The Production of Identity and the Negotiation of Intimacy in a `Gentleman's Club'

Abstract

This paper problematizes the concept of `true' intimacy by examining a particular commodified relationship - that between a female dancer and her regular male customers in a heterosexual strip club in the US. Participant observation is used to describe and examine the relationships developed between dancers and their `regular customers' and the mutual manufacture of identities and intimacy which is involved in these relationships. First, it is argued that an illusion of intimacy is produced within the strip club to make an interaction between a dancer and her regular seem more `real' and desirable. Next, it is shown how even such a commodified relationship can generate a high degree of emotional involvement, using the concept of `emotional labor' (Hochschild, 1983) to help break down the barriers between real and manufactured intimacy. Finally, there is a discussion on how an intimate experience draws upon private self-representations that are both real and imaginary, and upon sexual self-identities that are ideologically informed, in an attempt to show how interpersonal intimate relationships are structured within a fantasy-reality which complicates utilitarian notions of emotional engagement.