Ellen Stagg Likes the Diverse Bodies at Pumps Strip Club

Hanging out at a strip club in the middle of the afternoon on the first really sunny and warm spring day in Brooklyn is a bit, well, “depressing,” as regular Ellen Stagg put it. Usually, the thirty-seven-year-old photographer and artist is at Pumps between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m. “So if I’m coming here,” she says, “I’ll grab a group of people and make sure I have nothing to do the next day.” But today, Ellen agreed to meet me during daytime hours. Inside, the East Williamsburg topless bar was dark and cool but impressively clean, perhaps due in part to the presence of the health inspector who was also at Pumps filling out paperwork for what seemed to be a longer amount of time than needed. As a handful of hot ladies danced naked behind the bar, who could blame him?

With a couple of motorcycles hanging from the ceiling and a Coors Light–emblazoned, mini NASCAR racer bolted onto the wall at the entrance, the theme at Pumps is hotrods and hot rides. Even their logo is a variation on the sexy lady silhouette often seen on trucker mud flaps. Although the place was nearly empty, the environs felt refreshingly welcoming, more playful than sleazy. Sure, there was the requisite neon, the booming bass, the lap dance lounge with its carpeted benches, and—naturally—black light everywhere. But it also felt like a Brooklyn hipster take on a strip club. That isn’t a dis; it’s a compliment. Spotting a solo dude sporting a five o’clock shadow, messy hair, and a bottle of Budweiser alone at the bar felt . . . right. Perhaps Pumps isn’t trying hard to be anything other than a strip club you actually wouldn’t mind hanging out at for some beer and boobs.

And that’s exactly why Ellen is a regular. She’s lived an easy bike ride away for nearly eight years and was a regular starting two years prior when she was still living in Manhattan. Known for photographing women in states of “dress and undress,” when Ellen’s not shooting photos for her commercial website or showing her work in galleries for people to buy, she’s shooting for StaggStreet.com , her “naked ladies, members-only website.” The Stagg Street stuff is “more erotic,” she explains, “and my fine art stuff is just naked ladies, but nothing erotic. You hardly at times even see a boob.” Fortunately for Ellen, she can see plenty of that at Pumps, her “neighborhood bar with cute girls dancing on the pole,” she says. She’s had birthday parties here, and Pumps is even where Ellen met her boyfriend of four years.

It’s not a strip club like in Manhattan where it’s all about lap dances. It’s a club where you can have a beer, drink, sit at the bar and hand out tips to the girls.

You can see girls that aren’t big blonde Barbies with fake tits here. You see a diversity of cute women.

I just appreciate women. I am an ally to women at all levels of the sex industry. I can look at a woman and say she has great tits, a great ass, a great body. I like coming to a neighborhood hangout to be entertained by sexy ladies.

I’m not aroused by it. I photograph women in all states of undress and women having sex with each other. It’s more about being a photographer and visual artist.

I can look at a woman and say she has great tits, a great ass, a great body.

My mom said at two years old, I’d go up to people and say, “Boobies! Boobies! Boobies!” So I think it’s just part of how I’m wired.

I always said testosterone is a hell of a drug because it makes you want to fuck or fight. And if a guy wants to fuck, he might fight. So I say, if you want to let the poison out before you leave home, then, by all means, please do. I’d rather men do that than get crazy. But maybe in a place like this, a man cannot differentiate the fantasy on stage versus what reality is.

I met my boyfriend here. I was out with two of my girlfriends who had never been to a strip club in their lives. Sitting at the bar was this group of ten people, guys and girls, and one of them was my soon-to-be boyfriend. He came in and started flirting, and we started dating a month later.

He was confused at first because he was positive I was a lesbian. Why would a girl hanging out with two other girls be at Pumps? I said, “No, I appreciate women. I’m not a lesbian. Trust me, my whole twenties I tried real hard to be bisexual. It did not take.”

I started watching more gay porn when I was photographing ladies. There was enough vagina in my life. I wanted my fantasy to go somewhere else. You retouch tits and pussy all day long, and you say, “Can I see some dick?”

He came in and started flirting, and we started dating a month later.

The bar has become a hipster hangout. Because of that, the girls in the neighborhood probably feel cool and safe to dance here. They are very diverse in body shape, size, ethnicity, piercings, tattoos, different color hair. There was a girl on stage just now with green hair. That would never happen in Manhattan. If a girl in Manhattan had a tattoo, it would be a little one on her ankle. The girls here have full back-pieces and have modeled for Inked magazine.

I’m a WASP from Connecticut. My brother’s last name ends in a Roman numeral. I’m as WASPy as it fucking gets. Maybe that’s why I like diversity—because it was so boring when I was a child.

I would never be embarrassed to admit I was a regular at Pumps.

May 4, 2014

(Photos by Nina Westervelt)