Description
Book SynopsisProvides an account of the personal and cultural fantasies motivating heterosexual, male strip club "regulars." This title shows how the dynamics of male pleasure and privilege in strip clubs are intertwined with ideas about what it means to be a man in contemporary America.
Trade Review“
G-Strings and Sympathy effortlessly merges the personal with the polemical, the scholarly with the serendipitous, and the earthy with the esoteric. Informed, intelligent, yet always accessible, Katherine Frank’s writing sheds a piercing beam of light on the shadowy realm of exotic dance.”—Lily Burana, author of
Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America “I am not aware of any comparable book on the sex industry that draws so insightfully both on the author’s personal experience and on scintillating analyses drawn from contemporary cultural theory. Katherine Frank’s book is highly intelligent, original, illuminating, extremely readable, and, to say the least, brave.”—Anne McClintock, author of
Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial ContestTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Preface: Skin Brings Men xiii
Part One
Chapter 1 Observing the Observers: Methods and Themes 1
Chapter 2 Laurelton and Its Strip Clubs: The Historical, Physical, and Social Terrain 39
Part Two
Interlude:
Strawberries (fiction) 79
Chapter 3 Just Trying to Relax: Masculinity, Touristic Practice, and the Idiosyncrasies of Power 85
Chapter 4 The Pursuit of the Fantasy Penis: Bodies, Desires, and Ambiguities 121
Part Three
Interlude:
Fakes (fiction) 159
Chapter 5 "I'm Not Like the Other Guys": Claims to Authentic Experience 173
Chapter 6 Hustlers, Pros, and the Girl Next Door: Social Class, Race, and the Consumption of the Authentic Female Body 203
Part Four
Interlude:
The Management of Hunger (fiction) 231
Chapter 7 The Crowded Bedroom: Marriage, Monogamy, and Fantasy 241
Chapter 8 Disciplining Erotic Practice 273
Appendix 281
Notes 285
Bibliography 311
Index 327
