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Stripper history tidbit: when I was a feature dancer about 30 years ago, many feature dancers seeking magazine shoots to get press/ credits in order to raise their rates did not seek out Playboy centerfolds.
Playboy traditionally presented its centerfolds as girls next door that were not sex workers or strippers, & in the 80s/90s continued to distance the brand from porn & strip joints.
They did not allow feature dancers (the generally unacknowledged, one might even say erased, burlesque strippers of the time) to use the brand/trademark when promoting themselves as strippers.
The bunnies at the clubs were traditionally generally prohibited by club rules from stripping, mingling, etc., or otherwise behaving as sex workers.
What might be confusing to researchers is that they had Playboy branded lingerie magazines & videos, including “Playboy Strips,” which could be used as feature dancer credits. But not the Bunny, not the original mag.
They could also be ferocious about non-Playboy-models wearing the bunny suits, which were trademarked by the brand, but were the creation of Zelda Wynn Valdes, the legendary black designer who also dressed Josephine Baker, Mae West, Ella Fitzgerald, & Eartha Kitt.
I’ve written about the bunny costume elsewhere. What I’m thinking about right now is the hierarchy of prestige there was in which magazines we were in. The mags were also generally racially segregated, & the white & black mag industries each had hierarchies of their own.
Our agents actually employed these hierarchies when setting our rates. There were other factors too — I’m just talking about the mag credits. Being a Penthouse Pet of the Year was usually the highest mag credit in that era for a feature.
The highest ranked black mag credits included Players, a high-end popular culture magazine with soft core layouts & centerfold.
Anyway — strip club heirarchies of the 80s/90s were a THING. In Atlanta the status shifted among clubs as they opened & closed, but the oldest clubs remained a constant contender in the top 3. I’ll come back to this another time.
