Title: Sunshine: The Diary of a Lapdancer
Author: Samantha C. Ross
Published: 1st December 2020, Allen & Unwin
Status: Read December 2020 courtesy Allen & Unwin
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My Thoughts:
Spanning a period of about a year, Samantha C. Ross invites the reader to share her experiences as she gyrates, stumbles, and skips her way between ‘Gentleman’s’ clubs in several Australian states (with a quick, scary jaunt to Japan), in Sunshine: The Diary of a Lapdancer.
Sunshine’s journal entries are candid, funny, provocative, unapologetic, and engaging. At times it’s quite an outrageous tale of excess as Samantha AKA Sunshine tends to embrace the party lifestyle indulging in a lot of drinking, and the occasional recreational drug, but it’s also an intimate portrait of a woman, and her friends, in search of adventure, happiness and true love.
As long as it is their choice to do so, I personally don’t have any issue with someone who decides to strip for a living. While the profession is often perceived as either glamorous and easy, or tawdry and dangerous, the truth, it seems, is somewhere in the middle. Sure the money can be great, Sunshine regularly earns double, or even triple, an average weeks wage in less time, but it’s harder work and takes more skill than I imagined. It’s also a profession that seems to take a heavy toll on personal relationships.
I found the behind-the-scenes look at the profession to be interesting, from the various laws that govern the behaviour of both the women and their patrons, to the (high school-ish) hierarchy and unspoken rules that govern the change rooms and floor. In many ways a strip club is a workplace like any other, with it’s share of WorkSafe regulations, awful bosses and entitled customers, though few offices permit drinking champagne and spirits on the clock.
Providing unique insight into a lifestyle few will experience, Sunshine is an entertaining read, and may go some way to altering your perspective on the women who choose the profession.
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Available from Allen & Unwin RRP AUD$29.99
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Book’d Out 
This certainly sounds a unique read!
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I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a book quite like this one! Sunshine sounds like a really truthful look into a profession that’s shrouded in mystique. I’m really curious if Ross discusses the experiences of other workers in her field, or focuses solely on her own (it sounds like the latter, though).
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Thanks, quite original!
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Thanks, I enjoyed your review 🙂
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I’ve read some pretty interesting books. And this one seems interesting and Bold. I like the idea that the world has it’s own rules and regulations. I sat down in a discussion led by a sex worker before, and it put me at unease but I think as a writer its important to have perspective.
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