Title: G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire Author: Katherine Frank Publisher: Duke University Press Publish Date: 2002 Pages: 279 Genres:: Political Studies,Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

Why men really go to strip clubs, and why the industry has stubbornly persisted throughout centuries of attempts at squashing it is the subject of this author’s study. Anthropologist-turned-dancer Katherine Frank explores the "truths" about what moves men to become strip-club regulars, and her findings indicate sexual excitement doesn't tell the half of it. And, this book pulls you in like you’re a dollar bill headed for a dancer’s g-string.

Frank worked as a topless dancer in five clubs throughout a popular city known for its adult entertainment sector that she keeps anonymous save for its pseudonym “Laurelton.” She notes coming away from the experience with a high level of respect and regard for sex workers. The men she spoke with were mainly seeking a level of human interaction and tenderness to surpass what they were not getting at home or mirror it in an exciting, but superficial, way. In short, a superior connection, not a cheap thrill.

Of the 30 male customers Frank interviewed while working, many of them cited the need to relax after work as their primary motivation, not sexual release. Her research turns on its ear the concept that interactions between sex workers and customers are “empty” or meaningless. Far from it. Frank discovered what motivates regular strip-club customers is the comfort of a venue where they can go unjudged and accepted for themselves without a damning, character-assassinating stigma. They seek and purchase tangible proof of their economic virility (I can get that wallet UP, baby!) as well as a sense of privilege in the more upscale clubs with their trappings of wealth. And, of course, the fantasy of the perfect, seductive female at their beck and call, even though, really, they are at hers.

Athough the men Frank spoke with openly acknowledged they were aware the dancers’ warm demeanor and affection towards them (along with Frank herself) was to get their money, they still appreciate the attention regardless of the reality that it’s a financial transaction. The illusion that they’re cared about is valuable “whether it’s real or not” in the words of one customer. The clubs provide companionship, a sense of exclusivity and belonging, a way to connect with women uncomplicated by the more mundane details of reality along with engendering a sense of privilege in the more upscale clubs with their trappings of wealth. Where everybody knows your name--and, what you’ll pay to hear a naked woman coo it in delight.

Frank concludes that a large part of the strip club’s draw is its ability to provide a sense of exclusivity, status, belonging and being unconditionally, if not transparently, loved within a sexual atmosphere, not a sexual transaction. The customers who become regulars are using a sexual vehicle to cruise to a destination of emotional peace.

I came away from reading this book seeing strip clubs as an escape not as an opportunity for men who hate women and to degrade them, although doubtless this happens. It seems more of an avenue where customers can enjoy the reverse stigma of being catered to. It also brought up for me Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote: “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” The word “trashy,” a description often applied to strippers and their paying appreciators, is the tofu of language; it takes on the flavor of whatever preconceived notions and political history it’s seasoned with. Inasmuch, stripping and topless dancing is the bean curd of American culture.

It's a thoughtful, engaging book that will make you think twice and like it.