5.0
Have you seen the stirring documentary Live Live Nude Girls Unite? Neon Girls is a memoir of one stripper/unionist's experience working at the Lusty Lady. Worley is a queer grad student eking out a thin salary at a publishing house in the East Bay when she sees an ad for strippers at double her current hourly wage. 1990s San Francisco Bay Area feminism embraced women taking control of their sexuality.
It's when the strippers realized they didn't have total control that they began really questioning their labor conditions. Some of the viewing booths have one-way windows--to provide the customers with anonymity--which obviously they take advantage of by filming the dancers without their consent, robbing them of their privacy and ability to make a living.
There are other or more significant issues, depending on your positionality. The Lusty had rules about how many "exotics" could be onstage at any given time, and how many performers could have small breasts, which meant lots of shifts for curvy white women, and the ability to take extra shifts, and the shaft for women of color. Same went for private rooms. A white dancer needed just to ask for a shift in the more lucrative booth, where a Black dancer was given a "wait and see" to their request.
As an academic, Worley provides history, placing the Lusties on a continuum from 1970s sex workers in France and San Francisco and to the more recent EDA: Exotic Dancers Alliance. The EDA had formed due to even worse conditions at other San Francisco clubs, where dancers had to pay stage fees and hustle lap dances while offstage. She also relates a new-to-me term that only gets about 1500 hit on the Goog, snarxist, which she uses to describe the union's "minister of propaganda."
The union has triumphs and tragedies--some of the most reliable tear bait for fans of fighting The Man. There's one story about the queer/burlesque community showing its support that is positively gleeful. Same with other union members supporting the picket. That is some feel-good solidarity, at which San Francisco excels.
One caveat: I would like to read a BIPOC dancer's narrative to center and better understand their struggles, as they are referenced, but not fully articulated in Worley's story.
It's when the strippers realized they didn't have total control that they began really questioning their labor conditions. Some of the viewing booths have one-way windows--to provide the customers with anonymity--which obviously they take advantage of by filming the dancers without their consent, robbing them of their privacy and ability to make a living.
There are other or more significant issues, depending on your positionality. The Lusty had rules about how many "exotics" could be onstage at any given time, and how many performers could have small breasts, which meant lots of shifts for curvy white women, and the ability to take extra shifts, and the shaft for women of color. Same went for private rooms. A white dancer needed just to ask for a shift in the more lucrative booth, where a Black dancer was given a "wait and see" to their request.
As an academic, Worley provides history, placing the Lusties on a continuum from 1970s sex workers in France and San Francisco and to the more recent EDA: Exotic Dancers Alliance. The EDA had formed due to even worse conditions at other San Francisco clubs, where dancers had to pay stage fees and hustle lap dances while offstage. She also relates a new-to-me term that only gets about 1500 hit on the Goog, snarxist, which she uses to describe the union's "minister of propaganda."
The union has triumphs and tragedies--some of the most reliable tear bait for fans of fighting The Man. There's one story about the queer/burlesque community showing its support that is positively gleeful. Same with other union members supporting the picket. That is some feel-good solidarity, at which San Francisco excels.
One caveat: I would like to read a BIPOC dancer's narrative to center and better understand their struggles, as they are referenced, but not fully articulated in Worley's story.
cate_with_a_c's review
It was actually really triggering for me of trauma I had experienced towards the end. I had to scrap the book.
the_lyon_reads_tonight's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
What a fun read this was. I can handle a dry and academic non-fiction but this style of writing is much more my speed. Funny and witty, self deprecating and consistently thoughtful, Worley really delves into her own personal experience. The way she approaches this allowed me as a reader to feel personally connected to the struggle of these women. While there was definitely opportunity to dig more into the history of labor, Worley touched on it enough to be meaningful. Overall, a stellar read if you want to know about this moment in history while also enjoying a memoir-esque book.
rstegema's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
A colleague of mine recommended this book and I am so glad I listened to it!
It opened my eyes to the world of the sex industry (specifically stripping) and the trials and tribulations that folks in that space deal with on a regular basis.
It opened my eyes to the world of the sex industry (specifically stripping) and the trials and tribulations that folks in that space deal with on a regular basis.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Adult/minor relationship