It seems like you would need to make a lot more money than she is for it to be financially clever, like $500-600k a year. I'm assuming that, like an athlete, you're unlikely to be able to continue in that career until you're 65. I would think you would want to put aside a nest egg so that you could be comfortable on $18k a year or whatever, since you haven't been developing your skills during that time.
You'll be delighted to learn how little adjuncting pays.
Let's talk about the morality accessing free e-strippers rather than paying for them or the meatspace version.
It's just the convenience that makes me so happy.
Getting rich guys to give you money is developing a transferable skill.
A colleague at Stuffwhitepeople Like University did her dissertation in anthropology as a participant-observer studying regular strip club patrons. She went in with the assumption that guys who go to strip clubs regularly were only interested in asserting their dominance over women, but when she tested this hypothesis she found that a lot of these guys were actually totally sad sacks actively looking to live out a narrative of falling in love with a sex worker and then having their heart broken.
Many dancers were all too willing to play their part in this story, but interestingly many were not, and looked down on those who did as predatory.
It was really interesting research, totally marred by commitment to a variety of jargon-laden, continental philosophy-sounding, obfuscating methodologies.
2: Well, yeah. But let's assume that she'll have to temp afterwards. As opposed to going in to some other field where she can build a career. Obviously, we're assuming that she's dumping academia.
What's the continental philosophy sounding anthropological jargon term for "sad sack"?
She went in with the assumption that guys who go to strip clubs regularly were only interested in asserting their dominance over women, but when she tested this hypothesis she found that a lot of these guys were actually totally sad sacks actively looking to live out a narrative of falling in love with a sex worker and then having their heart broken.
Just to clarify, your colleague's hypothesis isn't something I believe. I am very willing to believe most clients are sadsacks looking for someone to save them. I just don't think they're particularly critical thinkers about the norms being perpetuated.
For comparison, one of my students here at Last Chance Community College is a former stripper looking to acquire some skills that she can actually use, now that she is well past the age where she can dance. She owns her own house, even though she currently works a minimum wage job, which I think means she must have saved up some money from when the money was good.
9: The claim wasn't that they were highly self aware, just that they were masochists, rather than the sadists she assumed they were (her language.)
I don't buy the hypothesis either, because really she was just generalizing over two or three cases, abetting by bad methodology.
That and that you live in a cheap city.
It was really interesting research, totally marred by commitment to a variety of jargon-laden, continental philosophy-sounding, obfuscating methodologies.
!!!
This is so frustrating.
I had a friend who was a stripper. She used to bring home large stacks of cash. Had a tendency to spend it on heroin, though.
Seems as good an excuse as any to post Kathleen Hanna again
Though I think I probably saw that here in the first place.
God, this shit is annoying. You know why you feel empowered, lady? Because you have power. You have a PhD and a husband with a steady income. I don't care about you. How does stripping look if someone else is putting your kid to bed and you're doing it because it's the best of a bunch of truly bad (not "teaching composition in north dakota" (the horror)) options? In this world, the connotations of "sex work" have as much to do with class as with sex, and color me skeptical that a stripper with a phd is doing anything to destigmatize the work for single moms with a drug habit.
Also, on her blog, she writes,
I went into tiny rooms alone with men. I became whomever they wanted. I smiled until my face ached and I smoked cigarettes for the first time in years. I did things.
So is she making great money from stripping or hooking? If she's not hooking, then this is bullshit "give me a book deal" coyness. If she is, why not say so? Giving strangers blowjobs at strip clubs is sooo empowering!
There is no sex in the champagne room.
I've been humming that song ever since posting this.
Huh, I'd never heard that, and I thought I was familiar with the Rock oeuvre. I've become so dour in my old age that I was thinking, "this really is classist, isn't it?"
I don't claim any special insight into whether or not the song is true. Out of a combination of being cheap, interpersonally shy, and moral, I've not been to a strip club. I've only ever seen female breasts bare in public on the beaches of enlightened topless Europe, at the corner of Broad and High in Columbus, and in the baggage claim area of the Omaha airport.
That's a beautiful comment, man
Yes it is.
Other than the Omaha airport, positively Thurberian.
Well, the women in Columbus were strippers trying to get people to visit a strip club.
at the corner of Broad and High in Columbus
Hey! I was there too! That was a pretty hilarious scene, wasn't it?
I guess that means you never went to Comfest when you lived in Columbus.
I went to a strip club once! It wasn't as bad as I would have expected, but I don't expect I'll do it again.
Most recently, I saw bare breasts on stage in Chicago. That was theatre, though, not stripping.
Yeah, what is the deal with the Omaha Airport?
26: I have no idea. Just a woman with a very tight extremely low-cut shirt, a need to bend over to get her luggage, and a truly magnificent chest.
Who packs a whole chest just to visit Omaha?
Had you ever frequented rock festivals you would have found naked* people of both sexes all over the place after the first few hours.
*For values of 'naked' which include 'slathered with badly applied watercolour paints'.
Nor do I like music very much if I'm in a situation where it is difficult to do anything but listen to music.
32: What part of slather your naked body with badly applied watercolour paints didn't you understand?
You can always admire the badly painted naked people.
I'd a hundred times rather have a nice lunch somewhere out of the sun and with a regular toilet.
IME, they serve food most unusually.
The few times I've been to a strip club I found them deeply depressing and boring. By contrast, I once went to a pole-dancing charity event that was a lot of fun. Men and women of different body types dancing in front of a sex-positive, enthusiastic audience.
28: Funny! Reminds me of that line from Citizen Kane.
I hear that strippers in North Dakota are making tons of money.
The few times I've been to a strip club I found them deeply depressing and boring.
I've only been once. For the most part "deeply depressing and boring" sums it up, except that this particular club had a projector showing ESPN on one of the walls. Which would have been fine, something else to look at when the whole experience was weirding me out... only at the particular time we were in there ESPN was showing the Little League World Series.
And to merge threads, maybe Moby ought to go to a Rainbow gathering, what with all the naked people and loose attitudes towards personal property.
47: Apparently there's one in Platte County (although the last reference I can find is to one in 2009).
49: I know, right?
I read 41 to 40 and it made me laugh.
I see that it's going to be in Nevada this year. They don't seem to have done one in NE, but they had it closer to you not long ago.
Right now all I can think of to say about any of this is what's with different laws in different states where some places they have to wear G strings and then in New Orleans you're in a bar and hey, naked guy on the bar? Is the former supposed to preserve some moral standard? I don't know if there's some lady equivalent where they have to wear those awkward little nipple things or something, but I feel like there might be or why would I be typing about it? Why, indeed. I have no notion why.
I have been to strip clubs many times, because Miami. Pole dancing I can appreciate as a physically impressive sport, but rarely as sexy. Really the interest is in the transactional flirting that goes on one-on-one, either in the public performance or a lap dance. Almost every time I have gone it's with a group that includes women, who are interested out of some mixture of bisexuality and watching the ritual titilation of their male friends or boyfriends.
When I was in Ohio, there was a distinction between all-nude strip clubs and strip clubs where the dancers had to keep something covered. The difference was that the second could sell booze. I don't know if that is still the rule.
Most recently, I saw bare breasts on stage in Chicago
What play? I've seen a lot of theater here and wonder if we've seen the same show.
The Columbus/Strip-club mentions call forth the following memories:
1) I parked cars at Front & Lynn in 1972. Larry Flynt managed the Hustler Club on Lynn right across the street and would leave his car with us. The other celebrity I saw regularly was LeRoy Jenkins--not there, at the Ohio Theater; he had an Eldorado.
2) I worked at a Pizza delivery business in '76. We worked from around 5 until the early hours of the morning every night, so we mostly socialized with each other, even on nights off. A guy there invited me to join him at a strip club a couple of times, and I thought OK, what the hell. In the Short North, then a very seedy and rundown part of town, not like now. Sat many tables away from the platform, with him and some other friends of his; couldn't tell who'd suggested coming. Perfectly ordinary girl on the platform, with a vaguely undulating belly-dancer-like motion. Appealing to me because of it's very amateurishness. Absolutely no interaction or eye contact; I shared a couple of beers, paid for a pitcher and left the group both times after less than an hour.
About a year later I got a letter from the guy, who was coming out as gay. Not coming on, just reaching out to people he knew for support. I was touched he found me sympathetic, and I replied as supportively as I could. Last I heard of him.
In the Short North, then a very seedy and rundown part of town, not like now.
It was still mostly seedy when I came. We called the Kroger there the Death Kroger because of the dead guy they found there.
When I was in Ohio, there was a distinction between all-nude strip clubs and strip clubs where the dancers had to keep something covered. The difference was that the second could sell booze
Completely consistent with my experience. First time the girl kept a g-string on, second time not but I heard there had been fines levied when they'd been caught.
53 -- But you'll definitely meet someone who will make a heartfelt argument that they have a superior moral right to your shoes.
That's just going to give them athletes foot.
I find strip clubs to be exceedingly grim, and I really don't like going to them. But I have some reprobate friends who have dragged me there on a couple occasions. One one such occasion, one of said reprobate friends bought me shot of tequila, to be consumed from a shotglass wedged in-between a stripper's boobs. I guess some people find that kind of thing sexually exciting, but I just thought it was pretty gross. And I don't even like tequila.
How has no one mentioned "KAHOOTS: a show grill" yet? Also, if that "death kroger" dates to the early 90s the dead guy might have been in my (then future) department.
I guess the diff is that there are often strollers (well actually strippers but strollers is funnier so ok, phone) in gay bars that nobody would think of as strip clubs per se and I guess in fact there are not gay strip clubs because blah blah sex positive continent of gay, history, oppression, blah. Why am I even typing this morning?
This Columbus connection is kind of amazing. We should do a destination meetup there sometime. And I say that as someone who's sworn off meetups.
There must be a half dozen denizens of the place at least, maybe more, active here.
45: except that this particular club had a projector showing ESPN on one of the walls.
Several years back I was invited to some kind of art fundraiser by someone I knew via work. I did not attend as it was during a critical Pens game in the Stanley Cup Finals the last year they won. She reported later that it had surprised her by having topless waiters and strippers--but since it was during the game (and it was Pittsburgh) they also had big screen TVs set up showing the game. Most neglected strippers ever she said.
The other celebrity I saw regularly was LeRoy Jenkins
The guy from WoW? Man, he sure gets around.
The evangelist. The internet meme/game/comedy character must be connected to him somehow, but I don't find any explanation in a brief search. Maybe it's just the name itself, so inherently Heebie-mockable.
Some day we'll find it, The Columbus Connection, the strippers, the Krogers, and me.
Fontana Labs' "tour of bad choices" available upon request. Clintonville, campus, short north, downtown all generously represented.
On the subject of enlightened toplessness, I may already have mentioned the Dutch girl who asked me to recommend a good London strip club to take her visiting parents to. (Answer available on request for anyone in the same situation.)
I'll be in Columbus in a few weeks. "This is where Baba's friend Fontana Labs vomited for the third time on a Friday night. This bathroom stall is where he learned some things about himself. That corner is where his tears fell."
I have been to strip clubs. They make me want to be a good patron but not spend a lot of money, which requires one to either perform Liberal Dude Erotica or not go. With the exception of a friend's bachelor party a few years ago (where I got his lap dancer to whisper "are you sure your marrying the right sister?" which everyone decided was only creepy enough to be awkward, not funny), I stick with the latter.
Although for those who want a mostly not-depressing strip club frisson, Jumbo's Clown Room in East Hollywood is woman-operated and has a kind of junior-league hipster we're-all-working-on-our-dissertations good times quality about it. Courtney Love made her stage debut there.
we're-all-working-on-our-dissertations good times
This set off something that I recognized as kind of the same reaction I have to bicycle rickshaws, or pedicabs, or whatever you call them. If the guy hauling tourists around through traffic is a twenty-something actor making beer money while he's sleeping on his cousin's sofabed and going to auditions, it doesn't bother me at all; everyone's having fun and it's harmless. On the other hand, if he's an unemployed guy supporting his kids that way, I want to stab the tourists to death and ban pedicabs -- a society where rich people pay working people to literally carry them through the streets with their own muscle power for fun is a society where the cities should be burning. And I simultaneously have this reaction and think that it can't be right -- it's a service that it's okay to purchase, but only if the seller doesn't really need the money? Shouldn't it be better if people who really need money are getting paid? But recognizing that the reaction doesn't make sense isn't enough, in this case, to make me move away from it.
Hawaii's piano recital could possibly not have gone worse. It was just her, and the audience was just family plus two friends of the instructor. We're talking wailing and hiding and emptying out the audience into the hallway to coax her to return and play one more song bad. I kept thinking of kahneman's peak-end experiences thing and feeling like we needed to salvage it somehow so that it didn't go down as a total horror memory, but I think I just prolonged the agony.
it's a service that it's okay to purchase, but only if the seller doesn't really need the money?
And ability to create the illusion of not needing it is one of the key factors in successfully selling anything expensive to affluent people.
it's a service that it's okay to purchase, but only if the seller doesn't really need the money?
I think TFA contain a discussion of someone who only hires white, collegey housecleaners.
78: Think of it as sowing the seeds for a future front-page post.
Paying a stripper to ask a question like that is brilliant.
78:
Sorry to read that. My daughter was once in a small choral performance and held her music up in front of her face. But she went on to perform regularly as a musician and actor. I wish I knew what to advise but I don't, except not to draw too many conclusions.
Oh boy. My profound sympathies to 78.
The whole clusterfuck is on video, so she can show her therapist some day.
Any good therapist is going to want to save time and get a transcript.
I've never been to a strip club, and can't imagine going to one. Partly because, I think, until a few years ago they just weren't that common here. But also because of some combination of moral dubiousness, and just not thinking they are the sort of things I'd find fun or titillating.
(where I got his lap dancer to whisper "are you sure your marrying the right sister?" which everyone decided was only creepy enough to be awkward, not funny)
No, they are wrong. That is hysterically funny.
In fact, I think there should be a strip club specifically built around the premise that the performers always say and do things that are vaguely unsettling. Regular patrons would be in on the joke, but there would always be a fresh crop of newbies to freak out.
89 is a terrific, Lynchian idea. Suggestions: employ a series of strippers who are physically similar but different heights. Have them replace each other in sequence over the evening. Patrons will have the disturbing feeling that they are shrinking.
You could adjust the sizes of the tables and glassware as well.
I went to strip clubs fairly often during and shortly after college. Mainly because I had a couple of friends who were stripping*, but also because there was really good, cheap steak at one of the ones in Portland. And then a couple of times with gay friends at (gay, male) clubs for birthdays or something.
I'm sure different venues have very different feels. The ones I've been to, the atmostphere was generally amicable and the foods/drinks were (relatively) cheap for the quality.
*or "dancing", as seems to be the euphemistic term of art. One of them still is. She makes lots of money and likes the attention.
Needs a fully clothed, matronly Log Lady wandering around the establishment.
Lilly Baruna asserts in her stripper memoir that there is a lot more misogyny in the high-end "gentlemen's clubs" than there is in the sleazier working-class bars, which can often just be rowdy fun.
I would be interested in reading a historical survey of the stripper memoir genre. You'd have to do something to limit the scope of the survey, though. Otherwise it would take up volumes and volumes.
Many dancers were all too willing to play their part in this story, but interestingly many were not, and looked down on those who did as predatory
That's the interesting part to me.
96: Everyone has some standards (baring full blown psychopathy.) It helps people a lot to be able to say "I may be an X, but at least I'd never do Y."
78: I could ask TWYRCL to console her with some tales of the child prodigy circuit.*
* Seriously, from around two years old.
78: No other kids were performing at the recital, just Hawaii? With due respect to the instructor, that does seem like a lot of pressure... it's much better if there are a bunch of kids lined up to perform, one after the other, so if one of them can't do it for some reason, you can move on (and maybe slot them back into the program later).
Lilly Baruna asserts in her stripper memoir that there is a lot more misogyny in the high-end "gentlemen's clubs" than there is in the sleazier working-class bars, which can often just be rowdy fun.
Makes sense, if the men and women are of the same class and background they can relate better.
In fact, I think there should be a strip club specifically built around the premise that the performers always say and do things that are vaguely unsettling.
Calling it something like "Jumbo's Clown Room" would be a good start.
For the most part "deeply depressing and boring" sums it up, except that this particular club had a projector showing ESPN on one of the walls.
Now that's depressing.
The whole clusterfuck is on video, so she can show her therapist some day.
"You know why I'm a stripper? I think it all started here."
I've been to strip clubs twice. In both cases it was not as creepy or depressing as I had expected, but also not particularly fun or sexy. My problem with strip clubs is that they seem to be an extreme example of sex-as-performance, which is a cultural concept that I find very unpleasant. (Note that this is a different objection from heebie's, and wouldn't be solved by increasing gender diversity.)
77: I pedicabbed for a while after I dropped out of graduate school. I guess I would honestly rather people take the ride, tip well, and agitate militantly for a UBI.
Pedicabbing is sort of like stripping, if you wear low rise pants and really lean into it.
99: yeah, I don't exactly know how this came to be, except that he's a grad student in the school of music, as opposed to a person running a studio. I think he had other kid students, although I only saw other adult students.
This seems like the thread in which to mention that I'm told that participants at a conference in a certain faraway country this week were given an information packet specifically warning them to avoid karaoke bars that serve beer because those places are frequented by prostitutes.
I wonder how much the karaoke bars that serve beer paid for that ad.
I have never been to a strip club. Lee almost accidentally went to one once, thinking it was a bar, but they told her there was a cover charge for women who wanted to enter (?) and she was so offended she left. There's still a stripperwear store on Main St. here in a town that was known for its strip clubs, but I don't think it would do much for me on a lot of fronts. There's sort of an underground black lesbian stripping/poledancing scene and there may well be a white one I'm just not aware of, but I have not been inclined to get in on the viewing action.
I haven't been to a club either, but am tempted to visit one at some point just to see what it's all about.
Yeah, I'd like to go for sociological reasons, but that sort of seems wrong. It does feel like a huge blindspot in modern culture, but it's not as if I'm short of those anyway.
Me too. I keep hearings songs I like and I keep asking my wife, "Who sings that?" It's Ellie Something. I can never remember.
Goulding? My 11-year-old loves her. Slightly more interesting than much of the stuff the kids like.
I saw lots of signs for strip clubs along the interstates when I drove across the country last month. I didn't go to any of them and have not been to a strip club anywhere. Some of them looked like they were in basically really large sheds rather than actual buildings.
I went to a club (it might have been one of those "disco" places that has no connection to disco, or maybe it was just a club) in Paris once - which is basically the only time I've ever been to a club - and sometime after midnight a woman came out and I suppose you could say she did a strip show except she started with very little clothing in the first place, probably the minimum required in places in the US where strippers have to keep something on. Most of the show consisted of her essentially masturbating in the cardinal directions*, which seemed like an odd choice of choreography.
*Ok, facing each direction around the square floor. I don't actually know if it was N, S, E, W.
I'm told that participants at a conference in a certain faraway country this week were given an information packet specifically warning them to avoid karaoke bars that serve beer because those places are frequented by prostitutes.
Huh. If it's the same country I'm thinking of then I'm pretty sure they all serve beer. Not to mention that doing karaoke completely sober kind of sucks.
Stripper anecdotes:
I have a friend who is not the strip club type, and any time he's dragged to one he asks the strippers if they're working their way through law school. I don't think he's gotten an affirmative answer.
I have a different friend who's sister was a stripper, and offered him and his friends a night on the club for his 18th birthday. I'm not sure she thought that one through very well, because watching one's older sister strip for money is probably the last thing a 18 year old wants to do.
Finally, I thought it interesting that the stripper article seemed to skip conformation to beauty standards as a reason women wouldn't be able to be strippers. She mentions her personality, but brushes over the considerable physical requirements. I've only been to one strip club, and all the workers were 18 year old Russians who had completely flawless bodies. I don't know if all strip clubs have this high standards, but if so half the celebrities in Hollywood wouldn't qualify.
117: That's why you always carry a compass.
I should read more anthropology. I have read some that describe things that I have done and have found them to be real insightful. The whole spending a shitload of time studying a social situation tends to result in more accurate results than bullshit magazine articles.
In other words, anthropologists know which way the stripper is facing.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the stripper faces.
I have read some that describe things that I have done and have found them to be real insightful.
While I was in Samoa, I found a book in the library that had been written by Brad Shore, a Peace Corps Volunteer who had served in Samoa and then come back to do his anthropology thesis, and had turned it into an academic book. And it was really very helpful in making sense of Samoan culture and how people behaved; patterns that I would never have figured out on my own kind of fell into place once I saw Shore explaining them.
When I was working on my thesis, looking at philosophical/conceptual models of disease and disability, I found a lot of the anthropology literature really useful, too. Often laden down with superfluous and sometimes gratingly gratuitous wanky jargon as per 6.last, but still, really good both on matters of detail and at attempting to provide some sort of organisation and systematisation of that detail.
Women I know who have worked as strippers have said that the work really gets/keeps you in shape, since you're basically dancing around in a really active way while wearing extremely complicated shoes. It seems like the degree of "flawlessness" required depends very much on the fanciness and clientele of the club. Patrons are usually gross or sad, management is usually incredibly sketchy in terms of "oh, you suddenly have to pay the house this unexpected fee and we're also cutting your hours", management is also usually pretty misogynist and skeevy from a sexual standpoint. Also, it is expensive to get in to the industry because of the degree of make-up, waxing, pedicures and various rather horrible cheap accessories required just to audition. On the whole, it seems like the most unpleasant form of non-street-level sex work - the one person I know who does the having-sex kind of sex work seems to find it much better, since you have more control over who your clients are and when you see them, the pay is a lot better and while being beautiful is important, the degree and type of beauty required are more various.
The whole thing strikes me as gross and depressing - women's bodies as entertainment, fake intimacy, faked/highly-managed bodies being a requirement, generally mediocre pay, terrible job security...Many of the personal, economic and social disadvantages of prostitution with none of the benefits.
16: yeah, my reaction too.
45: that image will haunt me all afternoon.
Is there a categorical difference between "strip club" and cabaret club? I've never been to either, but I have seen some cabaret (mostly amateur I believe) at the Old Parkway circa 2004. I did not particularly enjoy it, finding the choreography awkward, the costumes unappealing, and the jokiness boring; in 2006 or so "Debbie Does Dallas The Musical" which I was told was heavily inspired by trying to build on cabaret routines but which mostly convinced me that most pornography is probably not so great (both morally/psychologically and aesthetically); however the dancing was impressive. So I could imagine an art form along those lines that was both erotic and interesting, and I could imagine a venue that catered to different demographics by categorizing performances and space by the targeted audiences' gender/sexuality, and did so in an egalitarian way (say, proportionate to the local population)--so the SF one might devote more space to gay men and the Manhattan one might devote more space to straight women. That would fix your issue, right HG?
But I am under the impression that such clubs basically don't exist or are so incredibly secret and expensive they might as well not exist. Seems to me that this is one of those situations when the market is dominated by the old social paradigm, and the presence of a new social paradigm is not strong enough to change the market wholesale (i.e. by overcoming barriers to entry), and incremental change isn't really an option. Shall we have a kickstarter for a classy and demographically reflective erotic club?
I thought cabaret was for basically liberal dude erotica.
Where does burlesque fit into it? I know some women who enjoy it, even though they show little to no bisexuality (at least, not to me, FWIW). "Burlesque" is probably a broad term, but it seems generally less sexual and exploitative than stripping, but also a lot less lucrative.
77
And I simultaneously have this reaction and think that it can't be right -- it's a service that it's okay to purchase, but only if the seller doesn't really need the money? Shouldn't it be better if people who really need money are getting paid?
Seems reasonable to me. It depends on the alternative you're assuming - a different job with better working conditions that pays a decent amount, probably not as much as pedicabbing or they'd already be doing it but not a completely terrible hourly rate, or no job. There are some problematic unstated assumptions in either of those ("What, are you saying a brown person can't hold down any better job?" "Well, if they look 40-something, don't speak much English, and the best shoes they have for biking are flip-flops..."), but either attitude seems justifiable in certain circumstances. If there are decent alternatives and the pedicabbers are just doing it because they actually enjoy the flexibility and strenuous work, well, it's not hurting anyone. If the best job out there is pedicabbing, we need better workplace standards and minimum wage laws.
Oh, I was probably meaning burlesque when I said cabaret or something. I just meant strip clubs for Austin hipsters who want to be edgier than sleazy.
I think burlesque + boylesque is trying to fill the niche in 126, anyway some of it. Perhaps this is why it's a staple among the cheerful techno-optimists of Maker Faires.
I have very close to no idea what I'm talking about (never been to a strip club or a burlesque show), but isn't there some kind of distinction between stripping/burlesque as theatrical performance on stage with not so much individual interaction with customers, and stripping/lapdancing with getting fondled for tips? You buy a ticket to a burlesque show, you tuck dollar bills in a stripper's g-string?
Maybe? I don't know either but have the impression that people on both sides benefit by blurring the lines: lapdancers are "dancing", some burlesquers might be demimondaines. Anyway, I thought 126 was on the stage-act side of things, perhaps a very very small stage cabaret.
131: that's a part of it, but in my experience, burlesque dancers also never bare it all, sometimes don't take anything off, have acts with intentionally funny elements, and star both men and women in the show. Basically, it's an old-fashioned variety show - song, dance, contortionist, maybe free verse in some cases - with a theme of titillation, maybe a strong theme, but that's it, IME. Whereas a strip club is primarily sex work that happens to stop short of orgasm.
I've been to strip clubs before my current relationship (years before it, it's not like I stopped due to her) and burlesque shows after it, and I've kidded-on-the-square about taking her to a strip club, but now that I see this thread, I have to wonder what I was thinking. Granted, I had a friend who enjoyed strip clubs for the reasons in 55, but it shouldn't have taken me this long to realize that T. wouldn't.
I went to a burlesque show once with a group of friends and was surprised by how untitallating it was.
You spelled undulating wrong.
"Whereas a strip club is primarily sex work that happens to stop short of orgasm."
Isn't orgasms (from lapdances with rubbing) what most - or at least a whole lot of - strippers make most of their money from?
134: Trying to be titillating but failing, or not really trying that hard?
I had an odd moment a couple of years ago when a friend gave us tickets to the Radio City Christmas Show, when I realized that the Rockettes were originally supposed to be titillating, by Depression-era standards. I mean, probably still are to a decent part of the audience. It just hadn't clicked that that sort of thing was a descendant of adult entertainment.
There was stripping--to pasties and g-strings--and lots of waving around of fans and whatnot, but the whole thing seem mostly to be an amateurish exercise in self-empowerment rather than sexualized entertainment. Maybe our seats were too far away from the stage.
Yeah, I've seen burlesque once or twice, and my main reaction was more lame than sexy.
So, trying and failing, sounds like.
among the cheerful techno-optimists of Maker Faires.
burn!
65: I was going to mention in the prostitution thread that there are a hell of a lot of people in the grayzones around actual sex work -- bartenders at gay bars who work topless, for instance. Obviously, part of what they are selling is sex, or the illusion of sexual availability.
I have a number of friends who do burlesque, or quasi-burlesque, or weird performance art that incorporates burlesque tropes. Never found it all that titillating. Plenty of undulating though. Not really the same as stripping though -- with stripping, the value-added is that you have interactions with the customers to get them to buy drinks or lapdances or whatever. If anything, burlesque is MORE about the nude female body and male gaze and all that business. Stripping is this creepy rent-a-friend business, where the friends are low on clothing.
I think burlesque + boylesque
Does boylesque involve middle aged Scottish women who are surprisingly sexy under the feathers?
Boylesque refers to the observation that, unless you keep putting pressure on your strippers, they're just going to expand and expand.
Not to be confused with Hookers. If you give them an inch, they'll take a proportional force.
Burl-esque, on the other hand, involves bearded men singing folk songs.
At what date did burlesque stop meaning a sort of learned parody and start meaning a half-hearted strip show?
And the exact date when "making love" took on as its main meaning "sexual intercourse".
You want the exact date?
And hour and minute.
150. Between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles first LP.
It's not exactly burlesque but my grandfather, a violinist, was good friends with the vaudeville dancer and choreographer Gertrude Hoffman and her composer husband Max. He had a marble bust of her on his piano that our family referred to as "Dirty Gertie" on account of the dust it collected. I didn't realize the double entendre till years later when I read up on her. My father donated the bust to the New-York Historical Society.