From Writing Film Reviews to Running a Sex Column
Caitlin Thomas describes herself as a writer, creator, artist, feminist and movie lover. Thomas has lived in Reno for roughly 16 years and said she’s gotten a good dose of what the Biggest Little City has to offer, while also contributing to its uniqueness. She has been writing poetry from a young age but around 2010, she began writing film reviews for the student-run newspaper at UNR, The Nevada Sagebrush, while she was studying.
Thomas has been a film enthusiast ever since she was a little girl. She got her first taste of cinema when she attended film camp at nine years old. At 16 years old, Thomas began working at Blockbuster Video. However, after working with and writing about movies, Thomas wanted to explore other topics with her sarcastic style of writing. She then became the newspaper’s sex columnist.
"It was like, what can I get away with? To the right, it's like, 'What's your favorite yoga position?," and all of this stuff that just felt boring to me. If you're waiting for your class to start and you have a paper, don't you want to read something where you're like, 'Whoa!'?” Thomas said.
Thomas wrote about religion, sex and stripping. She felt that these topics were important to shine a light on and said they were more taboo to talk about 10 years ago. Thomas also wrote about the abortion she had.
Thomas’ abortion story was picked up by HuffPost.
"I thought that, not a lot of people are speaking up about that stuff. When I found out I was pregnant, I had to really dig deep, to find out experience stories," Thomas said, "So, you're like, 'Okay, well what's going to happen when I go do it?' It was kind of hard to find stuff, especially things that weren't biased to a pro life agenda. It's just like, what a pain in the ass, you know? So, it really helped that I could be like a voice for someone and I still feel really good about it."
"It's not for money, obviously,” Thomas said of why she writes. “It's not for clout. Is that what the kids say? It's because it's what I need to get out, you know? I've found a way to get it out. Therapy is great, but I also think that sometimes you just have to write it out," Thomas said.
Creating Safe Spaces to Talk about Sex
Thomas also previosuly wrote a handful of stories for the Reno News & Review, before it went on blog hiatus due to the coronavirus shutdown. She wrote about being a controversial feminist and FemSex, a class she helped create, which served as a safe space for mainly women to talk about a broad range of topics on sexuality.
Thomas also wrote about the five kinds of women she observed while she spent four months in jail in 2017 for a drug possession charge from 2014. Thomas made sure to clarify that she doesn’t consider herself a journalist. Instead, Thomas said sharing her own experiences is a form of therapy.
To her dismay, her beloved Blockbuster Video closed shop. Thomas said she gets bored easily so she found herself a new job. On Halloween, at 19 years old, Thomas had her first audition at the Wild Orchid Gentlemen's Club.
"I feel like, maybe there was a stereotype that brings one into the sex work industry. We can argue all day about sex work, what the definition of that is. But I do think maybe stripping is part of that because it's just in that genre of sexual exhibitionism. But for the record, you don't have sex with them, you just dance on stage. But you know, there was a sexual element to it. I've always loved to dance in my life and I love music. I love playing guitar. I always thought if I had to work, I was either going to work at a video store because I love the film or I was going to dance and have fun," Thomas said.
Defending Strip Clubs She’s Worked At
Thomas said she worked at all of the strip clubs in Reno over a span of six years, while she was still a student at UNR. She said her favorite to work at was Fantasy Girls, but all of the clubs felt the same to her.
Reno’s strip clubs have been feeling heat from the City of Reno. Kamy Keshmiri and his family own three strip clubs in Reno: Wild Orchid Gentlemen's Club, Fantasy Girls, and the Spice House. Members of the Reno City Council have been fighting to force Keshmiri to move his strip clubs out of downtown or to heavily regulate them, according to Anjeanette Damon, the investigative journalist who reported on this conflict for the now also defunct podcast The City. But Thomas, who’s worked at all three of those strip clubs, said they play a crucial role in society.
"There are perverts in society and unfortunately there are pedophiles, and sometimes they need to go to the club to get their energy out, to just be primal for a minute, and just watch a girl dance or have a girl gyrate on their lap, and dry hump, or whatever. If we take all that away, sometimes I get worried that, that might surface, that male rage. Look, I'm a huge feminist and it sucks that this exists because it's like, why do you need an outlet? Go home, watch porn. But some guys, they need that redirection and they need to see someone," Thomas said. "It's controversial, but I think that these things need to exist because I think your average man who goes to the strip club by himself at 2:00 PM might be having some issues sexually, you know? There's nothing wrong with that as long as he's not hurting anyone."
More Rights Needed for Strippers
Thomas said strippers deserve more rights too. Recently, a video of a stripper falling down a 15-20 foot pole went viral. The woman in the video, Genea Sky, had a GoFundMe to pay for her injuries which included a fractured jaw, broken teeth and a sprained ankle. Thomas said the video traumatized her.
"We're independent contractors and it's just kind of anything goes,” she said. “There's no job security, that sucks. You just have to move clubs if anything happens. It sucks because if you get into any situation where you get into a fight with anyone or someone's being unreasonable with you in the back room, it's always, he said, she said. They don't always believe dancers, you know? 'Oh, you're a drug addict. Oh, you're a liar.' It's like, no, they were just like trying to touch me. You can get 86ed for anything and that really sucks," Thomas said.
Thomas said she would like to look towards unions for strippers and for them to receive hourly pay. She also wants perceptions to change, and for strip club owners to believe women if they say they feel unsafe. With coronavirus, workers at adult clubs haven’t been getting unemployment benefits because they are considered independent contractors, adding to their difficulties.
For Thomas, that life is in the past, but for her, it was made of fond memories as well. "I got so good on the pole, it sounds dumb, but I got good. I could climb, I could flip upside down. It felt good to get up there and I didn't care what anyone said, I still don't. That was fun, you know, and getting athletic and in shape, it was great," Thomas said.
Writing Thomas published about stripping in Reno.
Shining Light on Difficulties and Pursuing Goals
In addition to shining a light on topics of sex, Thomas would like to see more people pay attention to houseless individuals in Reno.
"It's like they're invisible, you know, it's really terrible,” she said. “There's not a lot of empathy. I think that people are very in their own world. I think you can tell a lot about people by just the way they interact with the homeless," Thomas said. "You don't have to give them money, but I think just talking to someone like they're a human being, is so important. It's like, if you're on a first date and you're walking on the river and they complain about it, that's when you can tell: this is someone who doesn't have a lot of empathy and that's a problem. Who says they're going to be empathetic to you, you know, when you need it? I think it's a good filter for who to date, and who not to date."
Even though Thomas hasn’t been houseless herself, she knows what it’s like to not have stable housing.
"My lease ended and I was looking for a new place. So, there were two weeks where I was living with my boyfriend and that feeling of like not really having a home is terrible. First of all, you don't want to feel like you are leaning on anyone, you know? You find out who your real friends are, let's put it that way," Thomas said.
Right now, Thomas is currently writing scripts for movies and a book called Romance in the Vice, which is a memoir about her experiences dancing. She also hopes to go to law school in the future.