STRIPPING

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The Popular Press
• The Legal Perspective
• The Commercial Perspective
• The Sociological Perspective
• The Social Work Perspective and the Christian Perspective
• Conclusion
• Recommendation
• References

INTRODUCTION

Stripping is an apparently growing part of the commercial sexual exploitation industry. Stripping includes dancing in the nude and semi-nude as live entertainment in clubs, ranging from up-scale clubs to skid row hovels. Other names for stripping are striptease, exotic dancing, and erotic dancing. In most locations, stripping is restricted by law to require a minimum of clothing and to prohibit touching or physical contact of the dancer with the customers. Apparently, however, this is not always the case. There are ways to allow total nudity and to allow physical contact by promoting privacy booths or creative marketing like lap dancing and grease wrestling. In addition, various electronic forms, such as videos and the Internet also extend the marketing and format of stripping. One example of this is the new strategies of marketing Playboy magazine (Freeman, 1999). Another example is the home delivery versions, such as the "strip-o-gram" and "private dancing" (Regardies Magazine, 1992).

In the literature cited in this preliminary review, little mention is made of dancers in the stripping industry as being legally children, however, since the demand for young performers permeates the commercial sexual exploitation industry, it can be assumed that under-aged dancers are involved. Further evidence of stripping involving children is from the personal testimonies of survivors of prostitution (20-20, 1999).

The published literature on stripping reviewed herein is from a variety of perspectives, namely, popular, legal, commercial, sociological, social work, and Christian. The popular press includes magazine articles on stripping that are designed to sell magazines and to promote the sexual exploitation industry. Legal articles on stripping are examining the legal limits of first amendment rights of freedom of expression and boundaries of obscenity, as well as issues of civil rights. Commercial articles are focused on the statistics of stripping and the numbers of persons and businesses involved and the amounts of money that are being generated. Additionally, issues of work contracts, labor unions, and pay are examined. Sociological articles are examining the position of stripping within the sexual exploitation industry and mostly focus upon producing objective descriptions of the stripping and objective interviews with persons who work as strippers. These sociological articles also attempt to interpret stripping in terms of sociological and psychological theories, particularly from a feminist or women's studies perspective. Some attention is paid to how the race and ethnicity of the strip dancer impacts her/his wages and work contracts. Articles on stripping from the social work and Christian perspectives are interested in helping the strippers as human beings.

This paper is written from a sociological and Christian perspective, with the well being of the dancers, the customers, and the community at the forefront. Stripping is herein referred to as a business within the commercial sexual exploitation industry, because of the belief of the author and of the sponsor A-STOP that sexual behavior that is used for generating money is inherently exploitative and harmful to the dancers, the customers and the surrounding community. It is the further belief of the author that the truthful and complete exposure of the commercial sexual exploitation industry will give abundant evidence to its exploitative and harmful effects on all involved.

THE POPULAR PRESS

The popular press includes magazine articles on stripping that are designed to sell magazines and to promote the sexual exploitation industry. Many of the descriptions of strippers and stripping are published in the popular press and present the experiences in ways that are designed to look like scientific, objective descriptions, while in fact they may be scientifically constructed advertising designed to sell magazines and to promote the commercial sexual exploitation industry. Titles of such articles from the popular press are "The Naked Truth about Strip Joints" (Snowden, 1993), "Nine Lives" (Snowden, 1994), "Nice Girls Undress for Success" (Langton, 1996), "Why I Strip Online" (Brown, 1997), "How Stripping Saved Her Life" (Cosmpolitan, 1999), "Mommy by Day, Stripper by Night" (Nevins, 1992), and "The Naked Truth" (Furlong, 1993).

THE LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

Legal articles on stripping are examining the legal limits of first amendment rights of freedom of expression and boundaries of obscenity, as well as issues of civil rights. The Supreme Court of the United States in 1991 ruled in support of an Indiana law that bans public nudity. Arguments regarding the first amendment and freedom of expression for nude dancing were not upheld in a 5-4 vote in favor of the protection of morals and public order (The Economist, 1991; U.S. News and World Report, 1991). However, the only clothing requirement for the dancers is minimal to say the least. From a different angle, in Minneapolis and Indianapolis in 1983, MacKinnon and Dworkin attempted unsuccessfully to implement a city ordinance that defined pornography as a violation of civil rights on the grounds of sexual discrimination (Sloan, Bell, and Stricking, 1998). A law enacted in Minnesota in 1994 (Brock and Thistlethwaite, 1996; 20/20, 1999) allows prostitutes to sue their pimps or madams if coercion was used. Although these do not apply to strippers, the line between stripping and pornography and prostitution is no longer clear.

In Ontario, Canada, a former exotic dancer has led a campaign to ban "lap dancing," a form of sex dancing that Katherine Goldberg claims crosses the line into prostitution. Judge Hachborn in Toronto dismissed charges of indecent theatrical performances and ruled that the body contacts involved did not violate community standards of obscenity. According to the 1995 article (Maclean's, 1995) the premier of Ontario had promised to ban lap dancing and a licensing commission that registers exotic dancers is defining bylaws for regulation of the strip clubs. This literature review does not follow up on the progress of these efforts. Another success for the sexual exploitation industry is from a Saskatchewan judge (Eisler, 1997) who ruled the law barring striptease from saloons to be in violation of the provincial charter. While the ruling is being appealed, exotic dancing has become a booming business in rural Saskatchewan, Canada. Meanwhile, lap dancing is flourishing in Toronto (Fotheringham, 1994), due to an Ontario judge ruling it to be within acceptable community standards.

THE COMMERCIAL PERSPECTIVE

Commercial articles are focused on the statistics of stripping and the numbers of persons and businesses involved and the amounts of money that are being generated. Additionally, issues of work contracts, labor unions, and pay are examined. Washington, D. C.'s nine major strip clubs are estimated to have annual total revenues of 10 million dollars (The Gentleman's Club as reported in Regardie's Magazine, 1992). Additionally, of course, new arrays of "post-AIDS" varieties of sex services are widespread in our nation's capital. Even though local laws and police policy have become more strict, sex entrepreneurs have flourished by creating modern versions of the old trade. One thriving up-scale club with nude dancers is two blocks from the White House. Other strip clubs in Washington, D.C. offer lap dancing and the newer grease wrestling.

Attempts are being made in San Francisco by exotic dancers to create a union to protect their rights as service employees (The Economist, 1997). The strippers complain that they are an underpaid and exploited group of employees. Apparently a contract was negotiated that gives some monetary and safety protections to the dances and other employees in the strip club. According to Regardie's Magazine (1992) the pay for strippers in their prime in up-scale clubs is $50 to $300 per hour's performance (presumably mostly in tips).

THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Sociological articles are examining the position of stripping within the sexual exploitation industry and mostly focus upon producing objective descriptions of stripping and objective interviews with persons who work as strippers. These sociological articles also attempt to interpret stripping in terms of sociological and psychological theories, particularly from a feminist or women's studies perspective. Some sociological articles attempt to document ethnic discrimination. Goldberg (Maclean's, 1995), a former sex dancer, claims that Thai women who do lap dancing in Canada receive $10 per dance, but give $9 back to the club owner. Goldberg likewise claims that women from Eastern Europe and Asia do not complain about any extreme requirements on their performances nor about low pay, and are thus easily exploited by club owners. Brock and Thistlethwaite's (1996) analysis of prostitution in Asia and the United States describes the stripping industry, including child exploitation; they use feminist, Buddhist, and Christian liberation perspectives to organize the variations of stripping and prostitution in several countries. They make clear the ethnic hierarchies of exploitation existing in various countries.

According to an article in Regardie's Magazine in 1992, there are 54,000 women nationwide who are professional strippers. They are likely to be in their mid 20s to early 30's and investing heavily in fashion clothing, health food, aerobics, plastic surgery, and cosmetics. Attempts by sociologists to describe and analyze the stripping industry are done with varying degrees of objectivity and from various theoretical perspectives. Kathleen Guidroz, a sociologist, interviewed a woman who works in the sex industry (1996). Guidroz focuses on objectively describing the motivations, stigma, experiences, and perceptions of one sex worker and the cultural structure that surrounds the commercial sexual exploitation industry. Another sociologist, Carol Rambo Ronai (1998), who was herself an exotic dancer, has conducted research interviews with exotic dancers. Ronai uses a participant observation technique; in addition she uses a postmodern technique from ethnomethodology, so her writing includes her own reactions to her observations of the dancers she is interviewing, plus her own reactions to her own behavior. The resulting article has the appearance of the popular press, however she is exploring in this unique way some of the serious social structures in American culture. Katherine Liepe-Levinson (1998), a professor of theater, has conducted a field study of striptease events in eight cities. Leipe-Levinson focuses on themes in striptease in which the spectator is included in the performance, the power of the dancer to command tipping, and the risk of danger to the spectator. She analyzes these themes in terms of traditional cultural values of sexist patriarchy.

THE SOCIAL WORK PERSPECTIVE AND THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

Articles on stripping from the social work and Christian perspectives are interested in helping the strippers as human beings. Feminist sociologists (Sloan, Bell, and Strickling, 1998) develop the social work debate in a rigorous secondary analysis of interviews with 30 exotic dancers. They focus on perceptions of stigma and exploitation, both of the dancers themselves and of the customers, yet they do not directly ask about these themes while conducting the interviews, but rather allow these themes to emerge from the interviews spontaneously. Using a feminist perspective, in its full complexity, the researchers consider whether sex work is an instance of violence against women or an option in a woman's personal choices. The interviews focus on topless dancing, a different activity than prostitution and pornography, because topless dancing traditionally has not included physical contact and is legal and less stigmatized than prostitution and pornography. Sloan, Bell, and Strickling extend the social work discussion to the debate on whether help should be offered to women currently engaged in sex work, rather than in the traditional approach with offers help only to women who have quit. While the three authors were also interviewers, they each had different beliefs regarding the debates over sex work and social work, thus they present a rich analysis. Nearly half of the 30 women interviewed mentioned the stigma they experienced and 14 mentioned exploitation. Seven of the interviewees did not mention exploitation or stigma at all. The conclusion from the discussion of the 30 interviews of topless dancers is that the voices of these women should be heard in the debate in social work seeking equality for women and the oppressed.

While many Christian efforts have been made to help survivors of sexual exploitation, the full picture is beyond the scope of this current review of the literature. One of the efforts, however, is a Christian group helping former topless dancers called Amy's Friends (Jones, 1999). Amy Dupree heard a sermon about the body being the temple of the Holy Spirit, and decided she had to quit her work as a semi-nude dancer. With the help of a local church, she created a Christian support group in Dallas for women wanting to leave stripping. These efforts apparently are met with mixed success.

When considering ways to help women and men who are involved in stripping or who want to exit stripping, a debate exists both in social work and in Christian groups as to whether to help only those who do leave this form of commercial sexual exploitation or to help those currently employed. This is problematic because of the difficulty women and men experience in attempting to leave this work. While the problem is partly due to economics and the need to make money and the lack of alternative skills, the problem is also apparently psychological. Trauma is a central theme in the psychology of the sex worker (Brock and Thistlethwaite, 1996). It is believed that commercial sexual exploitation, in all of its forms including stripping, is a form of psychological trauma. The resulting effects on the person after participating in sexual exploitation is post traumatic stress syndrome. This theory is one of the main explanations for the difficulty of sex workers to leave the sexual exploitation industry, as well as an explanation for why sexually abused persons have difficulty leaving abusive family situations, and post traumatic stress syndrome is also applicable to victims of torture. The psychological damage done by traumatic stress is pervasive and long lasting and requires intensive therapy over a long period of time. The moral debate in both social work and Christianity is regarding the stripper's decision to leave sex work and her/his ability to actually stop. Psychological and moral arguments permeate the efforts to help persons caught in the stripping industry.

CONCLUSION

This preliminary literature review of the stripping industry covers information from the popular press, legal articles, articles regarding the commercial side of the stripping industry, articles focused on sociological research, and articles concerned with helping from a social work and Christian perspective. The admitted bias of this review is that stripping is part of the commercial sexual exploitation industry and that all forms of sexual activity performed for commercial reasons are exploitative. This review has claimed that the popular press is in fact part of this commercial exploitation of sexual behavior. The legal foundations of the stripping industry currently appear to be supported by legal decisions more liberally in Canada than in the United States, however the practical effects seem to be identical. The stripping industry is of continuing and increasing commercial, monetary value in modern society. Little objective information was found on who exactly it is that is making the large profits, the dancers themselves or the administrator and owners of the clubs and marketing organizations. Sociological data is not abundant and theory is still apparently unfocused. Efforts to help strippers by social workers and Christian workers are mixed and not particularly effective. Stripping is apparently a growing industry, along with other forms of commercial sexual exploitation. Information about stripping is not complete or comprehensive. While this review admits to a bias regarding the sex industry, the review of information herein is objective and far from conclusive as to the validity of the exploitation perspective.

RECOMMENDATION

With the apparent rise in the occurrence of stripping and its related varieties of marketing strategies, including the Internet, the systematic documentation of stripping and other activities in the commercial sexual exploitation industry and the systematic study of their effects on participants at all levels, dancers, consumers, and marketers, is of urgent interest. Of special interest to A-STOP is information on the actual occurrence of stripping in urban, suburban, and rural areas of the five-state upper Midwest region of the USA, as well as throughout the USA and the world. Unfortunately, such specific documentation on the amount and occurrence of stripping has not been found at the time of this literature review. Of particular interest is statistical evidence of occurrence and of trends of growth over time in specific communities. Closely related to this is the need for information on the effects of the stripping industry upon the participants, both dancers and customers, and the effects upon the community over the course of time. Such information has not been located, but would be especially important to locate or collect, so that community decision-makers will have complete information.

REFERENCES

20/20, "Small town girls," Melissa Cornick, producer, ABC News, March 5, 1999.

Brock, Rita Nakashima and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States (Fortress Press, Minneapolis), 1996.

Brown, Robyn, "Why I strip online," Cosmopolitan, v 223, n5, p166(2), Nov 1997.

Chidley, Joe, "A no to dirty dancing: an ex-stripper leads a campaign to ban ‘lap dancing' in Ontario's nightclubs," Maclean's, v108, n29, p34(2), July 17, 1995.

Cosmopolitan. "How stripping saved her life: includes tips on stip dancing," v226, n2, p252(1), Feb 1999.

Economist, The, "Bare any burden: nude dancing not protected by 1^st amendment" (American Survey), v32, n7713, pA22(1), June 29, 1991.

Economist, The, "The naked truth: San Francisco, California sex dancers unionize" (American Survey; Brief Article) v 342, n8015, p24(2), May 3, 1997.

Eisler, Dale, "Peeling on the prairies: Saskatchewan: popularity of striptease dancing," Maclean's, v110, n13, p33(1), March 31, 1997.

Fotheringham, Allan, "In the lap of controversy: lap dancing, male stripping (Column)," Maclean's, v107, n39, p64(1), Sept 26, 1994.

Freeman, Lisa Lee, "CEO of sex: Christie Hefner is bent on making Playboy the Disney of adult entertainment," Working Woman, p28(3), March, 1999.

Furlong, sandy, "Naked truth: twice a week I strip for strange men in a topless bar (Lifestyle)," Texas Monthly, v 21, n3, p58(6), March 1993.

Guidroz, Kathleen, "I'm more than my private parts: one woman's experience as an erotic dancer," Off Our Backs, v 21, n6, p8, 1996.

Jones, Jim, "Exotic dancers find escape route: Preston Road Church of Christ helps exotic dancers," Christianity Today, v43, n6, p19, May 24, 1999.

Langton, James, "Nice girls undress for success: strippers," Cosmopolitan, v 221, n1, p98(3), July, 1996.

Liepe-Levinson, Katherine, "Striptease: desire, mimetic jeopardy, and performing spectators," TDR, (Cambridge Mass), v42, n2, p9(29), Summer, 1998.

Nevens, Barbara, "Mommy by day, stripper by night," Redbook, v 179, n5, p120(6), Sept 1992.

Regardie's Magazine, "The business of sex: in Washington, D.C.," v 12, n7, p36(15), Oct-Nov, 1002.

Ronai, Carol Rambo, "Sketching with Derrida: an ethnography of a researcher/erotic dancer (Jacques Derrida)", Qualitative Inquiry, v4, n3, p405(16), Sept 1998.

Sloan, Lacy, Holly Bell and Chris Strickling, "Exploiter or exploited: topless dancers reflect on their experiences," Affilia Journal of Women and Social Work, v13, n3, p352(17), Fall, 1998.

Snowden, Lynn, "The naked truth about strip joints: strip tease artist's narrative," Esquire, v120, n6, p140(3), Dec 1993.

Snowden, Lynn, "Nine lives: woman who had nine different jobs in the course of a year; excerpt from book of same title," Cosmopolitan, v 217, n5, p232(7), Nov 1994.

U. S. News & World Report, "Where first amendment protection ends: two first amendment decisions by the Supreme Court," v111, n1, p12(1), July 1, 1991.