Kristy Cooper

Parker

Welcome to a sex workers Guide to the Galaxy where the answer to life the universe, and everything is sex workers. I'm your host, Parker Westwood. And today I'm excited to bring you a fellow Michigander. I'm no longer in Michigan, but I like to I like to feature my Michigan folks because I will always be a Michigander at heart. I'm a Midwest mama but Michigan's got a special place in my heart, um, yeah. So today I'm bringing you an interview with Kristy Cooper, who is a former sex worker, current librarian, and author and wrote the book, I Was a Stripper Librarian and it's fantastic. I had a really fun time reading it, I read it super-fast, which is always a good sign for me when reading a book means it's compelling and it was super relatable as a former stripper, we talk about it. I really love this, this interview because we get to dive into stripping as an industry which we hadn't done on the podcast before. And when I was a stripper, I found it really fucked up and fascinating how stripping as an industry works. So, I'm really excited for y'all to get a little glimpse into that. For those of you who don't know, it's a lot of food for thought, it's a lot of workers getting taken advantage of, to not in the way that people like to say strippers get taken advantage of, we are getting taken advantage of as workers. It's just, listen, it's great. We also get to talk about stigma, and the pressure of living a double life when you're really trying to keep your identity, your, your sex work identity secret, and living a double life can become a lot for your psyche to handle. So, we get to hear Kristy open up about that snd also learning about community organizing, because Kristy moves on to do community organizing in the sphere of libraries, and has learned, learned a lot about like data security and how to organize from sex workers. So, this interview is rich and fun and it's a little clumsy at first I'll say that because I decided to start with like the heavyweight questions. Pro tip as an interviewer just like don't do that but you know, you live you learn here we are learning together. Um, if you are enjoying this podcast, during this giving season, you can go over on over to patreon.com/sexy Galaxy pod and support the work not only of this podcast, but of ANSWER Detroit, a network of sex workers to excite revolution. They're doing some really exciting work. I'm proud to say that I'm a member and we just kick ass, take names, do a lot of harm reduction, mutual aid, and fight for the decriminalization and destigmatization of sex workers everywhere. So, go do that if you're feeling it, if you're not, that's great keep listening, I'm still glad you're here. You can also follow us on Twitter at sexy Galaxy pod. Leave a review if you don't got like the funds to spend but you got a little bit of time and some words go ahead and leave a review, it does help boost the show to more people. And this show is brought to you by Companion Tax. If you are a fellow sex worker and you hate doing your taxes, consider having someone else do them for you like Companion Tax, they do a great job. They're thorough, they answer any of your questions, and they will break it down into layman's terms for people like me who gets sick of legalese language. So, companion tax.com, go check them out. And now that we've gotten all of those things squared away, we can get into this interview with Kristy Cooper about her book. I Was a Stripper Librarian and many other things. Enjoy. I am here today with KristyCooper, thank you for joining me.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, thank you for having me on.

Parker

Yeah, I'm really, I'm really excited to talk to you. Let's start with an introduction, just introducing yourself name, pronouns, where you're located if you wish to share, and then what kind of sex work you do or have done.

Kristy Cooper

So yeah, my name is Kristy Cooper and my pronouns are she/they. I'm trying to remember all the questions. I live in Ypsilanti, Michigan, um that's like, right by Ann Arbor metro Detroit area, and um, there's one more. I mean, remember what it was? Oh, yeah, I used to be a stripper and also I used to be a dominatrix, too.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

I just barely touched on it in the book.

Parker

Yeah, I was like, you throw that in there randomly in the book.

Kristy Cooper

And people were like, I want to hear more about that. I was like, I don't know, I was trying to make, I was shooting for this kind of level of accessibility, that I wasn't sure that if I threw all of that in at different time periods that it was like, would have been, I didn't, I couldn't come up with a good way to do it, I guess without, being too much.

Parker

It would like mess up the flow of what you had to say.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

Yeah. Um, which is one thing that I would you wrote a book, we need to talk about that. You wrote a book; I Was a Stripper Librarian: From Cardigans to G Strings. There's gonna be no video, but I'm showing it to the computer anyway.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

Um, it's fantastic. I as a former stripper myself, I related to so much. Um, how do you feel having written a book?

Kristy Cooper

It's actually my third. It's actually my third book but um, I have like a series I never finished. An adult like dystopian thriller series. I just, it's just, I have to finish it now so it's just it's like complete. I have to go back to that since I got back into writing mode anyway. Um, but yeah, it's just something that's been kind of just weighing on me for a long time. I started writing it about seven years ago and I look my first I wrote my entire first draft and then I just sat on it a long time, because I really didn't have a built like a plan on how I wanted to release it, or I don't think I was at the comfort level of being open and out about it.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

Because I even feel like I've had, you know, I, not surprisingly, my biggest readership has been librarians so far, but they, overall, the response has been pretty good. And I don't know if I would have gotten as good of a response, even five or ten years ago, if I came out with the story. Like, I don't know. If that would have happened.

Parker

Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right about that, things have shifted a lot in the last five years. Um, yeah, and one of the things I love your intro and your afterword are like everything for me. I think they're just, they're jam packed full of information and you like, just tactfully tie everything together but in the intro you like, lead in with talking about shame and stigma around sex work which I, I appreciate a lot. And I wanted to talk to you about your experience, obviously, like you, you talk a lot about in the book, just like having this paranoia of like, people knowing who you were, or knowing what you did for work. And what was what was your experience with shame and stigma?

Kristy Cooper

Well, I think I realized it more like looking back, you know, I think, you know, I just sort of felt stressed out and I don't think I, I mean, I knew I had like a secret double life, but I don't think I, I don't even know maybe had the emotional vocabulary to understand that's what I was, you know, that's what I was experiencing and that's why I had that kind of like, additional stress and how that that stress factor plays into, you know, the kind of emotional load of sex work. Um. Yeah, I don't know, I think it made me to some degree I was like, closed off with people for a while. Cause I was like, okay, if they get to know me, they'll have to tell them and you know, and it just didn't and I don't want to deal with how they respond because no one ever responds well, and it, just they quickly change the topic on you and you know why you know, like.

Parker

Yeah, yeah. And we do enough emotional labor in our work we don't need to be doing that for other people just in our social lives. Um yeah, I have when you were talking about in the book, oh my god, so many things are going through my head right now from your book. But there's, there's the point where you're talking about like telling other people and even just talking about it now, I'm, I'm in that place right now. Where I'm like, be like introducing myself to new people and I have to navigate the like, do I tell them, don't I tell them do I have, do I share my cover story? How far can I take my cover story? And it's, it's really it is a huge, hugely stressful part of sex work and I, having that first thing in your book or like one of the first things in your book was really, I just knew where you were going and I trust you to hold the like sex worker experience through the rest of the book. It was really great.

Kristy Cooper

I appreciate hearing that.

Parker

Yeah. Um, you also in that very same intro, I did say it was jam packed, you talk about, like, why destigmatization is important, which makes sense following talking about stigma, but also talking about decriminalization. And you do a really good job of defining what a SWERF is. And I don't know that we've actually talked about that on this podcast. So I was hoping.

Kristy Cooper

Sure, sure. It's such a weird word. Right?

Parker

Mmmhmm.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah. For anyone who's listening, it stands for sex worker exclusive radical feminism. Is, so it, and honestly, I think that like, unless you know a lot about the history of feminism that sounds confusing, because like, there's how is that radical? Why is that considered radical like that? Doesn’t that that seems like regressive when you're excluding sex workers, and, and I should also add that a lot of times, SWERs and TERFs tend to go hand in hand. It's a very similar type of, you know, old, old, I guess you can say, old timey now, old timey 70s feminism.

Parker

And TERF it, for those who don't? For those who aren't aware, TERF is a trans exclusionary radical feminism.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, so this isn't really to me, this is not a radical position at all. But I think it, it, it, it stems from like this kind of like, what was the radical feminism in the 70s, where there was almost like this, like womens, women, like separating from like, men, and not like, we don't need them? And so, um, you know, by being a sex worker, you are, you know, working with, you're working with men, and they, there was this idea that you could almost get above like, your sexuality, you shouldn't use your sexuality because I don't know, there was like, the radical ideas back then where some things like all sex is rape. You know? so I don't know. I think that since then, there's been a lot of different, like, much more evolved thought on that on that area but in I think, I feel like I'm oversimplifying it. I don't know. But that's just kind of my understanding where that stems from.

Parker

Yeah, yeah, I think it has a lot to do with, like, if you're playing into the male gaze that's damaging women as a whole sort of.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

You’re like hurting other women.

Parker

Yes, yeah. Which, like, is just problematic on so many levels. Um, because, you know, that's like saying, like, what the, it's the same sort of thing of like, you're if you're a stay at home mom, you're like, not, if you choose to do that you're not a feminist, or whatever, like you're playing into these roles. And that, that's damaging to like women's choice to do those things. You have this line that I just I'm going to read out loud to you if that's okay with you because I loved it. “You're right, it is time for us to culturally move past the white carceral feminism of the past and embrace true intersectional feminism.” Which I just am like, yes, please, can we do that. And I was hoping for our listeners that like, may not know what white carceral, carceral feminism looks like and what true intersectional feminism, like could look like, would you? Would you talk about that a little bit, describe those terms?

Kristy Cooper

Oh, I will try. Well, I think though, I think it's become more common for people now to talk about, like, what white feminism is and like, you know, it's extreme limitations. Um, but like going into there a lot of times white feminism is also very carceral and just being that it's like, tied into this idea of, you know, that we need to have punishment in order to you know, and we need to control other people in order to, you know, keep, keep women safe in being that that can be controlling other women who we don't think are doing something that's safe, and we're going to put, you know, the law and the police and, you know, specifically more tar-, you're going to target more women and non-binary people of color, especially trans people who are all the more like in danger of being targeted by the police by having this idea that something like this needs to be controlled by the state. So.

Parker

Yeah, I often think of like, any, any sort of carceral policies around us anything around criminalizing sex work is based on this delusion that we can actually control other people using the law. Like it's, or control other people, period. Like we, we cannot control other people and there's like this attempt, continuous attempt to keep doing so. Which is why like, yeah, the carceral policies just don't seem to work. They don't work. And when you talk about true intersectional feminism, I think the term intersectional has been like, come up a lot more lately in like, in social media and just more mainstream platforms. Would you feel comfortable talk, talking a little bit about like, what is intersectional feminism and why it's a better option to carceral feminism?

Kristy Cooper

Sure, I mean, I think that you see kind of more like this kind of growing understanding among like white liberal feminists in that, they need to start taking into account other perspectives. So, they're talking, you know more about making sure that they are supporting people of color, um trying to support queer people, and even if, like, they're not doing it very well, they're at least beginning to consider that's something that needs to be part of the puzzle. And so that, what I was trying to do there was include sex workers in that as well. So.

Parker

Yeah, I think that's, that's very, right. It's just like, understanding. I mean, the read I get was like, understanding that there are other people's experiences and not we don't just get to, like, make all the rules from one point of view. Okay, I started with all the hard stuff so, I apologize. I was like, let's just talk about feminism and policy and stigma right away.

Kristy Cooper

And those are the hardest chapters to write too because I felt like I mean, it was a lot of just kind of synthesizing and I'm like, I could probably do this better but I'm gonna try like.

Parker

You did great. I like honestly, like I said, that intro and your afterword are so packed it's amazing. Well, I did, I started with the hard stuff. But I did want to talk about stripping as an industry because it's wild. And I have, I haven't had another, we haven't talked about stripping on the show.

Kristy Cooper

Oh, really?

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

I've listened to a few of your, your episodes so far but I didn't go through all of them yet.

Parker

Yeah, we haven't really like I mean, a lot of the people who I've gotten to talk about stripping with have been like, former strippers now escorts. I don't think, not to my recollection, have we really like talked about the fact that strippers are contractors and the dance card bullshit, which you talk about avoiding getting a dance card, like throughout? Did you ever get one you didn't ever get?

Kristy Cooper

No, no, I just, I just worked in different cities.

Parker

That is wild. Um, so I kind of want to give, like, between the two of us give a picture of like, what the fuck does stripping look like as an industry so that people can get it? Would you? Do you feel comfortable talking a bit about like, the setup of like strippers as contractors, and kind of the layout a little bit?

Kristy Cooper

Sure. And I should do everything with the caveat ahead of time that I did it, like, wait, how long? 14 years ago, so I mean, but I know, like the structure hasn't really changed in terms of how your, how, you know, how you're treated as a worker by like your club and the state. And so, you're, yeah, you're an independent contractor. So, you have to pay to work there, you have to pay a house fee and it's usually the structures either like it's a set amount, or it's a percentage of dances and I tried both types of ways, I did not like paying for a percentage of my dances at all. That I think that really sucked.

Parker

Yes.

Kristy Cooper

And then you then you are also responsible for tipping out your DJ and, and your bouncers and in some other like fancy, fancy clubs, I think there are even more people you have to tip out but I found that I work better at the less fancy clubs. So that was just more my, my, ended up being my jam. And so, you're also part, yeah, so you're also responsible for some of their pay. And so, the, the club gets money from the dancers coming in, they get money from, you know, the door fee, they get money from the overinflated alcohol sales that are, you know, ridiculously expensive for the customers coming in. Um, and then a lot of clubs also require to pay for getting into like, the private dance room. So, there's an additional fee there. So those are all the things that they get, by the way that they have designed their, their pay structure. And I remember thinking at the time this I knew it was I knew it was all bullshit, but I was like, couldn't even imagine how you would organize against it. And since then, I've had a lot of experience a lot more experience with like political organizing. Um, and now nowadays, just even see that way that like, sex workers, and strippers specifically can organize online and actually share this information in ways that weren't really possible back then to like, be like, I can imagine how it could actually be fought a lot harder than it could have been back then.

Parker

Absolutely it does make it really difficult to unionize, like in the club itself, if anyone's private contractors and transient from club to club. But, I mean, it can be done there. There have been a few stripper unions over the last like, decade or so or couple decades. But yeah, it makes it really hard to unionize when you're not technically an employee and then you're also paying employer and employee taxes because you work for yourself.

Kristy Cooper

Mm hmm. And then the dance card part. So here in Michigan, there's two different cities that I found out required dance cards before I, like you have to get registered with the city, I believe at the time, it was like $170, in Romulus Michigan, and there's a few clubs there. And then there was $350, for Detroit, to work in Detroit at the time. Um, and I was just like, well, I'm just even just trying this out, I don't know, 100%. I'm gonna, like try it and see, I'm not going to pay this kind of money if I don't know if I'm going to stick with it. And also, a lot of people when they go into stripping to start with don't have a lot of money to get started. So that's really, it's another barrier of entry. Um, yeah, but then you're registered, you're in some type of database and I never really, I never really knew what they do with that information, but it just sounded shady and creepy to me.

Parker

It's super creepy. I, I had the experience of getting a dance card. The first dance card I got was like a $50 dance card and I was like, that sounds fine. But when I danced in Detroit, it was, not only was it a ton more money, but you had to go on this like wild goose chase for all of the like, you had to check all these boxes. You couldn't have any parking tickets or moving violations so you had to get all those cleared up. Yeah, strippers are the like, they have the cleanest driving record in Detroit. So that you could not have any parking violations or like parking thing tickets or moving violations. You had to get a notarized letter, like you had to go get this letter notarized that said something about, I saved it I have it somewhere, because it says like, permit to it doesn't say cabaret license, which is what it's technically called, it says permit to work in this like a sex related industry. It's like super slut shamey which just because you have to go, I went to my bank, and I just like had them notarize it because I didn't, I was like, I don't care at this point. But I could see how if anyone was trying to keep what they were doing a bit more secret than I was trying, then it would be really hard to actually get the dance card nd again, it didn't say cabaret license that just like irritated the fuck out of me because I was like that is not what this is.

Kristy Cooper

And I've worked with girls who'd gotten the dance card, and who told me but I just always, if I'd maybe stayed in a little bit longer, I may have I was, I was at the point where I probably would not have cared as much. But still, that's like 350 bucks. Like that's like a night of work just to be allowed to work like, you know, and it's probably so much more even now, I can't even imagine that was 14 years ago.

Parker

Yeah, I think in Detroit, it's about, it's about the same. The, the part that drives me crazy is that, like you said, it's an accessibility thing and like, the Detroit dance card requires you to drive around to these multiple different places. You can only pay, this is another part, you can only pay for it with a money order from, specifically, from the post office, you can't get it from anywhere else.

Kristy Cooper

So weird.

Parker

Yeah, so you're literally on a wild goose chase in order to pay for it. And oftentimes, the complexity of that is like how managers like, quote, unquote, managers will, like, start managing strippers and be like, I'll, I'll handle your dance card thing for you. I have a car, I can drive you around, I can, like get all this thing I can pay for it, and then you can pay me back. And I.

Kristy Cooper

That's creepy.

Parker

Yeah, I avoided the managers by just being old enough to be like, fuck off, I think experienced enough to be like, fuck off. But yeah, so I, when you were like I didn't get a dance card I was just like, good for you.

Kristy Cooper

Because I was going from like, Ann Arbor and like, I ultimately ended up working at a lot of clubs in Inkster. Which I was like, That's far enough. You know? And I ended up liking the dive bar vibe, best so that's kind of what I stuck with for most of the time.

Parker

It's, it's more fun, I think.

Kristy Cooper

And it's like, less, less, I feel like a little bit less of a hustle. Like.

Parker

Yeah, you know, one of my friends said something about, like, class drag, a lot of sex work is class drag. And I felt, I felt in the like, dive-ier bars that I didn't have to stretch so far doing class drag. It just like kept my energy level where I was comfortable. You also worked in both topless and nude clubs.

Kristy Cooper

Yes.

Parker

Will you tell, tell listeners who may not know the differences between the two a little bit about that?

Kristy Cooper

Um, well, this, this is the case in Michigan, it's kind of true most, most places where there's a rule if you work in a topless club, you can have alcohol and if you work in a full nude club, you can't have alcohol there's like, a juice bar. And I was a heavy drinker back then so when I did a full nude club, like it was funny, we had, um, they did let us take breaks because this was also a club that treated us actually like we were employees. But actually, what were we though? Because I had to pay a percentage of my dances. I think we were employees in the sense that if I didn't make minimum wage, they would have like, given me [garbled] shift or something, things so that technically would have like, I never, I don't think that ever happened. But I I think that's how they got away with it. Because they could be like, well, we would, we would give you, you know, $5 and, or whatever it was back then if you didn't sell any dances. But, so we got a we got a little break and so then you'd pair up with like another like another girl and you'd go decide if your break was to go smoke weed or to go to the bar next door and do shots so I would go to the bar next door and come back and they also like had Jaeger that I would carry around with me in a little um, 20 ounce Coke bottle.

Parker

Nice.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

Yeah. It helps take the edge off for sure. Also, there's the like, you can be 18 to work at a strip club, but you have to be 21 to enter if there's alcohol. Which I always, I worked at a topless and I was definitely under 21 when I started and I always thought that was like really ridiculous because I couldn't come in as a, as like a patron, I, but I could come into work.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, yeah.

Parker

Speaking of like your, you were talking about your drinking and like going next door to take shots in the middle of work and stuff. One of the things about in your book I really appreciate is like you. You're really vulnerable like you're super relatable in the book, you call yourself out on, like very human behaviors that like you might not be so proud of now. But.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, drinking, there's some bad drinking events in there.

Parker

Right. There's like that, it makes it really relatable. Like, I found you to be someone that like I was like, oh, we probably we would have been friends, if we worked at the same club. One of the things you call yourself out on is like moments of whorephobia.

Kristy Cooper

Oh, sure.

Parker

Yeah. And like the internalized like hierarchy that, that yeah happens. I was hoping that you would talk a little bit about like when you witnessed that yourself like, was it after the fact, or during, or a little of both? And like, why you chose to include it in the book?

Kristy Cooper

Um, I would, I would say it started during, um, I think, you know, having started out in domination like I literally had a summer as a dominatrix in Chicago. That was like I was when I was 20. You know, like, I was like, I'm like, that was my, you know, I always felt like, it was my summer job when I was 20. People were like, what, fuck and whatnot. But, um, and that came from like, honestly, I just thought the outfits were cool and I hung out at goth clubs, but like, um, you know, and I think I have good instincts for it. And I ended up I end up talking about that in the book, too, about how that was a little bit of my specialty in the strip club is like when we had, like, submissive or like fetish customers, a lot of times if like, the other girls were weirded out by him they, they'd send them to me. Yeah, I'm like, yeah I can handle it.

Parker

But like, armpits, no problem you got?

Kristy Cooper

No, it's not a big deal. Um, but yeah, so I started out there. And I remember even at the time, I'm like, I'm not getting naked. No one is, you know, like, I'm like that, like, for me, that was a taboo, so I think even I have to start there to kind of talk about it. Yeah, and I'm like, well, I wouldn't strip because, you know, people could see me naked and then, you know, I think though, as time went on, and I was thinking about, like, making more money to pay off my grad school debt. I'm in and I, you know, I had friends who had done it and learned about it more from them. And I was just, like, you know, what, like, this is this is, this is dumb, I should just do it, it's like, not that big of a deal. Um, and so it's funny because I, it's, it there's definitely this idea of like, I think the, the whore, the whorearchy kind of starts with like, less and less contact, less and less, like, clothes or whatever, and then moving down to like, you know, full-service. And, and even within there, there's these different kind of navigation or different kind of, I think, perspectives to where I remember feeling judged by other people who only did online stuff. And I, and I'm judging them in my head, too. I'm like, well, I wouldn't like like any pictures or videos existed me. So and just.

Parker

Yes.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah. Yeah, they touch me, but I don't like, it was dumb. It was dumb. And eventually, I think, you know, just as time went on, I met more girls who had who had escorted and I started getting more curious. And I actually met, like, some sex work activists, I talked about that in there. And I basically, I'm like, I'm ready, like, you know, and like, I've gotten solicited enough times, I, you know, why not hustle for this in the clubs, I should just like, you know, go, go ahead and give it a try. And unfortunately, I was in a relationship at the time where he was, he was good about me being a stripper, he never tried to, like, stop me. But when I brought that up, he like, yeah, he didn't like it and I shouldn't have listened to him. But you know, but I had these, like, potential mentors and everything, you know, like, to help me it was going to be great, you know, great. Like, I should have totally gone for it.

Parker

Yeah, I mean, hindsight is 20/20.

Kristy Cooper

It wasn't yeah, it was during that time, and I don't know, I don't think I knew the word whorearchy back then. But I know, you know, the idea that where I'd realized I had these kind of judgments, you know, in the same way that like, even when I did admit that I stripped to people and be like you didn't have sex to do it was like, like, why do you need to verify that? Like, why does that make it more okay for you? That I stripped like.

Parker

Right? Right? And it's like, also, they're, they're just these like, made up boundaries that keep us going into like, quote unquote, like, bad girl zone, or like, these, these places that are, like I hate it, but like, beneath. beneath us. Like, we just yeah, we make it up so that we can feel good about what we're doing. And it's not just in sex work. It's like, as humans, we tend to do that but it just turns out to be extra damaging in sex work when we're just like, making these imaginary partitions.

Kristy Cooper

And I think one, not one thing that's kind of some, like similar to that that I do now, or similar to that idea, and not as much stigma but that idea of things being beneath you. Like I'm a librarian, but I'm part time I'm also a single mom, and my other job I run a small house cleaning business and so sometimes I get the idea for people that they would never clean toilets. I'm like, this is not a big deal to me, like this idea that that is beneath you to clean a toilet like I just it's there's probably a lot of class elements in there as well, like coming from a working class background where this is. I don't know.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

It shouldn't be.

Parker

It shouldn't be. We're all humans, we all shit so why not clean a toilet? Yeah. Um, yeah, I feel that, and I appreciate you talking about just like yeah, like honestly opening up in about your own personal experience. The last couple chapters of your book, I'm kind of shifting a little bit away from stripping right now and talking more about like librarian stuff, because you were you were stripping to pay for your degree at the University of Michigan.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

And, which is like the student, student debt is something near and dear to my heart because I'm like still in it ,still rolling with, with some loans. And so, you in the last couple chapters of your book, you talk about like actually getting to be in that career path of being a librarian and then also just like kicking ass and taking names, was, was it the Westland library? Was it that?

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, I have some minor infamy in Michigan libraries.

Parker

I loved it. I was just kind of like fucking yes you learned from sex workers, like kick ass go kick ass. Um, but yeah, basically, like, took on the board of directors and got librarians their jobs back and because you weren't currently working at that library, you got to just like, raise hell.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

Yeah, it was, it was great, to, hearing about that. I don't know if you want to talk about that experience at all and like what you learned throughout all of that.

Kristy Cooper

Sure. That was a very, like, kind of, yeah, important experience for me. I used to work at that library, I had taken a career break, in part because I couldn't stand like my director, or the board there anymore. But I used the excuse that I was going to stay home with my, with my young, like my newborn baby. Um, and then I, you know, I ended up doing some other things for a while and eventually I got back to libraries. But I found out only four years after I left that they fired five librarians who were trying to unionize and they tried to make it sound like it, you know, like it was just like, incidental that they were the five union organizers.

Parker

Of course, they made it sound that way.

Kristy Cooper

Well, I went um, so I went to their next board meeting, one of the librarians asked me to live stream it so her parents could watch from home. And I ended up sharing on the, my face, just my Facebook Live Stream had like 17,000 views, and everyone was watching this. And it kind of helped that the board president was such a cartoon villain that he just was very easy to like, for people to want him to like get defeated and losing, so yeah. When you're like fight, when you're fighting like some bad guys, like I found in, you know, in political organizing, having a having an over the top bad guy sometimes is helpful, because it helps organize people to kind of get behind your cause. He ended up trying to like talk a bunch of shit about me on the Michigan library listserv and all that did was just make more librarians in the state mad at him. I don't know. I just felt I just was filled with like rage and like, I just spent the next three and a half months like fighting until all five of the board members and the director resigned.

Parker

So just, it's amazing. Well, and it's like you were angry for good reason, not just because he was personally attacking you but it sounds like they were funneling money where it didn't need to be going and cutting people's jobs in the process. And it was some seriously sketchy shit from the way you outline it in the book.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, but I think it was a very pivotal, like pivotal experience for me because after that I did, like, I just got knee deep in political organizing, and I still do like advisory stuff for people trying to deal with, you know, awful library boards now just kind of strategy, and like, how to launch a strategy against them.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

And build public pressure.

Parker

Are you still the executive director of that nonprofit? What is the name?

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, I never made it an official nonprofit. That's kind of one of my problems, I'm just always like, I have this idea and like, there's, you know, I like have too many ideas. That's.

Parker

I love that about you already, I don't even really know you, but I'm here for it.

Kristy Cooper

Too many ideas, like I have many parallel lives in my head. So yeah.

Parker

Yes, it's great.

Kristy Cooper

I have one right now from listening to one another one your podcast with, a, oh it was a Kat Morgan. Like, I go back, I mean, I'm 40 now, but like, I could be a dominatrix again. I'm like, listen to that, and like, oh my god, what am I doing with my life, I want to be exactly like her. So.

Parker

Yeah, I was gonna ask you, how did you get connected at, you were 20. Correct? How did you get connected to that? Was it just like being at goth clubs and someone came up to you and was like, you'd be perfect for this? Or like, how did that work for you?

Kristy Cooper

I mean, I was interested in it, I joked around about it, I was at a club in Chicago where the bartender was also a dominatrix. So, I was talking to her and she was, agreed she was like, you can be my intern. I was like, yay.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

And, but then, like, she just never got organized enough to make it happen. Like she sent me to go get a like a photo shoot. I got these, like these, like, really sweet fetish photos done and then, but she just wasn't she never got organized enough. So, I ended up like, I actually just applied to like a dungeon in Chicago. Um, and they called me, and I went in for an interview and it was a super, super strange, interesting place. I found out a few weeks into working there that there was a whole separate dungeon on another floor where the headmistresses were like rivals because they hated each other. So, all of the girls worked on different shifts.

Parker

Drama shmam-ma. I love that.

Kristy Cooper

It was, it was interesting. So, and we weren't supposed to talk to her girls, if we saw them coming in at the end of our shift or vice versa.

Parker

Whoa.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, yeah.

Parker

That's wild. Oh, I have never worked in a dungeon, it is one thing that I've, it's on my list, i's on my list of things to do at some point.

Kristy Cooper

And I thought about doing that in Detroit, but there wasn't anywhere to like, there wasn't any, every, there was a few people who were working independently but there wasn't like, like, like a house I could go. I didn't feel experienced enough to go out on my own like, I felt like I needed a headmistress again to kind of guide me.

Parker

Yeah, so yeah, and I like the, the, there are times I missed the like, camaraderie and the bustle of the strip club. And I not that the dungeon would be, that as bustle-ey or as much that, but I, I like the idea of working with other with other people as well. Yeah, Detroit get on that shit. We need, we need a dungeon. Well, I did I was curious, is there anything around like, what you learned as a stripper or skills you picked up as a stripper that have like, noticeably helped you in your career path as a librarian.

Kristy Cooper

Let's see, I think knowing or just like working with a wide variety of people. I think some, I've seen some people go into libraries who are not, you know, and a lot of us come into because I like to read books and you know, it's like you're a public librarian, and you are dealing with a wide variety of different people coming up to your desk, when sometimes they're not in a good mood. Just being, kind of expanding the kind of personalities I can work with, but I also I also waited tables and stuff before that too. Um, but I think being able to deal with, you know, just higher levels of bullshit, I guess. And this was probably more from waiting tables, but I had I was kind of like the bouncer at this Denny's I worked at so like we had we had drunk people fighting like I got sent to go stop them. But same thing, I stopped a fight one time in in the library I used to work at between two people fighting over a computer. But.

Parker

Wow. Do you just exude like the, the like authority and like a little scary? Do you think or?

Kristy Cooper

I think it's well I'm five one. And I think that what I usually do is I have the element of surprise so it's like you don't expect it coming from me.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

For me to come out there and be aggressive with you and like, shut it down

Parker

I love that.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

One of the clubs I worked at we did not have a bouncer, there was no bouncer.

Kristy Cooper

Oh wow.

Parker

It was a very, like little, little dive bar and when I was like the burliest looking dancer, so every once in a while, I would get sent over to like, threaten somebody or like kick somebody out. So, I was also that person.

Kristy Cooper

It's a, it's like flex your muscles and be like, listen.

Parker

Yeah, you're just like, do you want this heel up your ass? No, calm down. Yeah. I mean, sometimes the answer would be yes, but they'd still calm down.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

Just depends on the person. Um, one of the things I, as I was reading, like kind of the afterword of your, your book where you start to talk about SESTA FOSTA and like data security, one of the, the things that kind of like clicked for me was that this common thread of like censorship and, and workers rights issues that are super connected with both like libraries and strip clubs. At least that's, that's what it did for me. So correct me if I'm wrong, there's this like, there's definitely censorship issues in both, both arenas where like,

Kristy Cooper

Yeah.

Parker

I mean, obviously with sex work, but then with like, with libraries, it can be more subtle with like, funding coming in or like, oh, my God, words are not working for me today. Like special issue or special interest issues, like creeping into libraries. So, I was just curious if you had any thoughts on, I guess on that, like the tie between libraries and strip, strip clubs, and like things you've noticed that are similar?

Kristy Cooper

I honestly like, when you say that, though, when I think about it, like, part of what librarians are supposed to or known for is supposed to be like, champions against censorship?

Parker

Yes.

Kristy Cooper

And like we have like banned books, and books we can that kind of thing where we showcase like, a lot of things that have been challenged and how we defended them. But at the same time um I feel like in the current political climate, libraries, librarians are not doing that great of a job explaining what censorship is, there's all these people who think they're being censored when it's like, your books gonna stay in the library, you know, it's only censorship when we're like, we're removing this from the library, because we think this content, people shouldn't have access to it. Um, and, but, yeah, even kind of extending that idea, though, that I think that we don't think about, or we don't talk enough about how, when we're supposed to be advocating for the set, like anti-censorship, and privacy, how that, we can be advocating for those ideas outside of just the library itself. Um, because like, when the Patriot Act happened, you know, librarians were known for, like, trying to push back on that you can't go ahead and like, just randomly check people's library records. Because you're suspicious that they're, you know, of this or that or whatever, you're violating their privacy, you know, with, especially if you don't have anything to go, you know, really go on. Um, yeah, but I do feel like expanding this idea of censorship and like, how we're taught how we talk about censorship, and how a lot of people don't have any idea what happened with SESTA FOSTA I feel like whenever I tell anybody what that's about, what's that really did they're like, oh, that's bad. You know, like, yeah, you know, like, because there's, and I think that still, for me, relates back to stigma, because there's, these are things we don't talk about, these are things that are not like, a, you know, appropriate, you know, you know, I am in like one of, in a profession where we don't talk about like sexuality, or sex work or anything like that. It's just, it's a taboo topic. Um, so like, the idea of defending, you know, to, or defending sex workers is not something that people are going to necessarily jump on. But maybe as this idea of understanding, we're actually kind of championing, championing, like people who are more marginalized, you know, because they're the ones who need the most access. And so, I, I really like playing around with that idea of increasing that level of awareness and even just trying to get more libraries to carry books by sex workers about sex work and the libraries that they buy books for. So.

Parker

Yeah, I think that's incredibly important and tying it into like, the already grounded in librarianism concept that is, like anti-censorship. Yeah, I think that that's, that's really brilliant. There's, there's a line that I just want to talk about, because I was, I guess I hadn't really, I knew it, but I didn't know it and the way you put it was really striking. It's in your afterwords again. It's everything. It's so good. You say data is now more valuable than oil.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah, lke that's.

Parker

Which just like blows my mind to think about.

Kristy Cooper

You can't see it, you know, and that's like, it's so many of those big companies like Amazon and Google, you know, anyone who's advertising anything to you. It's all because they have your data and like, they know what you, know what your, what you've talked about what you're interested in. I just saw something earlier today, it was by somebody who like, like by an engineer who like, understands these algorithms and he was talking about how he had just visited his mom and then he started getting advertisements for her toothpaste. He never talked about her toothpaste with his mom, but he would because of the proximity they you know it your phone knows where you were, you were by your mom for a while, you know, and they know what kind of toothpaste she has. So, like let's start advertising this toothpaste to you and like he made this connection and kind of explained just how kind of insidious these kinds of things are in our lives and like, and people are kind of, I don't know, people are, I feel like are a little bit like whatever about it, but I think it's just going to continue and it's going to get creepier and creepier.

Parker

Absolutely. I mean, you've touched a little bit on facial recognition software, which is like it's not even accurate and it's, it's super fucked up but it's, it's starting to be everywhere. Like Detroit has the, the greenlight program, and it's just like, it's starting to be.

Kristy Cooper

And its super racist too, I think, it's super like this misidentifies people like, like, black people, way more times than white people. I mean.

Parker

Yep.

Kristy Cooper

And misidentifies them.

Parker

Yeah, yeah. And there's been, there's been already some instances of people being like arrested, inaccurate, like, for doing nothing, because they were,

Kristy Cooper

The algorithm.

Parker

Yeah, they were like, quote unquote, identified by the facial recognition software. Yeah, it's just gonna get creepier. I do love that you talk about sharing what you learned from sex workers, as far as data security goes with, like with other librarians and like, learn that you can learn a lot from sex workers and data security, because, yeah, that's like a huge part of it used to make me super paranoid. I'm probably a little less paranoid now but it's the like, online security part that really freaks me out because there's just if people really want to figure out who you are, they generally can if you have a presence online, yeah.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah. And that was kind of one of my arguments was that sex workers, I mean, like librarians are, have historically been, like, considered, like these advocates of, you know, privacy, specifically, patron privacy, but I feel like sex workers have, you know, come, you know, come up to the fore as being much bigger and better privacy advocates than librarians have and I also kind of plugged in organization that I'm involved with called library freedom Institute in there, too. So hopefully, some of the librarians reading that will look join up with a LSI .

Parker

Oh, yeah.

Kristy Cooper

To learn more about privacy advocacy.

Parker

What is what is one thing you want the greater public to know about sex work or sex workers.

Kristy Cooper

Um, I think that we're everywhere really, like, I think one thing that has been kind of cool, since coming out about this is the messages I've gotten from other library workers who've done sex or who aren't out. Um.

Parker

Cool.

Kristy Cooper

And just knowing like, if I could be, I think this would be more like a little bit more dicey if I was a teacher doing this, yeah, um, but just kind of coming, you know, like, but there's plenty of other ones where you're, you could be more kind of protected, depending on like, what you're doing. Like, if you're a doctor, you know, something like that, or a lawyer. Just being out about it, there's plenty, there's plenty of us out there, like, you know, people, they're just not telling you. This is very normal thing for people to do. Um, and I feel like that that was a lot of what I was trying to convey in my book, and I feel like some, some of the feedback I got from a it was that it was not as risqué as people thought it would be. I'm not sure what they thought I was gonna do and I there's some things I may I sanitized a little bit I think in there for like, the kind of audience I imagined.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

But, um, but I wanted it to be accessible and just like to try to open up these kinds of conversations. So.

Parker

Yeah, yeah. And I got the, I got the read that you were not trying to be sensationalistic. You were trying to like paint, an accurate picture.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah. I just did that with the title I made the title sensationalized.

Parker

Yes. It's beautiful, I love it. Everyone go read it, again, it's I Was a Stripper Librarian by Kristy Cooper. It's fantastic. Um, are you ready for rapid-fire questions?

Kristy Cooper

Okay.

Parker

Okay.

Kristy Cooper

I am.

Parker

Pancakes or waffles?

Kristy Cooper

Waffles.

Parker

Salty or sweet,

Kristy Cooper

Salty.

Parker

Voyager or Deep Space Nine.

Kristy Cooper

I'm not sure, probably I know I don't think I've seen Voyager but I've seen Deep Space Nine. I have to say Deep Space Nine, but I would really just pick on the enterprise with. with Geordi and.

Parker

Oh yeah, Next Generation.

Kristy Cooper

It's Yeah. Next Generation.

Parker

It's the best one. Yeah. A favorite place you've ever been?

Kristy Cooper

Oh, I don't know, I don't think I've been in enough places. That's like one of my regrets is I just like, I just worked really, I just worked a lot and I was like, I'll travel maybe I will travel someday, but I've not done a lot of traveling.

Parker

Yeah.

Kristy Cooper

What about up Jamaica? Maybe Jamaica?

Parker

Oh.

Kristy Cooper

I don't know.

Parker

Hell yeah. A booked from a mandatory, from your mandatory reading list.

Kristy Cooper

Um, since we're talking about sex work, and I, and I have this right here, well, not that it's again, it's on podcast. But if people it's so fuzzy.

Parker

It's so good, Revolting Prostitutes. Yes.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah. I mean, I feel like this is the book I keep recommending to people who want to understand more about like, sex worker rights. So.

Parker

Yeah, hands down. Fantastic choice. Um, okay, a song, an album or an artist you've been obsessed with lately?

Kristy Cooper

Um, Khruangbin.

Parker

Oh, I don't think I know who that is.

Kristy Cooper

There's, it's super hard to spell, but they're like taking off and getting, despite the fact that their EQ never spelled their name correctly, on Spotify, or wherever. People are figuring out how to spell it to find them.

Parker

Cool.

Kristy Cooper

So yeah.

Parker

Perfect. They will be linked in the show notes once I figure out how to spell it. What is your secret talent?

Kristy Cooper

I can never get lost.

Parker

Oh, no shit.

Kristy Cooper

Like, I always. I mean, I can make a wrong turn but I'll figure it, I don't know, like I've had, like a GPS in my brain that kind of always knows what direction it's facing. I'm like, I've just never been worried about getting lost.

Parker

Um, I envy that. That's amazing.

Kristy Cooper

So yeah, that's, not that that comes up much for me. But I don't know where you've been like, you're in a trip with people you take the wrong turn and they're like, oh, no, I'm like, it's fine, we'll figure it out. Like.

Parker

Yeah, or your phone dies and you don't have a GPS anymore and you're just no worries. Okay, finish this sentence, great, or, good sex is.

Kristy Cooper

Um, I feel like it's different for different people. But I think I don't know, I think where you have like a good flow. Maybe I'll say because I feel like that could cover a lot of people and what their different people are interested in.

Parker

Yeah, I like that a lot. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Kristy Cooper

Stopping time.

Parker

Oh, that's so good. That was so fast and then.

Kristy Cooper

I've thought about that one, you can tell.

Parker

Something simple that brings you joy?

Kristy Cooper

Just like reading before I fall asleep, looking forward to that, like that quiet time.

Parker

Yeah, yeah. I love that.

Kristy Cooper

Even if it, even when it's right when I wake up and I have to think about that part of the day later.

Parker

Oh, that's so perfect. I did. I did read your book before bed many, many a night and so great. Okay, well, that's, that's the end of the rapid-fire. So, thank you for joining me.

Kristy Cooper

Yeah This was so fun, thank you for having me on.

Parker

Yeah, I'm so, I'm so glad we made it happen. Cool. Well, let's say goodbye to the listenersand then I'll stop recording. Bye, everybody.

Kristy Cooper

Bye.

Parker

Oh my gosh, these endings. I actually kind of love the awkward sign off even though every time it comes around. I'm just like, how do we sign off? I'll let you in on this, signing off of these interviews. Every time is so awkward because we actually stay on the video call but then we're also saying goodbye and I'm always worried that they're gonna hang up and then we don't get to like have our little moment after the interview being like, how do you feel duh, duh, duh and I like having that that little personal moment after we've just like, talked into the abyss for a while. So, it's just really awkward. I'm always afraid they're gonna hang up and then we're awkwardly saying goodbye and I'm trying to explain beforehand, and I know I edit these but anyway, regardless, I just thought I'd share that with you because it's really, it's always awkward and I always want to just laugh at myself. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to stop being on awkward, but then maybe I'd stopped being interesting. So, we'll just stick with weird, weird is great. So that's Kristy Cooper, I had such a fun time, a link to purchase her book is going to be in the show notes so, check that out. I bought two gave one to a friend. It's great. It's, it's a really quick read. I mean, if you're like me and just got like swept up in the nostalgia of it, but I'm sure it's a quick read for other folks as well. Yeah, so check out the links in the show notes. I do try to include links to things that we talked about, or things that I thought of while we were talking or while I listened back to it. The show notes are fun is all I'm saying go check it out in there. Sometimes I throw in some really obscure strange things so do check it out. Really grateful to be back on a posting schedule feels great and it's wonderful to have you all to come back to. So, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. And thank you to everyone who supports the show so with that, let's have a space fact. Did you know that stars can bring themselves back from the dead when a star dies and becomes a white dwarf? Which sounds like something out of D&D, honestly. But so, we got a white dwarf, and they explode into a supernova and what that does is it kind of becomes a space defibrillator of their own creation and it sucks in material from the surrounding space and it's enough material to bring the star back to life. So, for those of you who have been waiting for zombie apocalypse, we are already surrounded by zombies. Congratulations, you were right. I don't know what to do with this information but there are zombies in this world. Nanu nanu motherfuckers.