Neon Girls

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A riveting true story of a young woman's days stripping in grunge-era San Francisco, where a radical group of dancers united to unionize and take control of the club. Graduate student Jenny Worley needed quick cash and found herself auditioning at the Lusty Lady Theater, stepping onto the stage as "Polly" alongside women like Octopussy and Amnesia. This was no ordinary strip club; it was a peepshow filled with free-thinking women discussing feminist theory and sharing radical zines. As management's discriminatory practices and hidden cameras created tension, Jenny inspired her fellow dancers to demand change. They organized the world's first strippers' union, risking everything to run the club cooperatively. Rejecting treatment as mere sex objects, they became the rulers of their domain. While Jenny celebrated the Lusty Lady's transformation, she grappled with the personal toll of her work. Ultimately, when she decided to leave the stage behind to complete her Ph.D., both she and San Francisco had changed. Yet, Jenny and her courageous peers emerged victorious. This firsthand account vividly portrays a bygone San Francisco and a fiercely feminist perspective within the sex industry, raising critical questions about women's rights and the systems of power that shape their lives.