For the Love of Strippers (2025) and the Work of Being Human
Words by Diana Rotten
Julia Reagan’s For the Love of Strippers is a film about work in the fullest sense of the word. Created with Culture House and Guy Pictures, this is not just the performance of dancing, but the emotional labour that sits behind it, the constant reading of rooms, the anticipation of moods, and the careful navigation of social dynamics that make the job possible. The film understands that stripping is not simply about performance. It is also about care, about emotional intelligence, and about carrying psychological weight that rarely gets named.
One of the documentary’s quiet strengths is how clearly it recognises the value strippers bring to the venues they sustain, while also directly confronting how poorly performers are treated in return at times. The industry depends on their labour, their bodies, and their ability to manage both customers and atmosphere, yet that contribution is routinely met with wage theft, intimidation and a lack of basic workplace protections. The film does not argue this in abstract terms, and instead shows it through lived experience, through organising efforts, and through the everyday logistics of the job, including the reality that in some clubs dancers tip DJs and bouncers simply to secure a measure of safety.
There is an especially telling use of archival footage featuring comedians mocking strippers, which exposes the long-standing hypocrisy at the heart of public attitudes. Stripping is treated as culturally acceptable entertainment, but the people who perform it are denied legitimacy, dignity, or serious consideration as workers. Films for example will happily use strip clubs as a contextual backdrop within a story or scene, but never truly represent the realities of these spaces nevermind the thoughts and feelings of the workers inside them. Reagan’s film does not soften this contradiction. It addresses the stigma directly, alongside the broader unwillingness of the media and public to engage honestly with sex workers’ labour conditions, legal precarity and employment rights. These are not side issues to be discussed in hushed tones- they sit at the core of what sex worker activism has been forced to confront.
Visually and sonically, the film is handled with care. The colour grading is rich and the soundscape is attentive. This aesthetic restraint mirrors the tone of the interviews, which are intimate without being invasive or glamorising. The dancers are not framed as victims, nor as sensational figures. They are shown in the rhythms of ordinary life, in conversations about work, money, stress and relationships. There is something radical in how mundane this portrayal is allowed to be. The film insists, again and again, that strippers are workers like anyone else, with the same mix of ambition, exhaustion, pride and pessimism that exists in every other industry.
The pandemic sits heavily over the narrative; the anxiety around financial support, the sudden loss of income, and the scramble to find ways to survive are handled with a clarity never tipping towards spectacle. The film documents how dancers adapted quickly, organising fundraisers and moving into online spaces to make ends meet. This film exists as a record of how crisis forced collective thinking in an industry that is usually structured around isolation and competition.
Crucially, the narrative is driven by racialised strippers, which makes this an essential watch for anyone who wants to understand the intersections of race, labour and stigma within the sex industry. The film shows how leadership, organising and community building are not abstract ideals but practical necessities within activism, often carried by those who are already the most exposed to risk. This is where the work of Strippers United comes into focus, including discussions of intimidation, wage theft and the slow, difficult process of building collective power. There is honesty here about the emotional toll of that work, including the tension between cynicism and commitment, and the reality that many people are politicised by ideology “I’m not an activist but I need to eat” is a hard hitting line and a clear-eyed description of how survival pushes people into action.
The documentary also takes care to show the internal hierarchies of the industry, including the concept of whorearchy and the fact that some dancers are always more at risk than others. It gestures to longer histories of organising, including earlier unionisation efforts, while also being frank about how difficult it is to build solidarity in a profession designed to keep workers separate from one another. That structural isolation is treated as one of the central obstacles to meaningful change.
Some of the most affecting moments come from the film’s attention to parenting. NatsHoney’s story, and the broader acknowledgement that many strippers are mothers, cuts directly against the way the public prefers to imagine this work. These workers are parents providing for their children, juggling care responsibilities with exhausting, precarious labour, and doing so with a level of determination and responsibility that is rarely afforded any grace by outside observers. The personal footage around family life is handled with warmth, and it deepens the film’s argument that dancers are not exceptions to ordinary social roles.
The psychological toll of the work is never understated. The film addresses the constant pressure of navigating harassment, unsafe situations and legal grey zones, as well as the ways dancers protect one another in environments that often refuse to protect them. It is especially sharp on how sexual violence and harassment are treated as occupational hazards, and how that expectation strips workers of basic empathy. There is a painful clarity in the way the film shows how dehumanisation becomes normalised, not only in clubs but in the systems that are supposed to offer support. When dancers seek therapy, they are often met with pressure to exit the industry altogether, as if leaving the job were a substitute for actual mental health care. The film makes it clear how unacceptable this would be in any other profession, and how revealing it is that it remains standard practice here.
Despite its relatively short runtime, For the Love of Strippers manages to communicate a great deal about identity, self-definition and the complexity of labels. Some dancers do not identify as sex workers, and the film treats that with respect and nuance. It leaves space for the possibility that those relationships to language might shift over time, while holding firm to the idea that self-identification is not something that needs to be policed.
The film closes on a note that is determined and inspiring. There is a rebellious energy in the communities it portrays, but also a grounded sense of what it takes to keep going. There is no promise of easy reform, but rather a recognition of how much labour, care and collective effort it takes just to make survival a little less precarious. Everyone on this earth can love or hate their job, and it’s films like this that add irreplaceable value to the representation of sex workers in our society.
Our Verdict
For the Love of Strippers does not ask for permission, or to be admired for its politics or the dancers’ capacity to overcome trauma or adversity. It earns its critical acclaim and attention by taking its subjects seriously, and by insisting that this work, and the people who do it, deserve to be understood as fully human and capable of incredible material change in their communities. This film is an essential encapsulation of sex worker history, and a shining example of the excellence that comes from centering workers in the documentation of their own lives
The next screening of this incredible film is on March 3rd and is hosted by Strippers United. The Kinema link is: https://kinema.com/events/For-the-Love-of-Strippers-7abuyk
For more information on Strippers United visit https://www.strippersunited.org/
Follow Strippers United on Instagram
Film Credits:
Executive Producers: Carri Twigg, Nicole Galovski, Raeshem Nijhon, Julia Reagan
Executive Producers: Ranika Ahuja Cohen, Callie & Rajan Ahuja
Executive Producers: Joe Lewis, Rachel Eggebeen, Colin King Miller
Cast: Christianna "Selena" Clark, Natalie “NatsHoney" Clark
2025 Festivals: New Hampshire Film Festival, Workers Unite Film Festival (NYC),