The Club Isn't the Enemy

by Jaz James

Hey Friend,

When you found out your daughter was dancing, your mind did what minds do: it filled in the blanks.

Dark room. Predatory men. A place built to take something from her, one shift at a time. That image doesn't leave easily. It rides along to every phone call, every visit, every time she mentions work and you have to decide in real time whether to say something or let it go.

I have spent over10 years in clubs, walking into the environments most parents are picturing right now. Here's what I have found.

The club is a workplace.

It may sound like I'm minimizing things. I'm not. What I mean by that is that there are women inside who have covered for your daughter when she was running late. Women who've loaned her cash, listened to her vent about you, talked to her about her taxes, maybe even shared recipes with her. There's a bouncer who walks her to her car. A bartender she trusts more than she trusts some of her own family right now.

Some of these people are her closest relationships. That's not an indictment of you. That's just what happens when people spend that much time together in high-stakes environments. Chosen family is real, and it doesn't always look like what we imagined.

Is there real risk in that world? Yes. I am not going to dress that up for you.

But there is a difference between a place and the people in it. And if you can't see that difference, you will lose ground with her.

Chosen People

She knows who her people are in there. And when you write off the whole space as irredeemably evil, you write those people off with it. And her too. She feels that. And she pulls back.

If this is all new to you, take a breath. You don't have to have a fully formed opinion on every corner of her world right now. But be careful what you condemn before you understand what's actually there.

If you've been in this for years and the relationship is strained, maybe it's worth asking yourself how much of that tension is about her choices, and how much is about her feeling like you've written off everyone she loves. Written off her.

Jesus walked into rooms that made religious people deeply uncomfortable. He didn't pretend the settings were harmless. He didn't endorse everything happening inside. He just never let the room become more important than the person in front of him.

You don't have to approve of your daughter's profession to stop demonizing everyone in her orbit.

Those are two different decisions.

One is about your values. You get to keep those. The other is about whether you can see the people in her world as people. That one determines whether she keeps the door open.

The club is not the enemy.

The distance is.

And you have to decide if you want to close it.

*****

Jaz James is the director of Strip Church and founder of Lace Warriors, a strip club ministry that serves entertainers in West Texas and Northern Mexico.