What’s new about women expressing their sexuality onstage or online? Absolutely nothing. Burlesque made a comeback over 10 years ago, pole-dancing classes have made the schedule of suburban gyms and webcams have broadcasted women of all shapes, ages and sizes. Certainly, female sexuality isn’t new.

And yet, there’s never a lack of something to say, critique and argue about when it comes to the exposure of female bodies. From the right to the left, a host of persons of various political persuasions judge women’s worth and level of empowerment. If they’re not wearing too much—veiled women oppressed by their religion—then they’re wearing too little. In that case, they’re either flat-out victims of male oppression or unknowingly self-exploiting Female Chauvinist Pigs (as recently termed by Ariel Levy) who “think” they enjoy what they’re doing. To be naked and empowered? She must be a burlesque dancer—not a stripper. She might be one of those “rare” feminist hookers. Or maybe—a butoh or experimental contemporary dancer.

The bottom line is, open female sexuality still freaks people out.

Dahlia Schweitzer, an LA-based artist who has written, performed and lived erotica remarked, “One of the things I really try to do, even though part of me knows this is really simplistic, is to play with ideas of women and sexuality. I try to show different kinds of female identity on the stage, and different ways of being sexual onstage … playing with pseudo-weakness and pseudo-submissiveness but at the same time always in control. Because this is still such a foreign concept to so many people … When I first started out doing this, I knew I was not reinventing the wheel. Madonna did this 25 years ago, the whole Express Yourself thing: this is what I want and this is how you’re going to treat me. We’ve been there, we’ve done that! But this is what freaked people out about what I do, continuously, regularly! Every interview, every journalist; it’s like I’m speaking in a foreign language, like I came from Mars.”

For performers who realize the importance of continuing to push the envelope on female sexuality, keeping those journalists guessing and enjoy what they do, it can be exhausting to wade the waters of legitimacy. Even among performers, there has been infighting as to which types of performance are empowering and which are not. When the Suicide Girls began their Burlesque Tour in 2003, some burlesque dancers from other troupes took issue with the fact that the SG called themselves “Burlesque,” partly because of their punk-rock aesthetic and partly because their onstage emphasis was on stripping and not enough on socio-political commentary.

In the field of erotic performance, where women are still reaching for some kind—any kind—of acknowledgement that what they do is A-okay, it’s interesting to find burlesque troupes describe themselves in relation to “less favorable” forms of performance, presumably in an effort to distinguish their art from trash.

The Knicker Kittens, a burlesque troupe based in Stockholm, write in their brochure, “In keeping an aesthetic profile that spans the late 19th century up until the end of the 1950s, the Kittens maintain the innocent allure of glamour girls, cheesecake queens and pinups of yesteryear, and keep the contemporary flesh market sleaze firmly at bay.”

Burlesque Troupes touting similar goals have sprung up in Canada, Australia, and around Europe. Thus, burlesque is being reinterpreted into new contexts and communities with a variety of values and understanding of what “burlesque” or “cabaret” or even “female erotica” should/can mean. New questions arise, such as whether burlesque should be a reproduction of the 20s/30s/40s glamour girls, or can it/should it be a reflection of our modern society?

Some erotic performance artists are reticent to call what they do burlesque because they don’t want to be associated with the classical form. They prefer to use modern music, costumes, and a mixture of punk-rock or fetish aesthetics. Some dancers have even been censored or asked not to perform their preferred “new burlesque” numbers presumably because they are too shocking.

New York/Berlin performer Clea Cutthroat, who infamously rips off her blond cabaret wig to reveal a short blond Mohawk, spits fake blood, and pretends to hang herself—all in the course of a minute and a half—has been censored from tattoo conventions to classical cabaret halls to television networks where she has been invited to perform her work. The reason? Unclear.

In a different, yet parallel case, Michelle Carr, founder of Velvet Hammer Burlesque in LA, a troupe that celebrates and encourages the natural female body in all shapes and sizes, found that her show in Istanbul, Turkey was picketed heavily by women claiming that her show was demeaning to women. Miss Carr responded, “But I’m on your side!”

Once again, female sexuality, when it jumps into the limelight out of the box and, throws a wrench in the works.

The reality for erotic performers who work full time in the field is that not every performance can be the latest manifesto on the state of women in the world. Most performers are experimenting, playing, and hopefully having fun. Like any employment option, some projects that a performer engages in are more critically interesting than others. Some are a choice of how best to pay the rent. The boundaries of “empowerment” get blurry and reinterpreted all the time.

The real litmus test for empowerment, it seems, is whether a woman feels good onstage and performs because overall she enjoys it. Does she have financial control of her life and is she creatively challenged?

Whatever labels may or may not be put on it, Australian performance artist and burlesque dancer Polly Pinkerton says that the good news is, erotic performance is redefining itself because of the women involved. “Thinking women are getting up there onstage who have grown up in a post-feminist world, where there is no question for them about their worth.” For these performers, the “male gaze” is no longer as relevant as it once was. A talented and experienced performer doesn’t plan her performance based on a tired stereotype about “what men like.” And while men still appreciate erotic performance, so do women—and not just because they’re trying to be like the boys, as was suggested in Ariel Levy’s recent book, Female Chauvinist Pigs. Women enjoy it because they see that the performances are female-oriented and focus on celebrating the female body.

“I get the most reactions from women these days; it’s not just about male sexual pleasure,” Polly says. “I don’t allow myself to feel exploited. That’s part of the character. I’m not up there to be exploited and fuck you if you think it … That’s the opportunity for education in what I do—I’m showing me, and it’s okay.”

“Gurlesque” is a 'Lesbian Strip Club' located in Sydney, Australia that has facilitated an all-female and trans audience as a safe space for new and experimental female performance. They encourage “all women to get up on stage and express themselves, to confront fears and insecurities, to challenge taboos, both sexual, social and those to do with the physical body, to explode myths about body structures and what a patriarchal society dictates is sexy or attractive,” as it’s mottoed on Gurlesque.com.

“It’s funny,” says Dahlia Schweitzer. “Lesbians are my most enthusiastic after-show audience, and then gay men are like the second tier. And then straight women. And then straight men at the bottom … There are men that look at me like their fantasy but would never let me into their bed. They don’t want a girl like me in their house. It’s too scary.”

What may be scariest, and hardest thing for non-performers to understand, or those that stay smugly behind intellectual critiques of women’s empowerment, is that women who get up onstage don’t think they’re the hottest thing since sliced bread. They don’t think that they have the hottest, most perfect body. They’re not all slaves to pop-star anorexic chic or the male gaze. In fact, these critiques have become far too cliché. What they do have is the guts and curiosity to get up there, and through the medium of performance they realize that their lopsided tits and their love handles don’t make a bit of difference to whether the performance is or is not received well.

Erotic performance may get the rawest reactions because sexuality is, and may always be, the most raw form of expression. So go out there and see it, judge it on the basis of pure instinct, or get up there yourself.