LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- Clad only in a pair of bikini bottoms and a lobster-red sunburn, a stripper at Sapphire Gentleman's Club turns to the one person allowed to touch her at work.
"Mom, can you put some lotion on my back?" she asks sheepishly.
Marcy Perez -- the club's official "house mom" -- has just the remedy. She uncaps some aloe vera gel and massages it into the girl's back.
"There's somebody that always needs something," says Perez, a cheerful 46-year-old woman who is dwarfed by the girls in their eight-inch heels.
At a number of strip clubs across the country, house moms do more than just help the performers get ready for the next shift. They listen when the girls need to vent and console when a customer gets abusive. They are part coach, part guidance counselor and very much a surrogate mother.
"They're good for everything," says Vye, a 26-year-old stripper from Las Vegas. "They're better than a real mom."
For many of these young women, a stripper's world is one of stigma and isolation. Many refuse to tell their loved ones how they earn a living. Instead, they pass themselves off as cocktail waitresses or bartenders.
"There are a lot of parents that would disown their daughter if they knew they were strippers," said Charlotte Andrews, a longtime house mom at Club Paradise.
For many, family consists of other strippers and the women paid to care for them.
"That's why they come to us," Perez said. "You're the only one who knows the real them."
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/West/04/26/strip.club.moms.ap/index.html
"Mom, can you put some lotion on my back?" she asks sheepishly.
Marcy Perez -- the club's official "house mom" -- has just the remedy. She uncaps some aloe vera gel and massages it into the girl's back.
"There's somebody that always needs something," says Perez, a cheerful 46-year-old woman who is dwarfed by the girls in their eight-inch heels.
At a number of strip clubs across the country, house moms do more than just help the performers get ready for the next shift. They listen when the girls need to vent and console when a customer gets abusive. They are part coach, part guidance counselor and very much a surrogate mother.
"They're good for everything," says Vye, a 26-year-old stripper from Las Vegas. "They're better than a real mom."
For many of these young women, a stripper's world is one of stigma and isolation. Many refuse to tell their loved ones how they earn a living. Instead, they pass themselves off as cocktail waitresses or bartenders.
"There are a lot of parents that would disown their daughter if they knew they were strippers," said Charlotte Andrews, a longtime house mom at Club Paradise.
For many, family consists of other strippers and the women paid to care for them.
"That's why they come to us," Perez said. "You're the only one who knows the real them."
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/West/04/26/strip.club.moms.ap/index.html