Dita: It’s something I say a lot, and it upsets a lot of burlesque performers, because a lot of them are so busy trying to explain how they aren’t strippers. … I just think I’d be doing a real disservice to strippers everywhere if I sat there and tried to explain why I’m better or different than a stripper, because I am a stripper, I’m proud to be a stripper. I’ve done lap-dances, I’ve worked in strip clubs. I don’t like to candy-coat it, and I know a lot of people do, maybe because they don’t want that stigma of “stripper” attached to them, so they use “burlesque dancer.” I kind of feel bad for people who feel that way, that they have to constantly validate what they do by saying they’re better than someone else. A lot of people get upset with me because I’m at the forefront of this movement of burlesque, but I’ve been a stripper since 1990, and I don’t need to prove to anybody that what I’m doing is okay. …
If you ever watch the movie Gypsy with Natalie Wood, the whole ending is her talking about how people might be making fun of her for being “nothing but a stripper,” but she’s the one having the laugh on everyone.
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