Stripping the myths: Researcher looks into lives of exotic dancers

By Kenn Johnson

Bernadette Barton has spent a lot of time in strip clubs in recent years.

She has braved the smoky haze, the dimly lit rooms, the booming music and the occasional approach from a tipsy male customer, who, like Barton, has come to watch the agile exotic dancers gyrate on a tabletop or wrap themselves provocatively around a pole on stage.

Barton, an assistant professor of sociology and women's studies at Morehead State University, visited the clubs -- or bars, or lounges, or theaters -- as part of the research for a book she has been working on for eight years.

Stripped: Inside The Lives Of Exotic Dancers will be available next spring from New York University Press.

The idea for the book first emerged as her dissertation at the University of Kentucky. At MSU she has received grants for the past five years to continue work on the project.

"My interests include dance, sexuality and feminism," explains Barton, who studied ballet seriously for many years. "Exotic dancers are involved in all three, so that seemed a good topic to pursue."

Barton interviewed 37 dancers, a few bouncers, deejays, waitresses and club owners, as well as "clients," the sex industry's formal term for customers. Although much of her research took place in Lexington, she traveled as far as San Francisco and Hawaii for different perspectives.

"At first I was extremely uncomfortable going into a bar, and I usually asked a friend to come along. Many clubs will not allow women in who are unescorted by a man," Barton says. "And I didn't like the idea of all these men (sitting around me) staring at the nude women."

Barton says it was difficult to get dancers to talk to her. "The dancers didn't trust me," she says.

She eventually learned that she had more success making first contact in the bar and then conducting interviews outside the bar, usually at the home of the dancer.

Even then, many dancers canceled appointments.

"The dancers are socialized not to say 'no' while they are working," Barton says. "It was easier for them to say no the next day. But after a while I benefitted from the snowball effect where an interview with a dancer led to an interview with another dancer who introduced me to a bartender who introduced me to a waitress and so on."

Money, then burnout

Barton says there are three basic types of dancers: artists/ bohemians, single moms and students. All start dancing for economic reasons.

"Besides the money, there is also a sense of adventure and taboo-breaking that appeals to dancers," Barton says.

Dancers, she says, usually earn $200 to $400 for a four- to six-hour shift. Sometimes they earn a lot more. One dancer in San Francisco said she averaged $3,000 a night.

The economic downside is that the dancers are considered independent contractors and make all of their money from the sale of alcohol or tips from clients. Dancers also have to share their take with waitresses, bartenders, deejays and bouncers. And there is often a stage fee paid to the club owners, usually $50 a shift.

At some clubs, dancers must sell 10 to 12 drinks per shift and must pay for those they don't sell.

Barton found that the dancers' attitudes changed after about three years.

"At first the work is not too stressful," she says. "They have plenty of money. They are experiencing reinforcement that they are beautiful. They have plenty of free time since many work only 20 to 30 hours per week. And many really enjoy performing."

After about three years, most dancers reported less satisfaction with their job.

"They have found that the money spends too easily," she says. "They are exhausted, and almost all of them have suffered injuries due to the high heels they must wear and the positions they must be in for several hours a day. ... When they go home, they don't want to be sexual. They just want to get into their granny robes and watch Oprah."

Feminist frameworks

While the subject matter might attract diverse audiences to the book, Barton says her primary obligation was academic.

"My main focus was the many facets that take their toll (on the dancers) over time," she says.

The theoretical framework of her project concerns the two major camps of radical feminism. The Gloria Steinem camp came to prominence in the 1960s and '70s and argues that a dancer is being exploited and, therefore, is perpetuating sexism and patriarchalism. The other, more recent, camp maintains that an individual might find exotic dancing empowering.

"Imagine," Barton says of the second camp's theory, "you are standing on a stage, being told you are beautiful and making a lot of money doing it. That's empowering for some girls."

She also found that dancers usually harbor a sense of guilt and remove themselves from friends and family.

"At first they are vague to mom and dad and their friends," Barton says. "Eventually mom will get suspicious about the lack of boyfriends or girlfriends and the amount of money they seem to have without a job."

Exotic dancing comes with a lot of psychological baggage such as impossible expectations of beauty, parents' and friends' disapproval, sexual double standards, and being insulted by clients. Barton says she found the closer a dancer examines the negative baggage, the more likely she will be able to cope and even prosper in the sex industry.

Barton calls this developing a "critical perspective," which is nurtured by other dancers at the clubs, and is a survival response common to other marginalized groups such as gays and lesbians, and soldiers in combat situations.

The dancers also must always be aware of society's desire to put them out of business, as one dancer says in the book.

"They're already cutting welfare," the dancer says. "There are too many single mothers. There are young girls that are trying to put themselves through college. We have so many bills to pay and we're not asking the government or anyone to help us. We're paying our taxes, we're doing what's right, and here (the local government) wants to come in and destroy jobs for dancers, waitresses, bartenders, bouncers."

One disappointment for Barton in doing the research for her book was the lack of real dancing in the clubs.

"I am a dancer, so I was tapping my foot and snapping my fingers and saying under my breath, 'C'mon, there's the beat,' but the women are not there to dance; instead, they are there to show their bodies and titillate the paying customer," she says.

cool article, thanks for sharing, I hate to say this, but I am sure the quality of strippers vary quiet a bit from KY to CA?

Why wouldn't they let a woman in? I love when the woman next to me orders a private dance. It's like a free lesbian show.

Probably not as much as they vary from seedy bar to classy joint.

103 views, 7 replies

your big sister could talk to my little sister.

Seattle Considers Lap Dance Ban

POSTED: 3:24 pm EDT October 2, 2005

SEATTLE -- Seattle's liberal reputation may be taking a hit.

The city council is planning to vote Monday on regulations at strip clubs -- including banning lap dances and placing dollar bills in a dancer's G-string.

The move comes after a federal judge ruled a moratorium on opening clubs in the city was an unconstitutional restraint on free speech.

In anticipation of the judge's ruling, Democratic Mayor Greg Nickels came up with rules to discourage new strip clubs and make it easier to police existing ones.

A lawyer for one club said the city is trying to wipe out an entire industry in Seattle.

1) strip clubs are a place of fantasy..."regular" women break that fantasy environment.

2) strip club owners are suspicious of single women in their clubs...they think they are up to no good i.e. feminists trying to get the dancers to quit.

3) that rule ensures at least one more hale, hearty, and horny drinking male...which is really funny because my sister usually brought her best friend, who is a gay male.

edit: also single women could be wives on the lookout for their husbands...

Fuck Seattle!



http://www.wral.com/irresistible/504740 ... resistible

yep--this story is about my big sister!

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http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/li ... 750716.htm

103 views, 7 replies

103 views, 7 replies

I just checked it out hoping to read about someones sister who was a stripper...........talk about disappointment