Author:
Erotic Labour in night-time leisure spaces: A visual depiction of sexualised work
This paper will present a visual analysis of the work of female and male erotic performers who remove all or most of their clothing in a ‘sexually suggestive fashion to a paying audience’ (Bernard et al. 2003:2). There is little academic writing about erotic dance in British clubs, and, aside from Liepe-Levinson’s (2002) images of North American clubs, little visual data on such workplaces or the work practices of erotic labourers. The paper utilises visual, observational and interview data on straight and lesbian clubs in Britain, seeking to provide a vivid insight into the construction of the spaces in which erotic dancers work, from the clubs’ locations in the wider urban ‘night-time economy’ to dancers’ use of work space within the club environment. It shows that the location and visibility of spaces of sexual commerce are ‘highly revealing of the sexual values that dominate in particular contexts’ (Hubbard et al. 2008:364) and the value given to certain types of workplaces over others.
This paper argues that still photography, along with more conventional ethnographic data, vividly conveys the complexity and skill of dancers’ diverse gendered and sexualised performances across the spaces of each club, not only in their stage acts but also in their other interactions with customers. It will outline how workers engage with and also resist particular spatial arrangements in their workplace. It will also consider how the ‘place’ or location of the club in which an erotic dancer works influences the construction of their working identities (Halford, 2008:937). For instance, the location of night-time erotic labour venues in less central or mainstream leisure areas of a city can lead to them being commonly portrayed as ‘seedy’ or ‘dodgy’, which in turn may have implications for the worker’s own interpretation of their work and working identity. Visually depicting these spatial negotiations of workers can arguably give a greater insight than words alone can portray.
However, the use of visual data with respect to such sexualised spaces is not without its problems. On the one hand such data can portray workers’ emotional and aesthetic labour (Hochschild 1983, Nickson et al 2001) in exceptionally graphic terms, for instance the choice (or absence) of costume; a specific sexualised interaction with a customer; the skill of a particular dance move or facial expression. Yet at the same time using such a method does not obviate the problems of interpretation—for instance, where the performer and the researcher have contradictory ideas about what an image might tell us about the performance of erotic labour. Therefore, as well as drawing attention to some of the complex workplace negotiations that can be highlighted through visual data, some of the tensions around communicating workers’ experiences through visual representations of their work will also be addressed.
References:
Bernard, C et al. (2003) ‘Exotic Dancers: Gender Differences in Societal Reaction, Subcultural Ties, and Conventional Support’, Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10 (1) pp. 1-11.
Hochschild, A (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling, London: University of California Press.
Hubbard, P, R Matthews, J Scoular and L Agustín (2008) ‘Away from prying eyes? The urban geographies of ‘adult entertainment’’, Progress in Human Geography 32(3): 363–381.
Liepe-Levinson, K (2002) Strip Show: Performances of Gender and Desire, London: Routledge.
Nickson, D et al. (2001) ‘The Importance of Being Aesthetic: Work, Employment and Service Organisation’, in A Sturdy, I Grugulis and H Willmott (eds.) Customer Service: Empowerment and Entrapment, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 170-190.