suffokating : deathcore angel girl

I’ve always been inspired by women who live in a dramatically curated aesthetic world of their own making.  Katie is that girl- a pole dancer, tattoo artist and canvas for the art she’s collected on her body and she’s such an inspiration to me.

I’ve been a huge fan of pole dance and have been going to strip clubs for more than a decade wherever I travel.  I met Katie at a stripclub in Philadelphia 2 years ago and I was immediately struck with her angelic and powerful energy. I’ve photographed her many times over the past 2 years and I sat down with her to talk about her inspiration behind her tattoos and some experiences she’s had as a dancer.

I started taking pole dance classes for the first time two years ago at age 37 and totally regret that I hadn’t started in my 20’s. Pole dance is such an athletic and sensual art form and sport and after taking classes my already deep admiration for strippers deepened even more.

You can see Katie’s tattoo artwork on the gram and you can support her on her spicy site!

Leo Brooklyn: At what age did you get your first tattoo and what was it?

Katie: I was 14 and I did it myself. I stick and poked a Misfits skull on my hip.

Leo Brooklyn: How did you learn to do stick and poke tattoos?

Katie: I learned on the internet. I wanted a tattoo so bad. So I somehow got my hands on a tattoo gun. I think I got it from someone at the mall.  And then I used sewing needles. I was watching all these youtube videos and I learned you can put a needle inside of a pen or you could burn car tires and use the melted rubber as ink. I was so determined to learn.  So I was in the bathroom for about 5 hours meticulously packing the black into it.

Leo Brooklyn: That’s incredible! When did you first know you wanted to get fully tatted?

Katie: I was 11 or 12. I would see motorcycle magazines or look at Tumblr and I felt so inspired by tattooed girls.  I was growing up in the middle of nowhere in Indiana and I found a tattoo shop in town that was literally run by like, the worst criminals. They’re like 50 year old felons. And they didn’t check ids. So I was 15 and I said I was 22 and I got my tongue pierced. I got a job at a pizza shop so that I could save money to start getting tattooed all the time. I covered myself as fast as I could.

Leo Brooklyn: Can you tell me about 2 or 3 of your favorite tattoos?

Katie: I have some pieces from people who either apprenticed under tattoo masters or the founders of American Traditional tattoos so I feel like there's so much history on me. I have a tattoo from this guy named Eddie Cass who apprenticed under Philadelphia Edie. And that's a piece of history. 

I think my favorite tattoo is probably one that my grandma drew for me. She's always drawn this little smiley face for me on cards and letters. And I got that tattooed and she hated my tattoos so much. But when I showed her that one, that's the only time she ever smiled about a tattoo. So that one's really special.

Leo Brooklyn: Can you tell me about the tattoo you have under your eye and your inspiration?

Katie: I did that one myself at a punk show in a basement. It says ‘attack’ in Russian and there’s a black rose under it.I also have a large spider on the right side of my face.  I got it when I was 17 at a hardcore show. I remember after I got it done I kept touching my face- I was like- oh my god - it’s on my face. What have I done?!

Leo Brooklyn: I really appreciate how you are making such a strong aesthetic statement every single day of your life. What are some of your favorite compliments from strangers?

Katie: My favorite compliments are from girls who are teens or younger and they tell me that I look so cool and that they want to look like me when they’re older. Or literally when any girl compliments me.

Leo Brooklyn: I’m sure you attract a lot of awesome people to you with your strong persona.

Katie:  Yeah, some amazing people. You’re one of them- you saw me dancing at a shitty strip club in Philly and you started photographing me and I had never seen myself the way I do now and that was super liberating. I’m always meeting interesting people. In Philly I was hanging out with a lot of graffiti artists and punks. I think my favorite people are hillbillies and rednecks like me. People who are wild for no reason. 

And dancing has helped me meet a lot of strong women who are shameless and brave. They aren’t ashamed about their sexuality or how they make a living. I think that’s cool.

Leo Brooklyn:  You’re a tattoo artist and your drawings are incredible. What have you been drawing lately and what inspires you?

Katie: I’ve noticed I only draw when I’m inspired and happy which lastly has been everyday which is really cool. I hadn’t drawn anything in so long and then I came to visit you in New York and we went to that dominatrix’s birthday party and met some other really cool people and it made me start drawing again. I love dancing, but I hate entertaining so tattooing is where my heart is.

I love drawing American Traditional and I like girly pop aesthetic- like super bold and tough but working in pinks and purples and Hello Kitty and little hearts.

Leo Brooklyn: As dancers we have so many absurd experiences at the club. I would love to hear about some of your silliest or weirdest client experiences.

Katie: Recently I had a client get so excited and start sweating profusely while I was giving him lap dances and then he had a seizure! The club called the ambulance but he refused to get in. And then he called security and asked them to get me from the dressing room so that I could give him more lap dances. Like he passed out, had a seizure and wanted more lap dances!! I refused because he seemed unwell but then another dancer took him to the VIP room for an hour!

One of my wildest experiences was in Atlanta at a small hole in the wall club. This Russian guy came in and I just had a vibe- like you have your intuition as a dancer.  Something told me to walk up to him and smack him in the face. So I did. I didn’t even say hi or anything. And he was like ‘I love you, sit with me.’  And he tells me he wants to drink my pee. So I charged him $100 and went in the back to pee in a cup but I couldn’t pee so I had another dancer pee in the cup. And I gave it to him and he’s literally just sitting at the bar sipping the pee in a cup while he’s watching me dance on stage. And then throughout the course of the night he would have me walk him like a dog to the ATM machine.

 And then he wanted me to fuck him in the ass with the heel of my stripper heel. So I said I would do it for $500 and he would have to buy me a new pair of shoes. But my heels were covered in rhinestones so I was afraid it was going to be painful and not to mention dirty so I asked him if he had a condom for the heel. So he pulls out some saran wrap from his pocket and I used that.

There’s this notorious guy in Philly who pays for alternative dancers to choke him out with their thighs. He pays $1000 and he films it. So you just put him in these WWE holds and you choke him out. And that was really empowering for me because I've always been so submissive. And that put me in such a dominant, violent role that I had never been in before. 

Recently I was really excited to do a party for the Iron Horseman motorcycle club. My friend and I dressed up like cowgirls and we scissored on stage. So we’re scissoring while bikers are throwing money on us and I made her squirt for the first time! I’m a squirter, so she’s fingering me to Pantera with the cowgirl hat and it’s a whole vibe and it’s awesome. So she’s fingering me and I’m performing- you know I’m not trying to do anything other than like, give a good show, have fun, raise morale. And I start to squirt right at this guy’s old lady’s face, which like, if you know anything about bikers, you’d be very respectful to their old ladys, so I was minding my p’s and q’s and then I squirted in her face and I was so scared she was going to be mad at me. Instead she hugged me and she was like, ‘Honey, I loved it. That was amazing.’

Leo Brooklyn: And when you say old lady did you mean she was old?

Katie: No, no, it doesn't mean that they're old. It's just like a term of respect, like she’s a claimed woman, like she is his property which sounds backwards but it’s just how the culture is. If you’re a woman in the culture and you don’t have an old lady patch or you’re not the property of someone then you’re less protected.  So if somebody does have a ‘property of’ vest then you need to be very respectful and definitely don’t want to squirt in their face.

There’s this dynamic in the biker community where women will literally wear a vest that says ‘property of’ with his name on it. It's kind of hot, like if a guy buys you a chain or BMW he claims you and he’s taking care of you.

There was another woman I spoke to at the motorcycle club who was in her mid 40’s who I really enjoyed. I thought she had a really great story. For me the best part of being a stripper and sex worker is other women - our stories and how we can empower each other. So I was working there as a stripper and there were definitely some women who viewed me as less than. There were some ladies that got too drunk and tried to rip my clothes off and they were just treating me worse than men but I was in the bathroom, putting on perfume and like getting ready to go back out there. And this lady came in and was talking to me about how her kids are grown and off to college and her first marriage didn’t work out and she met this man who’s an outlaw biker and she’s in love with him. She was telling me how riding on the back of his bike and getting introduced to this whole new world she had never known existed felt like a rebirth to her. She was getting to be wild and free and do things she never thought she would get to in this second chapter of her life. She lived the conventional suburban mom life and raised kids and she didn’t feel fulfilled and now she felt like she’s where she belongs. I just stood with her in the bathroom and hugged her and cried with her and she was like ‘I don’t have my property of patch yet, but I really hope it’s coming soon. And I was like, ‘It definitely is.’

Leo Brooklyn: What do you feel being a stripper has taught you about your sexuality?

Katie: Actually a lot because I’ve been on a healing journey from the bad relationships and so the financial freedom has given me independence to break those chains. It’s also opened my eyes to a lot of things. I’m very, very sexual in my personal private life, but in my public life people might think I’m wild and chaotic because of my image but when they meet me they can see I’m soft spoken and a sweetheart who values emotional connection. 

I’ve gotten to talk so openly about sex and sexuality to people and it’s broadened my horizons. Like there are certain things I never would have thought about before but I now know that I’m definitely not into pegging. Great for some people but not for me. I know that girl on girl is performative for me but not a personal sexual interest. I definitely like public sex and I like being on display as a dancer.

Leo Brooklyn: What do you think men are looking for in a strip club that they can’t get elsewhere? 

Katie: I think that men are very lost as a whole because we live in a society built around toxic masculinity and there are so many emotional and sexual needs that aren’t being met. They might come to a strip club because they don’t feel heard or listened to or they don’t feel respected at home or they just genuinely cannot get a woman to talk to them to save their life. And so having it be a transaction makes it less scary for them or they’re just gross and they think they can get a blowjob for 40 bucks. There are so many different guys. There’s always the guy who dated a stripper and she absolutely ruined him and now he’s determined to only date strippers.

As a stripper I've talked men through like a really gnarly divorce or through childhood abuse issues they just needed to process with someone. I tend to go deep with people. But as a girlfriend I would definitely be more comfortable with my man at a strip club then at an Applebee’s Bar and Grill because I feel like if you’re going to a bar looking for women that’s a woman who is going to be emotionally attached but at the strip club it’s transactional. She just wants to get paid and go home to her kids. And she’ll put some tits in his face for 3 minutes and he’ll come home and think about it while he gives you the best sex you’ve had in a couple of weeks. Like it’s not a big deal.

Leo Brooklyn:  Yeah, I used to go to stripclubs by myself when I was younger and I could never find other women who wanted to go with me and my friends would be like, “Oh I don’t want my boyfriend going there.” And I would think, do you wear a g-string and dance on a pole for your man? Strippers give this amazing hyper sexual performance and energy that doesn’t exist in regular relationships and it’s just fun.

Katie: Also women are so inspiring. I love that I get to look at women being these magical versions of themselves every day at work. I’ll think- that was so creative. That was so cute. That was so smart. Or like that was so athletic.  How did you do that? It’s just, feminine energy. You can't put a price on it. 

Leo Brooklyn: Describe your ideal day off of work.

Katie: My ideal day off of work is waking up early, cooking a big country breakfast, painting for a couple hours, working in my garden and checking on my chickens, going for a ride on my motorcycle, spending some time in the gym, cooking a delicious dinner and sharing it with people I love, then reading a book in the woods until the sun goes down. Also eating berries with the girls in the woods and then skinny dipping in a waterfall!

Leo Brooklyn: Oh my god I love the world you create around yourself.

Leo Brooklyn: What was your first experience pole dancing?

Katie: My first experience pole dancing was my first audition. I had never touched a pole before and it was at this awful club- like  the worst club in Philadelphia. My first week as a dancer I watched someone get stabbed in the leg where the artery is and there was blood gushing everywhere. Oh my god. It was super intense. Actually when I went to audition there I didn’t even get to dance. I put on my little outfit and then the owner, who is a really scary guy that I hope you’ve never met said to me, “You’ve been spotted.” and I had no idea what he meant. He told me a customer wanted me in a private room for an hour and I didn’t know anything about anything. This guy was like, I want to sniff your asshole for an hour and I was like what do I charge? That was my first experience as a stripper. Everything I learned about pole dancing I learned in the club on stage and from other dancers. 

Leo Brooklyn: Pole dancing is so much harder than people could ever imagine, which is why I love going to strip clubs with pole dancers because we know what we're looking at.  I’ve never pole danced in a club- only in classes and at home on my pole and it takes so much strength and grace to do what dancers do! Whenever I would see you at Cheerleaders in Philly I thought you were so mesmerizing. I literally feel healed and blessed by strippers being hot.

Katie: Literally yes-  like I feel like I've been healed with hotness before. At a club I worked at in  Atlanta when I was turning 23 I got a lap dance from 10 girls at the same time!  They pulled a chair up on stage and all these girls were twerking in my face and I was like, I'm better now. Thank you. 

Leo Brooklyn: I know! That's how I feel when I'm in a strip club. I look at a girl on a pole and I just feel calm and blessed by the energy.

Katie: That's who we are. We’re so magical.