This Is My Real Name

The frank and bracing memoir of a woman who spent ten years as a stripper.

This Is My Real Name is the memoir of Cid V Brunet, who spent ten years working as a dancer at strip clubs, using the name Michelle. From her very first lap dance in a small-town bar to her work at high-end clubs, Michelle learns she must follow the unspoken rules that will allow her to succeed in the competitive industry. Along the way, she and her co-workers encounter compelling clients and unreasonable bosses and navigate their own relationships to drugs and alcohol. Michelle and her friends rely on each other’s camaraderie and strength in an industry that can be both toxic and deeply rewarding.

Intensely personal, This Is My Real Name demystifies stripping as a career with great respect and candour, while at the same time exploring the complex, sex-positive relationships (queer and otherwise) that make it meaningful.

'Cid V Brunet’s This Is My Real Name is electric, intelligent, and haunting. Their narrator’s voice is by turns bold and vulnerable, navigating the experience of sex work through shrewd observational powers. I found the writing graceful and jarringly honest.' — Shashi Bhat, author of The Family Took Shape

'With bare-hearted clarity, This Is My Real Name is a mind-bending trip into a world you thought you knew.' — Merrily Weisbord, author of The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das