Bad-date lists and how dancers share warnings

What a bad-date list is

Long before any website, dancers and sex workers kept warnings about dangerous people: a name scrawled in a dressing room, a description passed from one shift to the next, a phone tree. Bad-date lists are the organised version. Someone describes a person who hurt, robbed, stalked or threatened them, with enough detail that another worker can recognise him before it happens to her.

The name comes from escort and street work, where a client is a "date." Dancers use the same idea for customers, drivers, photographers, club staff and anyone else who crosses the line. VestaModels hosts bad-date lists and forums for this reason: so warnings travel further than one dressing room.

What makes a report useful

A good warning helps the next person spot him. A vague one does not, and a wrong one can hurt someone innocent. Include what you can:

• Physical description: build, hair, age range, tattoos, accent, anything distinctive.
• The name he used and any handles, phone numbers or payment names, if you have them.
• Car, if you saw it.
• Where and when: the club or area, the date, the shift.
• What happened, plainly. What he did, what he said, how it ended.
• What he asked for before it went wrong, because that is often the pattern he repeats.

Leave out guesses and leave out insults. "Got aggressive when I ended the dance, grabbed my wrist, followed me to the lot" tells another dancer what to watch for. "Creep" tells her nothing.

Be careful with full legal names and home addresses. Posting them can expose you to legal trouble depending on where you are, and lists have been taken down over it. Many communities stick to first names, handles and descriptions. Check the current rules of whichever list you are using, and ask a professional if you are unsure what is safe to publish.

Reading a list

Treat a list as a warning, not a verdict. People share names; descriptions can match two men. Use it to raise your guard, tell security, decline a private room or watch the parking lot, not to start a confrontation. If a report matches someone in front of you, let security know quietly and let them handle it.

Lists work when they are used. Read the one for your city before a shift in a new club, add what you know, and tell newer dancers it exists. A warning sitting unread is just a story.

If what happened to you was a crime, a list entry is not a substitute for the choice about reporting. Some dancers report and post; some post only. Both are reasonable. The log you keep for yourself, dates and details and screenshots, serves either path.