I'll be Your Fantasy Girl, If You'll be My Money Man: Mapping Desire, Fantasy and Power in Two Exotic Dance Clubs

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Exotic dance is a social scene in which patriarchy, feminine resistance, desire, fantasy and power intersect. In this heterosexual social scene, women dance nude or semi-nude for male customers, and get paid for their work on stage, tables, and in cages; and, in many clubs, for their work on the laps of their customers.1 Exotic dance, as a site of commodified erotic exchange, is a large and lucrative component of the overall sex industry, and the number of exotic dance clubs in North America has doubled in the last 15 years (Liepe-Levinson 4). With this expansion, the form and function of exotic dance as a social phenomenon has also changed (Egan 17). Exotic dance has shifted from a burlesque site in the 1920s and 1930s wherein dancers mainly strip-teased for men with short and titillating dance numbers where little to no nudity was shone (Allen 281), to the contemporary scene, wherein women provide the full specularity of their breast, vagina, and buttocks and high levels of contact both emotionally and physically (vis-a-vis lap dancing) (Egan 25; Frank 177). Moreover, exotic dance is one of the only forms of erotic labor where legal physical contact (in the form of lap dancing) is permitted in certain states.2 Therefore, with the significant changes that have taken place in the scene of exotic dance, it is imperative to understand how these shifts have effected the psycho-social interactions within the parameters of this cultural milieu. The question which guides this article is how do desire, fantasy, and power intersect in the relationships between exotic dancers and their regular customers? I am particularly interested in the intersubjective relationships between dancers and their regulars because these men consume exotic dance in a vastly different manner than cursory or non-regular customers (Egan 4). Cursory customers frequent exotic dance clubs for entertainment purposes: “to see the show” and be turned on by women on stage. This is often for “special occasions” such as bachelor parties, birthdays, or a guys’ night out (Erikson & Tewksbury 271; LiepeLevinson 23). Regular customers, in contrast form both emotional and erotic bonds with their dancers, viewing themselves as “more than customers.” These men view themselves as “lovers” and/or “boyfriends” of the dancer they come to see on a regular basis and on whom they spend large amounts of money (up to $50,000) on services and gifts (ranging from roses to breast implant surgery and cars). Almost all of the regulars in the clubs, where I danced and did my research, were white, middle-class men between the ages of 30 and 65. This socio-economic and racial dimension marked the ways in which they “loved” and made sense of their relations with dancers. This was particularly true when the dancer with whom they were in relation was racially different. Therefore, the intersubjective dynamics at work in the clubs were not only gendered, but also raced and classed. Exotic dance as a site of research has increased markedly in recent years;3 however, an illumination of this social scene through a psychoanalytic framework and on the relationship between dancers and their regulars has, for the most part, been lacking.4 Therefore, this article serves to highlight how the complex psychoanalytic facets of desire, fantasy, and power mark the relationships between dancers and their regulars. This article is based on four years of ethnographic research in two exotic dance clubs in the New England area between 1996 and 2000, where I was both a full participant and full observer.5 The two clubs differed in the labor practices but were very similar in the dynamics that took place between dancers and their regulars. The first site where I did my research as a full