I’ve never been the girl to take up pole dancing lessons – or move for a man in the bedroom. I’ve always been the girl too shy to sway seductively; too ashamed of my own sexuality to ever own it. But on Saturday night, in a darkened dance studio alongside 20 women I’d never met before in lace lingerie, I discovered an entirely new side to myself and tapped into a power I didn’t know existed. 

“It’s what I live for,” Caitlin Erica, a stripper, birth doula and teacher, tells Body+Soul about the metamorphosis guests go through at her women-only pop-up strip show in which ticket holders became the stars. “It’s almost as if she’s seen herself for the first time, and she didn't realise that she had that in her.”

For the 35-year-old, who’s now held 13 events across Sydney in the last two years, she likes to joke that she’s just a ‘well-paid window cleaner’. “I’m just here to clean the mirrors so that these women can see how powerful they are,” she says. “And the way they’re able to unravel in this space just goes to show how much they’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity and safe space to unleash, because it’s all within each one of us.”

Setting the scene

Arriving at the studio in Sydney’s inner west, I was invited to get comfortable and (if I wished) peel off all of my winter layers, including any bad juju, by a woman with a smudging stick.  

Energetically cleansing the space around me of anything that didn’t belong, she welcomed me to the evening, before introducing me to the next Pussy Priestess, a woman who’s been through Erica’s program or has experience in sex work and serves as a “walking transmission of having that sense of freedom in their sensual expression. 

“They welcome all the guests with pussy blessings which is a fun way to get women in the mood and bring a bit of playfulness into it, but also to give women an opportunity to think about their womb or their pussy and to set an intention,” Erica said. 

After a series of deep guided breaths, she placed a droplet of a plant-based aphrodisiac under my tongue. “[It] just kind of ignites the fires of Eros and activates the womb and sacral area to help women feel a little bit warm and excited inside their bodies and to get the tingles going,” Erica explains.  

The divine femininity 

Having got the courage by this point to pull off my dress, I sat down at the back of the group on a luxuriously soft rug, feeling the fibres run between my toes. Scattered in front of me were almost two dozen women in varied states of undress: in voluptuous bras and suggestive suspenders to thigh-high stockings and alluring silk dressing gowns.

They perched on pillows like a menagerie of exotic birds, a diverse collection of women of all ages, ethnicities, orientations and body shapes, and each with their own unique sense of beauty.

Maybe it was the fairy lights, the poles that ran up and down the room, or the sensual music flowing through the speakers, but the divine femininity pulsated in the air. 

Your permission slip 

Gliding through the scene like an angel in a long white robe, yet sensually exposing her matching lingerie underneath, Erica captured the room’s attention as she welcomed her performers to the space. Following an exercise in which we were invited to share among groups something physical and non-physical that we liked about ourselves in an effort to shake off the nerves and connect with each other, the teacher took the class through an embodiment practice to lead people into their bodies. 

“So moving gently to the music and starting to create movement in the body, opening up the spine, using the breath, using some sound, and just getting everyone to feel themselves and their own energy,” Erica says. “The idea is to create a space to drop into pleasure and playfulness.” 

Which is when the Pussy Priestesses were invited to take to the stage – a rectangular rug in the middle of the studio surrounded by twinkling fairy lights and metal poles.

“They serve as an example, a permission slip really, and it’s all very simple, slow movements that any woman can do,” explains Erica. “Because it’s never about feeling like you need to be able to do a trick or be super flexible or anything to be sexy, it's just inviting women to drop into their own deliciousness, and just creating a space where women have the opportunity to see how incredible they are and just see themselves reflected in each other.” 

And just like that, the floor opened and women were encouraged, one at a time, to take their moment on the stage. “There's a real reverence in the air when a woman just goes inside of herself and enjoys herself and she gives us the honour and the privilege of witnessing that,” the dance teacher says. “And it's just jaw-droppingly beautiful and it's inspiring, and there’s a lot of awe in the room.”

The power of raw sexuality 

As the women celebrated each other, cheering and clapping every time someone new took to the arena, the transformation was transcendent as guests found themselves in this new movement. By the time I felt ready to dance, in front of others but for myself, I’d shed more than just my clothes that evening. 

Layers of shame and stigma of what I thought – what I assumed – stripping meant, had fallen away, and what was left was raw sexuality that I couldn’t wait to embrace. It was a new acceptance of myself and I never wanted to go back to life before this night. 

“This is something that's not felt very safe for many of us,” says Erica. “To enjoy ourselves, to adore ourselves – it's like we’re not supposed to. We’re told self-love is good and it's healthy but we’re told not to love ourselves too much.”

But by owning what we are, we can become more powerful for it. “Women have later told me that they now carry themselves through the world differently and experience themselves and womanhood differently. So it can really shift the way women hold themselves and the way they show up in the boardroom, in the bedroom, or just in front of the mirror with themselves. It filters into every aspect of their life.”

Seduction isn’t a dirty word

For too long, we’ve been conditioned to believe that ‘seduction’ is a dirty word or a dangerous woman. But according to Erica, seduction is just a form of communication, and it's very neutral. 

“Yes, like communication, seduction can be used to lie, cheat and steal by gaining power over someone or manipulating them to get what you want,” she says. “But it can also be used to uplift, excite, soothe and celebrate, and we can use our powers of seduction to seduce someone into their best life. 

“Seduction is about seducing the fires of inspiration within a person, and creating that curiosity of, ‘Who is that woman who dares to live her own life on her own terms’. That's the kind of experience that makes your eyes wide and your heart beat faster, and you're like, ‘I want that’.”

After sold-out events in Sydney, Caitlin Erica has announced further dates including more Strip Her: The Pop Up nights in Sydney as well as in Melbourne.