I saw this book referenced while doing some research on sexual issues last semester, and while I didn't have time to read it then, I kept it in mind and eventually tracked it down earlier this year. It's by a female anthropologist who danced in strip clubs to work her way through grad school, and then turned her dancing experience, and the interviews she did with some regular strip club customers, into her doctoral thesis. As the title indicates, the book is chiefly about the men who regularly patronize strip clubs. Why do they visit, what do they get out of it, what makes it worth the expense, what types of clubs do they frequent, what do they think of the dancers, and so on.
The book is not a page turner, and it's not written for a mass audience. It's pretty
clearly a modified thesis, with tons of anthropological and sociological theory, hundreds of references, plentiful endnotes, and all discussion couched in very scientific, scholarly terms. Despite that, it's got a lot of useful info and I benefited from reading it. I would have received the same benefit from reading a good forty page synopsis of it, or simply discussing it with a knowledgeable reader. But since there was no such synopsis to read or reader to synapse, I had to plow through the 344 pages myself.
To the scores!
G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire, by Katherine Frank, 2002
Concept: 8
Presentation: 5
Writing Quality: 5
Presents/Explains the Topic Clearly: 8
Entertainment Value: 3
Rereadability: 4
Overall: 5.5
As you can see, my scores are very bifurcated. I loved the topic and the concept, but wasn't a big fan of the presentation. It's overlong and feels padded in a lot of places by redundant anecdotes and interview quotes, and most of the higher level sociological theory is shoehorned in and extraneous. If Frank had gotten a good editor with an eye to pop culture success, she could have whittled this book down to about 180 pages, pumped up the titillation factor, added more juicy anecdotes from behind the scenes, added more quotes from the Johns she interviewed, and turned this into a really fun book, without sacrificing any of the information. She'd have had to jettison almost all of the cultural anthropology and scholarly material though, and I think she would have refused. Despite landing
some interviews (that one gives a good overview of the book's findings), Frank didn't want to be a celebrity sexologist specializing in strippers. Her goal was a career in academia, not as a sex writer angling for a shot on
Oprah (or at least
Ellen), and since she's now teaching at a private university in Maine, and has recently published a second book on sexual cultural issues, she's probably pleased with her career path.
What I found most interesting about the book was the insight into the mind of the strip club customer. I've never been to a strip club, not even once, and I've never wanted to. I'm a bit more curious now, having read this book, since it overturned a few of my assumptions about such places, but if I went it would be curiosity/research, not prurient desire. (Which is not why the regulars she interviewed went either.) According to Frank's book, strip clubs aren't as seedy as I thought, and they're definitely not all clandestine whorehouses. They're more like video arcades where the machines are flesh and blood females, and you watch more than play. They're not all about sex, and the girls sell personality and conversation as much, or more, than T&A.
According to the book, the main priority for most of the strippers are table dances. The clubs have a main stage or two, and the girls are scheduled so they all have to take a turn dancing up front, but they make their real money doing private dances. Tables dances in the clubs Frank worked in, lap dances at some other clubs (local regulations vary enormously from city to city and within cities, in terms of how much nudity, contact, alcohol, etc, is allowed), and girls make better profits per song with individuals than they do up on stage in front of everyone; movie scenes of guys throwing wads of cash at the feature dancers notwithstanding.
At the time this book was written, the going rate in Atlanta was $10 a dance, with songs lasting about 3 minutes. Men who liked a dancer could pay her to dance, or simply sit and talk, for the same price as a dance. Most of the guys would buy the dancers a drink, or even take them to dinner in the upscale clubs with restaurants, and the dancers obviously did their best to encourage the guys, since they'd prefer to get paid for sitting and talking than stripping. Plus the girls got a cut of the customer's food/drinks tab.
It's not just the dancers who enjoy the private time, since that sort of personal interaction was what all the men interviewed in the book cited as their main interest in strip clubs. They all wanted to talk to the girls, to get to know them, and not just because they hope to fuck them, as I would have expected. Most of the men are married, and few of them hit on the girls or try to arrange hook ups, at least as far as Frank describes it.
Many of the men I interviewed who considered themselves to be regular customers of particular clubs referred to their relationships with the dancers they visited as primarily that of "friends." These men pointed out that they knew significant details about the dancers' lives: where the women lived, whether they had a boyfriend or partner, the names of their children, their history, and so on. These men also claimed that these relationships were symbiotic and pleasurable, highlighting their platonic aspects and stressing that they returned for the conversation, the friendship, and the atmosphere of the club rather than out of an prurient interest in the dancers. (Pg. 180.)
Frank asked good questions and got good quotes from the men, but she did very little analysis of what they didn't say, and provided no insight into whether or not they were being honest. I was skeptical about a lot of it. Just because they told the smart college student stripper that they thought of the girls as "friends" doesn't mean they weren't quite willing to screw her/them, if given the opportunity. Men constantly tell women they're happy just being friends... when friendship is the only option. Meanwhile, that "friend" guy is just hanging around, waiting for her to break up with her boyfriend, or need a shoulder to cry on, etc.
All the men Frank interviews talk about wanting to get to know the girls, and wanting to be friendly and social, but none of them seem to object when the dresses and bras and panties start to come off.
Even with that allowed for, keep in mind that all the interview subjects are regular customers, so they're not the whole demographic of strip club visitors. Plenty of guys come in occasionally just to look at the goods, bachelor parties aren't there for conversation and dinner, and men who weren't interested in talking to the strippers certainly weren't going to agree to meet Frank outside of the club for an interview. Frank gives no demographic info on how representative the men she interviewed were of the total club visitors, so there's no telling if 75% of 5% of the men there are "regulars" who like to chat with the girls.
The thing that the customers all realize, to some limited degree, is that the girls know what they want, and are working to give it to them. If a guy's paying you $10 a song to sit and chat, of course you're going to let him talk about whatever he wants to talk about, and you're going to tell him what he wants to hear. The girls are there to make money, and it's not easy work. They've got long shifts, they're on their feet in high heels the whole time (except when some guy pays them to sit and chat and drink), and out of their take they've got to pay a % to the club, tip the bouncers and bartenders and DJ, etc.
If they don't sell a lot of dances they might as well be waiting tables at some neighborhood pub. Of course they're going to do what they can to sell dances, or better yet, sell their personality. They're basically in-person phone sex operators, except that the conversations are seldom about sex. The goal is the same though; to keep the other person talking for as long as they can afford to talk. The stripper has a bit of an easier job, since she can show off the goods to keep the guy interested, and she's getting paid right then and there. (Slightly OT, but phone sex or psychics or counselors have a trickier task with that; and they have guidelines for how long to keep their calls. If they're too short there's not enough $ coming in, but if they go too long, people often refuse to pay when they get a $500 phone bill.)
Given that financial reality, the strippers become very skilled at reading the interest of the men, and will do whatever it takes to keep the conversation going. Tease and titillate if that seems desired, laugh at his jokes and feign interest in his stories, make fake revelations when the guy asks for greater intimacy, and show your tits or pussy if he's losing interest in words. Whatever it takes.
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the basic truths of human psychology hold true in strip club customers too. Everyone wants to be special and everyone is the hero of their own story. Every guy wants to think his questions and comments and interests are unique and unlike the other guys'. Frank runs through a whole long list of things men say, or ask, or request, and makes clear that the best way to please virtually any guy in conversation is to act like you've never heard that particular comment before.
The tricky part is that that customers want intimacy, but they want authenticity as well. If the guy knows the girl is just telling him what he wants to hear, the illusion is shattered. So the trick is to be flattering and interested and make him feel special, without overdoing it. Since the customers aren't so naive as to forget that they're paying by the minute, the clever stripper plays it cool. This can require honesty, or lies. Frank says that she usually danced under her real name, going by Kate in most clubs (if the name wasn't already taken by another girl), and that she often had to make up a fake name when a guy asked to hear her real name, since they never believed she was using her real name as a stage name. She also wore her wedding ring while working, and was honest about her profession when she told guys she was a grad student researching strip club customers. Some guys believed these revelations, and other guys thought they were just trappings of her trade, and that she was playing on fantasies for hot librarians, or married women, etc. Hence the appearance of authenticity was more important than the actuality.
Another good way to get men interested was to play innocent. Strippers with years of experience would sometimes wear unprofessional clothing they couldn't easily remove, or act like they were frightened to take off their bras or panties, or freeze up during the music. This usually brought them a line of eager customers, since the men were eager to see someone new and fresh and unsure of herself, instead of the polished product the other women presented. Lots of the interview subjects talked about how they liked to go to low end clubs to talk to the poorer, less attractive strippers and hear their hard luck stories. The men felt special if they could help a woman who (appeared to) need it.
Often the illusions are mutual; the men tell stories about their lives that match those the dancers tell, or both sides collaborate on a tale; talking about the Hawaiian vacations they'll go on (together) or the trips to Europe or whatever. When the customer is married and could never get away and wouldn't dare if he could, and the dancer has no inclination to go with him anyway. And both parties realize this, on some level, but the fun is in the verbal dance.
The book didn't draw any major conclusions, and it wasn't very reader friendly, but there was some interesting info in it, and I liked it since it fell into my area of research/interest/expertise. I doubt many other laypeople would care enough to wade through the academic presentation, though, so I'm not really recommending it.
Labels: book review, psychology, sex
