The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E18: Antonia Pickets the Lusty Lady

The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E18: Antonia Pickets the Lusty Lady

From The Girlfriends: Flight or Fight by iHeartPodcasts and Novel

March 16, 2026 · 40 min · Episode 17

About this episode

Antonia Crane discusses her experiences as a dancer at the Lusty Lady and the fight for unionization in the 1990s.

It’s the 1990s in San Francisco, and Antonia Crane is a dancer at the legendary peep show, the Lusty Lady. In the dressing room and the mirrored ‘Fishbowl’ where the dancers perform in six inch heels, a revolution is brewing. The dancers are sick of putting up with workplace injustices, or customers filming them without their consent. And they’re about to take on the system and fight to become one of the first unionised strip clubs in the United States. Antonia Crane is author, activist, sex worker and PhD candidate at USC. You can read more about her life in her memoir, ‘Spent’. The other books mentioned in this episode are ‘Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry,’ by Professor Siobhan Brooks, another Lusty Lady alum; and ‘The Ethical Stripper’ by Stacey Clare. The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

People in this episode

Guest: Antonia Crane

Topics covered

  • dancing
  • strip clubs
  • unionization
  • workplace injustice
  • activism
  • sex work

Keywords

  • Lusty Lady
  • Antonia Crane
  • unionization
  • sex work
  • activism
  • 1990s
  • San Francisco

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Lusty Lady, Novel, iHeartPodcasts

Books & works: Spent, Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry, The Ethical Stripper

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