Abstract
The night‐time economy is often described as repelling consumers fearful of the ‘undesirable Others’ imagined dominant within such time‐spaces. In this paper we explore this by describing attitudes towards, and reactions to, one particularly contentious site: the ‘lap dance’ club. Often targeted by campaigners in England and Wales as a source of criminality and anti‐sociality, in this paper we shift the focus from fear to disgust, and argue that Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEVs) are opposed on the basis of moral judgments that reflect distinctions of both class and gender. Drawing on documentary analysis, survey results and interview data collected during guided walks, we detail the concerns voiced by those anxious about the presence of lap dance or striptease clubs in their town or city, particularly the notion that they ‘lower the tone’ of particular streets or neighbourhoods. Our conclusion is that the opposition expressed to lap dance clubs is part of an attempt to police the boundaries of respectable masculinities and femininities, marginalizing the producers and consumers of sexual entertainment through ‘speech acts’ which identify such entertainment as unruly, vulgar and uncivilized. These findings are considered in the light of ongoing debates concerning the relations of morality, respectability and disgust.
Highlights
Since the 1980s, there has been widespread concern that the more affluent and mobile classes have abandoned town centres in favour of out-of-town leisure and retail, leading to decline and even abandonment (Hubbard, 2003)
Our analysis suggests that the expression of disgust towards sexual entertainment is one means by which it is possible for an individual to claim respectability, disavowing any public identification with forms of behaviour that have become depicted as vulgar and uncivilized (Tyler, 2013)
It appears impossible to reproduce anything other than a classed discourse about lap dance clubs – even if this was vested in a language which was more about femininity and respectability than outright condemnation of Respectability, morality and disgust in the night-time economy working-class identities
Summary
Since the 1980s, there has been widespread concern that the more affluent and mobile classes have abandoned town centres in favour of out-of-town leisure and retail, leading to decline and even abandonment (Hubbard, 2003). It is worth remembering that the creation of leisured, 24-hour cities was widely mooted in the 1990s as the solution to the problems befalling many town and city centres (see Oc and Tiesdell, 1997).
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