Category: News and Views
Prostitution is known as the world’s oldest profession, so how much younger could stripping be? The specific form of belly dancing is at least 2,000 years old. From Gypsy Rose Lee to the infamous Blaze Starr, Burlesque, Showgirls, Floor Shows, Strip Clubs, Gentlemen’s Clubs, Canadian Ballet, Striptease, Fandances, and Exotic Dancing are part of our culture and history. Both ancient Roman dancers and modern showgirls use their bodies and sex appeal to earn a living. They exploit their bodies not unlike a ditch digger, but rather than using muscle to labor they use their flesh to convince their customers that they have a special connection, a personal bond. As opposed to nude models, strippers sell real life fantasy interaction. For a few minutes stripper and customer enact an intimate relationship with one another. While this fantasy is obviously counterfeit, it serves the customers' sexual and emotional desires and financially supports the exotic dancer. For the stripper, dancing is like any other job (if perhaps a little more revealing.)
Modern American strip clubs usually hire dancers as independent contractors, who then subsist mainly on the tips they make. In many ways dancing is like any other service industry job: Benefits are hard to come by. Health benefits are non-existent, and on the job injuries are common (high heels on slick floors make ankle injury particularly prevalent). Schedules are usually very open, making stripping an attractive job for college students and mothers of young children. The money can be good, but it really depends on the club, the dancer, and the time of day. The average stripper can make more that $300 in a night, and there are others that can pull in thousands in an evening. Harassment is common, but most clubs provide bouncers (it is customary for the strippers to tip the club’s staff, bouncers included, after their shift). Alcohol and drug abuse is also common among dancers; working in a bar environment has other health risks, such as second hand smoke. There is currently only one unionized strip club in the United States. Located in San Francisco at the Lusty Lady strip club, the union is an SEIU (Service Employees International Union) chapter: the Exotic Dancers Union. A documentary film called Live Nude Girls was made during their struggle to unionize. In 1997 the exotic dancers at San Francisco's Lusty Lady Theater won a contract that increased their pay from $12 to $21 an hour in a year and improved working conditions. In 1996 about 70 of the new Service Employees Local 790 members were dancers and about 30 were bouncers and other support staff. They voted to join the union in 1995. But in most clubs in the United States the employee turnover rate is so high, and the management so opposed, that unionizing is a very distant dream.
Is stripping exploitation? If so who is does it exploit and how? All work is a form of exploitation; a worker’s mind or body is exploited for the benefit of the employer. In return, the worker receives a wage, the more equitable the wage the less exploitative the work. But stripping is more than just physical or mental work, there is a lot of baggage. Some feminists argue that pornography (and stripping) harms all women by reinforcing their subordinate position in society (MacKinnon). It can bolster the idea that women are commodities that can be bought and sold, and, by proxy, that all women are for "sale." It can also be seen as reductive: a woman becomes a sexual organ and no more. Alysabeth Clements, a stripper, likens stripping to waiting tables:
Yes, sometimes a customer will disregard me as a person while he looks at my body. Here's a clue: Welcome to the service industry. Ever tried waiting tables? You don't get a hell of a lot of personal validation from people you're serving, no matter where you work. People are jerks. Surprise. At my job I don't have to be nice to jerks. I can say whatever I want. Can you do that at your job? (Clements)
Stripping, like modeling, involves visual stimulation at the expense of other types of stimulation (i.e. mental, physical, aural, etc.). The male gaze (like that of the camera) reduces the dancers to their bodies, although there is an important difference between the strip club gaze and filmic or photographic gaze: the strip club gaze can be returned. In fact, many men come to the club to spend intimate time with the strippers, lots of return eye contact included. This counterfeit exchange of emotion is the mutually exploitative environment of the "gentleman’s club."
So what of the men? Until recently in the United States stripping was a female dominated work field. But in the 1980’s the number of male strippers started to grow. Some of these male strippers work at gay strip clubs, where the idea of the male gaze still functions. But many work at clubs that cater to female clientele. What does this change? What stays the same? Surprisingly little changes. Dancers still work as independent contractors, they feel the same societal stigma, they lack benefits, and the gaze of their female clients seems to change into the classic male gaze. Kerwin, a male stripper, describes his work:
‘I felt degraded,’ he said, and his analysis of this degradation was one any female stripper would find familiar. ‘Everybody wants to have sex with you, but only because they want to see what you look like in bed. I’d meet women and all they’d want to do is talk about my body. They were that way with all the male dancers. The thing was, there was no one I could not go out with, but they’d go out with any of us.’ He found himself coming home in tears. (Faldui 497)
Kerwin like all strippers is being reduced to the sexual attributes of his body. These are the attributes that he is selling. As with the ditch digger selling the physical output of his biceps, it is the equity of the pay and working conditions that determines the exploitative value. Kerwin and many other dancers fell that the work and the degradation is inequitable to the pay. Hopefully this website will allow viewers to examine multiple positions and to decide for themselves what is equitable and what is exploitative.
Bibliography
Bryson, Valerie. Feminist Debates: Issues of Theory and Political Practice. New York University Press. 1999.
Clark, Rebecca. Male Strippers: Ladies’ Night at the Meat Market, Journal of Popular Culture, 19:1 (1985: Summer)
Clements, Alysabeth. Power to the Penis or Viva la Vulva? The Feminist Stripper, Beth World, http://www.geocities.com/alysabethc/feministstripper.html
Erickson, David John and Richard Tewksbury. The 'gentlemen' in the club: a typology of strip club patrons. Deviant Behavior: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 21: 271-293, 2001
Faludi, Susan. Stiffed. HaperCollins, 1999.
Irigrary, Luce. This Sex Which is Not One. New French Feminisms. New York, 99-106, 1981.
MacKinnon, C. Towards a Feminist Theory of the State. Harvard University Press. 1989.
Royale, Mina Feminism and Exotic Dancers: Freedom of Choice vs the identity of womanhood, Abriana's ExoticDancerCollege.com, http://www.exoticdancercollege.com/New/0_Womanhood.html
You haven't been out lately. Smoking is not allowed in clubs anymore and hasn't been for a long time.
The only clubs that can allow it are private.
Go out!
Live Nude Girls Unite!
http://www.chizfilm.net/unite.html
did you write this my friend or is this merely another copy and paste?
The fact that it says website and does not follow her writing style at all makes it clear this is a copy and paste.
So...What's the point of this board? Furthermore, what's the point of copying and pasting an entire article when it's most obviously already online. Just curious.
But, ok...Strippers. Let's make this topic interesting, shall we? Since this site pertains mostly to blind people and the board is about strippers, answer me this . Has anyone ever heard of or encountered a blind stripper? Do you all think it would be possible and fruitful for the blind person to be a stripper, given the general stigma around blindness and the fact that the stripper is in the business of visual stimulation as the article itself states? Also, to paraphrase the article, stripping most definitely plays into the fantasy of the client. So would it ruin or get in the way of a man's fantasy to have a blind stripper perform for him, especially if she couldn't make actual eye contact and also if he has prejudiced views regarding blindness in teh first place? Or would he forego his initial misgivings if the stripper was doing a good enough job as a dancer, regardless of the lack of eye contact. It's a curious question; Could a blind stripper do what a sighted stripper can do for a patron? Curious to see where this goes.
Personally I don't care what or why a person chooses to be a stripper. They have their reasons. I couldn't answer many questions pertaining to it though. I haven't been to a club yet, nor would I personally feel as though I get much satisfaction out of it. Sure, maybe I along with just about any guy would get a hard on if some girl, or in some cases a guy, was grinding up on you. But in the long run there isn't much of a point. That's my personal opinion on the matter.
I think there was also all ready a topic on strip clubs/strippers.
but ryan, you completely miss the point of the question I posed. I wasn't asking how you felt about stripping personally, nor was I talking about strippers in general. lol. I was posing the question: What do people think about the prospect of blind strippers? How do peopel think sighted patrons would react to a blind stripper.
so this is more regarding the theory of it rather than someone's personal oppinion about stripping.
If she stayed on stage and danced in an area I don't think she'd be noticed as being blind. She could have her eyes closed and just be good to look at.
Now, if it were known she was blind I honestly think many men would get turned off, freak out and get angry with the club owner for taking advantage of the disabled.
Is that a correct thing? No, but it is as it is.
What do you think?
I thinkit would depend on the degree of blindness. I mean we've had blind models, and blind chefs, and both of those have extremely visual elements. So I bet, if you found a blind girl who could conduct herself normally, and had a nice body, you could make her into a good stripper with a bit of training. I'd watch.
Yeah, same here. I wouldn't pay too much mind to the fact that she was blind.
All they would care about is whether she had breasts and a vagina. anyone who goes to those places isn't going to pay much attention to anything else. lol they might not even notice the person has a disability.
I have to disagree with that. A lot of times there is alot more too it than that the girl is hot. Plus, you can't see the vagina in most places anyway. Stripping isn't just taking off your clothes to music, there is a lot more to it. At least, that's what my friends who do it tell me.
I would imagine that the volume of the music would make it very difficult for her to interact as there's a lot of nonverbal communication that goes on.
Yes much more. As long as she could conduct herself and it was not known she was blind, and I don't mean parshally sighted, because sighted people don't understand degrees, but blind, she could do just fine.
If it were known she couldn't see, for most men that would get in the way of the enjoyment.
My reason for thinking this is being able to see for a while and understanding how sighted men think and hearing them talk freely.
It is not only blindness, but disability that would be the issue.
For some strange reason I do not understand, mental disability doesn't matter.
Interesting. I agree with most of you on most points. Now. Keep in mind, I've actually never been inside a strip club, but I have met a few strippers in passing, and I know generally what kind of environment we're talking about.
Ok; For those of you that said it depends on the degree of blindness, what did you mean? Are you talking about the degrees to which a person is capable of blindness skills or the degree of vision they have? If it's about the skills, let's keep in mind what Domestic Goddess said here. Loud music and an atmosphere which might likely disorient a blind person in the best of circumstances. How does she mannage to dance in one area of the stage, for instance, without making it obvious she's blind.
at least being a chef has a physical element to it. Meaning, of course, that you get to interact with your food on a physical level. Stripping is a visual thing unless you do lapdances only, in which case, the customer has to want you to give him a lapdance. He'd have to see your performance in general first, or at least the way your body looks to be moved to request you over all of the other available strippers. Then, how do you get around the fact that you're blind while you're engaged in a lapdance. Most men, I'd imagine, would try to seek eye contact with you at least during some of the personal performance. And wouldn't they be disappointed at least to some degree, as for real implied, once they figured out that the stripper is blind?
I actually did modelling as a teenager and through some of my college years, and I'm totally blind. It's pretty easy to model for pictures; You're told where and how to pose and you put yourself in a frame of mind which allows for certain facial expressions. I had prosthetic eyes then, and both of them looked very natural and were always open. So in most pictures I was able to fake the being able to see thing. And they came out great, at least that's what my agent and various other people said. (I don't really think they were trying to placate me since they were making money off of my success. If I sucked it would be their loss and they'd have cut me off quick. lol)
But as a stripper, you're pretty much in constant motion. You really, really need to know the layout of your work surface, so to speak, in order to ensure that you wont' have any clumsy accidents. But how is this possible in an ever-changing environment, such as a strip club?
Just a drink misplaced or a chair misused and you've subscribed to the likelihood of an accident.
Even walking the runway is simple compared to this. As a blind person, you can do a runway without a problem as long as you look graceful, confident and you're quick. It's usually a streight narrow walkway and you're told when to turn around in advance so that you don't make an ass out of yourself. But I can't imagine dancing as a totally blind stripper, simply for the fact of being disoriented by the noise and an ever-changing environment.
Yes, you understand it beautifully even without going to one.
She could do the pole easy enough, because it is something she could feel.
Now, many walk about, and come right up to the edges of the stage to get the tip offered, so if she had no way to know a tip was being offered the man would take that as rude. You can't put her on a bar, unless it had raised edges, but then you'd need a tip jar and a bartender to incurrage that instead of sticking them in her pants, depending on the level the stripper is allowed to strip.
Next the drinks on the bar would be a problem as you suggest.
You'd need to set a stage show sort of where she danced in a circle or box with ropes a carpet, or such things so that it looked like part of the show and not her guides.
She doesn't have to make eye contact in that setting, because closing her eyes could be part of the act.
That is about the only way I can see it done.
Okay, for someone who has wrote a chapter or two on strip clubs in their life time, "don't ask", moving on, these ladies must do more then just stand there and look pretty. Lets see lap dances, some times giving oral sex at there own acord or further. Again most strippers have the right to say how far there allowed to go, some pleaces even have the two foot law, where the stripper stays away while dancing about two foot away. I have had some get down right :), fill in the blanks, one thing is apparent here, these ladies are doing it to brake bred. I can only ponder the crap these women put up with on a daily bases so my hats off to them.
I agree, I have tons of respect for these fellow workers putting themselves out there to feed their families.