To browse Academia. Dynamics and Exotic Dance examines the social phenomenon of exotic dancing. Presenting a compelling multilevel analysis of dancer interactions, organizational practices, and institutional forces, this book challenges our understanding of sexuality and power. Centering the voices and experiences of exotic dancers, this book explores the relationship between exotic dancing and power at the micro-interactional, mesoorganizational, and macro-institutional levels, informing a feminist theory of power that seeks out systems of domination in order to challenge and change them.
Through direct interviews and observations collected between and from 40 different clubs in the United States, Deshotels and Forsyth demystify the seemingly contrary findings about exotic dancing and power. They show how and why individual dancers can be simultaneously empowered and exploited beyond individual traits, interactions, or settings in the nexus of gender and power in exotic dancing.
Written in a clear, accessible manner, this book will also appeal to a general audience interested in understanding the complex interactions of gender, power, feminism, and exotic dance.
Is exotic dancing exploitive or empowering? Can it be empowering and exploitive at the same time? Can examining the question of power in the context of exotic dancing tell us anything about gendered power in other contexts? These questions are important. The participation and interest in exotic dancing are reportedly on the rise. This represents a 4. However, exotic dancing remains a deviant, or at best, a marginal occupation Enck and Preston ;Pilcher ;. That this career is a lucrative option for women in the United States, which is increasing in popularity and remaining stigmatized, is indeed an anomaly.
In our society, money earned legally is usually an outright symbol of power. However, despite the exorbitant amounts of money women earn legally in this field Reid, Epstein, and Benson , there is much debate about power and exploitation in the 'sex for sale' industry generally and for our purposes exotic dancing specifically Simmons Until the late s, most of the attention in academia was centered on deviance and stigma, and what men thought about exotic dancing.
