These days, you can go to any major city and find an influx of gentlemen clubs filled with ballers to everyday people. The stigma associated with the strip club seems to have been somewhat erased. Yet, dancers are still shunned and criticized by society who can’t look past their profession. Behind the acrobatics and stage names, these women have a story.

Sometimes classified as lowlifes of society, these women are thought to be streetwalking drug fiends with no regard for others. Some are thought to be impressionable young women, taken advantage of by men overseeing a seedy underworld. These are assumptions often made without any context from the women who live this life.

Hip -Hop constantly celebrates dancers. They seem to be celebrities in their own right. There’s a love and bond there that no one break, let most rappers tell it. Now, it may be seen as cool to know a stripper, date a stripper, or even be a stripper. Yet in still the judgment still follows. But these ladies are speaking up either way. You may not like it, but you have to respect it.

Filmmaker Artemus Jenkins decided to shine a different spotlight on the exotic dancer. Focusing on Atlanta’s popular strip club, Magic City, Jenkins’s multi-part documentary series “Power of Pu*sy”takes us into their world.

AllHipHop: What’s one thing you learned during the process of making this documentary?

Artemus Jennkins: People think strippers are from another planet based off their lifestyle and what they are able to do on stage nightly. The thing I’ve learned, or that has been reinforced, is that at one point in life these women were just like anybody else; they don’t just show up and have all the skills up front. Now I see new girls come in and I find myself identifying the things they could add to their skill set to make more money.

Where do you feel the fascination with strippers comes from?

With men it’s pretty obvious, aside from the nudity, women just don’t move the way these women do on a regular basis. Everything about strippers on the surface is opposite of what most of us as males and females are taught about how women should be. As a result, men are fascinated by the seemingly hyper sexual and forward nature of these women, especially when you may be used to dealing with coy women devoid of rhythm. From the female side, I think some women admire a stripper’s ability to exude so much confidence. There are lots of women who would love to be able to captivate a room as some of these women can. In relationships women want to be desired and a lot of women admire the ability of these women to incite desire in a man.

Would you ever date a dancer?

They are still women at the end of the day, so I don’t see why not. In any relationship expectations have to be set between the two of you, and for yourself as a man. If you already expect dudes to touch on your woman from time to time then you can’t be mad because you signed up for it. At the same time you have to trust that she won’t allow anyone to go to the point of violating those expectations you have set as a couple. It doesn’t matter if your girl is a librarian or a stripper, if you don’t trust her you’ll be spying on her from the encyclopedia section or from the bar.

Watch “Power of the P*ssy” Part 1 – 3:

Tawni Fears is a freelance writer and contributor to AllHipHop.com. Follow her on Twitter: @brwnsugaT.