Strippers need respect to...right?

Freshman Year, 2003


I couldn't stop looking out of my window, it had been two hours since Ben said he'd return with the food and he was taking forever! I was starving and for some reason he had turned his phone off. I paced back and forth with my roomate Shannon staring at me like I was crazy.

Sucking my teeth, I walked out of our room and into the hallway hoping that this time Ben's phone would be turned back on. The phone rung once and went straight to voicemail. Frustrated, I plopped down on the floor and put my head in my hands. All sorts of thoughts were running through my head, what if something had happened to him, what if he was in a car accident, was he with another girl? Before I could have anymore crazy thoughts, Ben's name appeared on my caller i.d. . I went from scared to mad in .2 seconds.

Him: Yo, grab your coat and come downstairs
Me: What!? Why?
Him: Just do it!

I ran into my room, grabbed my coat and hat, thru on my snow boots and was out the door. I could feel my roomates eyes boring into my back, but I had no time to explain. Ben was parked outside in front of my dorm looking angry as hell. "What's wrong I asked him?" "Nothing," he replied. "Just close the door." I sat back in my seat as he sped down the street in his black Honda Civic. 5 minutes later we were in front of the popular strip club that was frequented daily by the students of the black male population at my University.

I automatically had a serious attitude.

Ben hopped out of the car and locked the doors before I could get a word in. Two seconds later, he was running out the door with some half naked girl and motioned for me to get in the back seat. Confused and scared of the fragile girl, I jumped in the back and we were on our way.

"I can't believe he did this to me!" The girl in the front seat was screaming. I looked a little closer and realized that I knew the girl from my Freshman Lit. class. She had bruises and cuts all up and down her arms and what looked to be like a black eye. I grabbed the rumpled up napkins out of Bens back seat and handed them to her and gently put my arms around her as she begin to shake. Ben just sat there looking terrified.


Eventually we pulled into the Walmart parking lot and just all sat silent. The girl, whose name was Jenilla began to talk. She told us both the story of how her boss got really mad at her because she had refused to give uh, "special treatment" to some very well known baller who had come into the club. Pissed the baller had forced her to give him some .....well ya know. When he was finished he wanted to take her back to his place and she refused. He then began pushing her and hitting her and she tried to fight back to no avail. Between sobs, she said that what hurt most was that her boss, did nothing. He knew what was going on but he did nothing.


"You're just a stripper," he told her. "You don't get respect."

Confused, I blurted out, "Why are you doing this, why are you stripping?"


She explained that it was the only way she could pay for school, she had no parents, and the family she did have was either locked up or living on the streets. Ben slid his hand in mine, as she told us her horrific story of how she grew up being abused. "The streets raised me," she confessed to us with tears in her eyes.

After we made sure she got home safely and well fed, I looked at Ben and asked her how he knew her. He explained that he had been tutoring her (he was a junior) and she had become alike a little sister to him. Although I wasn't fully happy with that explanation, I trusted him enough to believe it was the truth.


Two weeks later, Jenilla finally returned to English class. I smiled at her and motioned for her to sit next to me, she happily obliged. About an hour into class, she passed me a note that said;

Thank you for being there, thank you for the hug, thank you for listening, and thank you for not judging. I'm done with stripping, I want my respect back.