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Wednesday, Jun. 11, 2003 - 11:57 a.m.
The Stripper Anthropologist

Someone sent me an interesting article from Salon. In order to read the article, you have to click on the daily ad link to get a free day pass, suffer through the ads, then read away. The article is about what anthropologist Katherine Frank, a former anti-porn feminist, learned during six years of working as a stripper as part of her research studies. You should read it. Here are some interesting parts:

• "a smaller, cheaper, mixed-race club" (Mixed-race? Only in the States, I guess.)


• "They felt repellent, that their wives and girlfriends could never accept their desires and that they could never ask advice about sex because they were supposed to somehow know everything." (Emphasis obviously mine. But some women would say that the problems of men are nothing compared to the problems of women. Well, they are if you include the "very real" problems of women and their self-esteem and body issues, issues that are blamed not on the individual, but on everyone and everything else. More on that some other time, I guess.)


• "These guys were struggling with how to deal with what they saw as women's conflicting demands for both traditional masculine traits and more emotional presence. They were also confused by women's desire to be called beautiful but not be objectified." (Well, it is confusing. Just as it is confusing for a young woman to be chaste and pure but be as sexy and "apparently available" as possible. I realize the dangers in that comment. No, I don't excuse rape, if that's what you were thinking.)


• "Sometimes a guy will spend $500 on a dancer: I can't imagine having that kind of money to spend on top of rent, groceries and bills." (I think that this just goes to show that it�s all relative. What that dance and conversation means to that guy may be well worth the $500 spent as far as he is concerned, and I don�t think he is necessarily fucked up in any way. And while a lot of those guys probably can afford it, I wouldn�t assume that to be the case all the time. Men often have the need to appear to be wealthier than they are, especially in places like country clubs and strip clubs, just as women have the need to appear a certain way. A man may be spending his money there, getting some kind of esteem boost the way women spend their money on breast-enhancement surgery, or sexy clothing, ostensibly for their self-esteem. Neat. I made a comparison between country clubs and strip clubs! Country clubs might as well have strip clubs built in, for members only.)


• "I learned that men have a much more varied perception of what sort of bodies are beautiful or sexy than a lot of women think they do." (Amen. I would add that men have a much more varied perception of what sort of bodies are beautiful or sexy than a lot of other men think they do. But that�s another issue.)


• "Being interested in and able to talk about news, current events, politics or the stock market would give you more appeal for certain clients." (What a fucking relief when you find that the girl is not a crackheaded-idiot, the way she might appear to be depending on where you are and what she was doing. And the best, in my opinion, is a gracious, POLITE, hot woman that gives you a lap dance. Sure the T&A is great, but the real icing on the cake is when she is funny, or smart, and doesn't make you feel like a complete con victim.)


• "Some dancers wouldn't shave because that's a fetish; there'd be enough men who liked that look to support maybe one completely unshaved dancer a night." (I have never seen that in a strip club, not once.)


• "I was always upfront about the fact that I was dancing as part of my research project, though, and there were certainly customers who got off on that as well." (And more that didn�t believe it. I probably would be skeptical at best, depending on where I was. No matter what industry women are working in, there is an overwhelming need to NOT appear slutty, or whatever you want to call it. The research project angle works fine for that. Also "I�m doing it to support myself in law school." How much porn plays on this theme? Then again, porn reflects life in a way, definitely not the other way around. It's paradoxical, then to realize that porn offers fantasies that often are nothing more than twisted, distilled reality. I guess that's yet another discussion.)


• "Why all the attention to the dancers? Why not look at the men who actually fund this kind of entertainment?" (Similarly, why all the attention to the politicians? Why not look at the people who actually elect them, or who fund the politicians?) What I mean is, that I think more research should be done on all sides of an issue. That is where you will realize that nothing is that cut and dried.


• "My current research project is actually looking into this more in depth -- the whole relationship between secrecy, intimacy, sexual exclusivity and marriage." (I am so looking forward to this, and yes, she is now starting to turn me on. Yes, definitely.)


• "I wouldn't say I subscribe to it in whole, but his primary idea that relationships involve and re-create past object relations [primarily with one's parents] and that they involve more than just positive emotions is one that I think deserves careful consideration. I think most of us can think about our own relationships and recognize times when we've been nasty to the person supposedly closest to us. The question is where this hostility comes from and what we can do about it. What appealed to me about Kernberg and other object-relations psychoanalysts was the attempt to look at this hostility as something that inevitably arises but that does not necessarily destroy the passion that two people have for each other." (Does this sound like any couple you know? Maybe every couple you know?)


• "...unfortunately, there aren't yet places where women can go pay hot young men to stroke their egos." (And I think that�s a real fucking shame. It�s also a shame that it can�t be done in a mature and respectful sort of way. In my experience, men, for a number of reasons, do not act like a bunch of fucking hooligans when out to the strip bar, but I am told that women do, when men are dancing. They get really drunk, loud, obnoxious and stupid. Misstress responded to this:

  I agree that women in strip clubs go a little crazy. But men, I think, are used to seeing women dance around naked. It's not so much an illicit thrill for them. Think back to the Vaudeville acts and that's pretty much where women are right now. We don't have as much access to it, and so it's still pretty shocking and exhilarating. Not that I'm excusing their behaviour by any means, I just think they (necessarily) approach it differently.

  You know what I would LOVE? I�d fucking love it if Cat and I could go out together to Wanda�s on a weeknight, have a drink, watch a few dancers, have a private dance or two, get really turned on, and shag till morning. Then, some other night, we could do the same thing at a place with male strippers. Of course, the latter is impossible, but one can always dream, right?)

Update:Cat pointed out that I seemed to equate stripping with porn. It's true, I did exactly that, knowingly, but only because I know that most people do not appear to separate them. Personally, I doubt that they are all that related, but I am not sure. This will require some thought.

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