Why a dancer with Tacoma ties is fighting for WA’s ‘Stripper Bill of Rights’ | Opinion
It’s a question Madison Zack-Wu hates. I asked anyway. She was kind enough to humor me.
Zack-Wu is 25. She’s a stripper. She’s also the face – and voice — of what’s come to be known as Washington’s Strippers’ Bill of Rights.
She’s tasked with managing the Strippers Are Workers campaign, which has been advocating for state-level protections for Washington adult dancers for the last six years.
Why don’t you just do something else?
It’s what everyone wants to know, Zack-Wu acknowledged.
“I want to start off by saying I deeply resent the need to have a good reason to do sex work. I don’t think people need to have a good reason. They could just be making a choice, and they have every right to do that,” Zack-Wu told me earlier this week during a conversation that was less awkward than one excerpt suggests.
Zack-Wu wasn’t angry, necessarily. She’s simply tired of defending herself — and strippers across the state.
In Zack-Wu’s mind, all she’s asking for are basic workplace safety protections and new regulations that would help bring Washington out of the dark ages of adult entertainment.
Supported by strippers across the state, Senate Bill 6105, which state senators passed along party lines on Feb. 7, would establish a host of new requirements at Washington clubs.
Among other things, the legislation would mandate deescalation and sexual harassment training for club staff and limit the fees owners can charge a dancer to perform.
Despite all the evidence and the firsthand experiences shared by adult dancers across the state, the prospect of legislative changes remains uncertain, Zack-Wu said this week.
“Part of me hates pandering to the ‘stripper with a heart of gold’ stereotype, but it’s also real,” said Zack-Wu, who grew up in Tacoma, dropped out and later put herself through school at Tacoma Community College and the University of Washington Tacoma.
“There are folks who are legislators who clearly think everyone is able to get a job they agree with. They see stripping or sex work as innately bad, always problematic — you can’t consent to it. … The reality is everyone is selling their bodies in one way or another. Everyone is selling their time,” she added.
“Stripping is low-barrier. A high school dropout who’s a racial minority and queer can get a job and be like, ‘OK, I can pay my bills and go back to school now.”
“That’s very real. Having the ability and the flexibility that is in this job is essential.”
Strippers’ Bill of Rights
Mostly, Zack-Wu is fed up with society’s hypocritical and prejudiced ideas about morality, sex and the realities of capitalism.
In case that wasn’t clear.
In college, with dancing paying the bills, the stripper-turned-political-mover-and-shaker studied it at UWT, later working as a post-grad in the school’s Social Identity Lab. She’s published research that frames stripping as a form of labor.
In particular, Zack-Wu questions the way bad assumptions, faulty research and broad stigmatization collide, even in a supposedly liberal state like Washington, resulting in laws and regulations that ratchet up the exploitation of adult dancers.
It’s why she took on the public campaign to pass Senate Bill 6105 — the so-called Strippers’ Bill of Rights — championed in the Legislature this session by state Sen. Rebecca Saldana, D-Seattle.
In addition to establishing new regulations designed to protect Washington strippers, most of whom operate as private contractors, paying what are known as “club fees” just to perform, Saldana’s bill would open the door for the legal sale of alcohol at Washington strip clubs. That’s where things get tricky.
Co-sponsored by Tacoma’s Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, the bill received its first hearing in the House Committee on Labor & Workplace Standards Thursday after passage in the Senate last week along party lines.
Some lawmakers would prefer to sidestep the issue altogether, leaving the question up to the state Liquor and Cannabis Board, floor debate in Olympia has made clear.
Others seem to believe precisely what Zack-Wu suggests: That stripping is inherently exploitative and anything that makes the job easier only furthers the harm.
Even after a series of surprise inspections at Seattle LGBTQ+ nightlife venues elicited public backlash last month, the push for protections for adult dancers across the state faces an uphill battle, Zack-Wu said.
The inspections at Capitol Hill-area gay bars failed to identify any alcohol-related offenses, The Seattle Times reported, though officials did observe several potential violations of the state’s current lewd conduct laws, including a bartender’s exposed nipple and a man in a jockstrap. In the process, the double standards baked into the state’s current alcohol regulations was laid bare.
Responding to media coverage and condemnation from the public, lawmakers have quickly sought to address the absurdity of lewd conduct laws included in state code, most notably through an amendment attached to the Strippers’ Bill of Rights.
The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Control Board has also pledged to consider repealing or amending rules governing what’s permitted at bars and clubs where alcohol is legally served, though this move alone would not be enough to allow alcohol sales at strip clubs — since it doesn’t address liquor licensing.
Zack-Wu supports the underlying rationale of both efforts, she said. The existing code is nonsensical.
She also thinks adult dancers working at Washington’s 11 strip clubs deserve the same urgent attention from lawmakers in Olympia.
Alcohol and club fees
Advocates with experience in Washington’s adult dancing industry point out what they describe as obvious.
It’s not just that Washington is one of only places in the country where the sale of alcohol is not allowed at strip clubs, which strikes plenty of people as outdated and puritanical.
The prohibition on alcohol sales at strip clubs also puts dancers in increased danger, according to Sherry, who has performed as an adult dancer in Pierce County for the last two years.
Sherry, who is in her 30s, asked to remain anonymous due to fears of retaliation from her employer.
She described herself as a single mother, a person of color and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Previously, she worked as an educator. After escaping an abusive marriage she needed better-paying work to cover the cost of living, she said.
Today, Sherry loves stripping.
She also admits that, under Washington’s current laws and regulations, it’s not all female empowerment and paydays.
“It puts us into vulnerable situations when you don’t have proper training, you don’t have proper safety protocols and you have people in power who don’t find stripping to be legitimate work,” Sherry assessed of stripping in Washington.
“I think this bill is really doing what it can to keep people safe,” she said.
The ban on alcohol sales at Washington strip clubs weeds out decent, honest customers simply looking for a fun experience, Zack-Wu told me. That’s one of the unavoidable problems.
While it can be hard for those outside the world of adult entertainment to understand, the prohibition on alcohol puts unnecessary financial strains on clubs, where the lack of beer and liquor profit inevitably trickles down to dancers, she said.
The tension is easily diagnosed, Zack-Wu argued: Washington strip clubs reap their profit directly off the dancers — since you can only charge so much at the door and sell so many $10 Cokes. That’s where the club fees come in.
As private contractors, strippers in most cases aren’t full-fledged employees. Like a beautician renting space at a salon, they pay nightly dues for the privilege of plying their trade at local clubs.
In Pierce County — and across the state of Washington — it’s not uncommon for a local dancer to owe a club in excess of $100 before their shift even starts, Sherry told me. Any money they take home comes on top of that.
Meanwhile, if you think people aren’t under the influence of alcohol at Washington strip clubs, you’re mistaken, Sherry said. Sometimes it’s a patron with a fifth of Black Velvet tucked under the passenger seat. Or it might be an angry drunk who stumbles in after getting eighty-sixed somewhere else.
The arrangement creates glaring pressure points, Sherry said.
Dancers have a financial incentive to serve customers they might not be comfortable with, and clubs often manage their bottom line by cutting corners elsewhere, including on staffing, security and training, she told me.
“You see it, and you hear about it on literally a daily basis,” Sherry said, recalling harrowing things she’s witnessed at work, including assault and harassment.
“There’s an air of tolerance that you’re just expected to have, because that’s just how it is. … You’re taking some of the most vulnerable and marginalized people our society has to offer, making all this money off them, and then you aren’t even protecting them,” Sherry said.
“We don’t have to accept that this is just how it is.”
Political outlook
While lawmakers across the aisle seem to support the workplace safety regulations included in SB 6105, reaching a consensus on the question of booze has proven difficult.
Tellingly, the House also considered a version of the Strippers’ Bill of Rights this session, which did not include provisions paving the way for alcohol sales at state strip clubs.
According to Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, the House’s take on the Strippers’ Bill of Rights was put on the back burner once it became clear the Senate’s version had momentum.
This is not the first rodeo for adult dancers in Washington — or their advocates. In 2019, the Strippers Are Workers campaign helped to pass a bill that mandated safety improvements at strip clubs like panic buttons and created a work group to advise the Legislature.
Last year, legislation similar to the more robust Strippers’ Bill of Rights stalled out in the House after making its way through the Senate, wallowing in committee until the clock ran out — despite what Zack-Wu described as strong support among progressive lawmakers in both chambers.
In 2023, the hesitancy revolved around allowing the legal sale of alcohol at Washington strip clubs, Zack-Wu said.
Speaking to The News Tribune, Jinkins said the same issue is likely to emerge this year in the House if the final version of the bill contains provisions that would allow booze and stripping to unite.
Jinkins also believes the state Liquor and Cannabis Board already has all the authority to craft new rules that would allow for the sale of alcohol at Washington strip clubs, if it so chooses. During Senate floor debate earlier this month, several lawmakers expressed similar sentiments.
“As a public health person, there isn’t evidence anywhere that shows expanding alcohol and alcohol use helps people. It actually is damaging, as a general rule. … That’s what all the research says about it, so that’s my perspective,” Jinkins said.
“I think the worker protections are very important to achieve,” she added.
‘Dehumanization’ and ‘stigma’
This week, Zack-Wu looked ahead — knowing the next seven days or so would be pivotal.
Even if the bill clears the Committee on Labor & Workplace Standards by the Feb. 21 cutoff, it’s unclear whether Jinkins and Democratic caucus leadership in the House will allow the legislation to reach the floor for a vote.
One thing that is apparent at this juncture? There’s a bureaucratic procedural dispute to contend with.
Officially, the Liquor and Cannabis Board has taken a starkly different angle than Jinkins and other lawmakers who believe allowing alcohol at strip clubs is a matter for the LCB to tackle alone.
According to LCB spokesperson Brian Smith, the board has “asked the Legislature to be directive” for a reason — to help ensure that “any rulemaking we do on this subject can survive legal challenge” by codifying the board’s power to award liquor licenses to strip clubs.
“The Legislature creates all licenses by statute, not by rule,” Smith told The News Tribune. “Creating a pathway for allowing alcohol sales in adult entertainment venues via rule would leave us with significant legal risk.”
“SB 6105 in its current form pretty clearly creates a pathway to licensure,” he added.
If the Strippers’ Bill of Rights does reach the House floor for a vote this year, Zack-Wu is confident the legislation has the support it needs to pass. That’s one thing she feels good about.
She’s also a realist, she admitted this week
The dancer leading the fight for Washington’s Strippers’ Bill of Rights isn’t holding her breath, she told The News Tribune.
“Thousands of people are mobilizing around this. … I’m very proud of how much support we have,” Zack-Wu said.“On the other hand, we’re still going up against the traditional barriers of stigma against sex work, the dehumanization of dancers and this idea that sexual entertainment can’t coincide with alcohol.”
“Those are very strong, compelling arguments, even if they’re not empirically backed up or backed up by a majority of the community,” she added.
“I think it’s going to be tough.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
