Description
Book SynopsisDraws a fascinating portrait of life and work inside the strip club
Trade ReviewFor readers seeking insight into how strip club labor is organized in a predominantly white, working-class club that serves alcohol, Strip Club provides a generous dose of ethnographic detail. -- Kari Lerum * American Journal of Sociology *
In this well-researched, engagingly written book, sociologist Price-Glynn examines the processes through which men and women wield, negotiate, and contest power in a strip cluba gendered organization. Through a combination of methodological approachesincluding in-depth interviews with strippers, patrons, and other employees; the author masterfully allows the reader entry into a subculture in which gender relations, power, and definitions of masculinity routinely are constructed, reconstructed, and challenged. -- J.R. Mitrano * Choice Magazine *
Reads like a novel with a detailed cast of characters! With stripper poles an increasingly ubiquitous fixture in the media, there remains surprisingly little scholarship written about the day-to-day lives of people working in strip bars. Price‒Glynn reveals the grit beneath the pop‒video clichè in Strip Club, offering the reader an insiders gaze on the employees of the Lions Den. Strip Club exposes a taken for granted sexism we need to be reminded of in our Girls Gone Wild culture. -- Bernadette Barton,author of Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers
The second I entered The Lions Den, passing the doorman through darkened hallways toward a parquet dancing stage, Price‒Glynns rich description brought me into the dilapidated and ironically profitable (for some) world of the strip club. Her deeply affecting observations make us keenly aware of the social practices that perpetuate gross inequalities. Her ethnography is both brutally honest, and sociologically sophisticated in its examination of both the fragility and tenacity of social rankings based on gender, sex, and social class. -- Lisa Jean Moore,co‒editor of The Body Reader:Essential Social and Cultural Readings
Price-Glynn has a real knack for what anthropologists and sociologists call 'thick description,' thereby ably transporting readers into the setting of this particular sexual subculture. * CHOICE *
Price-Glynn contrasts the aspirations of the strippers with the clubs design, rules, expectations, and practices, all of which served to exploit their labor. She argues that without listening to sex workers and addressing their abuse and lack of power, feminists will never take the real battlethe one against structural oppressionto the ring. * Ms. Magazine *
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction: A Typical Shift 1 Studying Strip Club Work: Context and Perspective 2 "Keeping the Dancers in Check": The Gendered Organization of Stripping in The Lion's Den 3 "It's a Nice Place to Hide, and It's Safe": The Making of Masculinities in The Lion's Den 4 Tradeoffs and Troubles: Managing Stripping Labor 5 Dollar Dances and Stage Dances: Strippers and Economic Exploitation Postscript: The Lion's Den, 2005-2006 Appendix 1: Researching The Lion's Den Appendix 2: Participant Descriptions of Life and Work Notes References Index About the Author
