Spectacular Striptease: Performing the Sexual and Racial Other in Vancouver, B.C., 1945-1975

Abstract

This article explores the postwar performance of striptease in Vancouver, British Columbia, and sheds new light on received understandings of exotic dancing's "golden age," which flourished until the mid-1970s. Specifically, the racialization of the industry is charted using the hierarchically structured geography of the city's nightlife—West End vs. East End—as a frame through which to analyze archival documents and interviews. Inequalities structuring the business of bump and grind unsettle notions of stripteasers as a homogeneous category, while simultaneously revealing the diversity within dancers' experiences of stigmatization and their strategies of resistance. The article discusses the ways in which white women and women of color were differentially located within local and transnational circuits of erotic entertainment. That striptease staged the performance of not only sexual but also racial Otherness prompts a comparison of the prestige and profitability of white headliners with the resilient stereotypes and limited marketability that constrained dancers of color. An approach that probes the intersections of gender and sexuality with race and class captures the complexities of this industry and the rich histories of the business insiders, especially the erotic dancers, who gave it life.

Dance and Sexuality: Many Moves

“…Dancers negotiate gender relations as women do in other service occupations (Ronai & Ellis, 1989). Ross and Greenwell (2005) pointed out that the dancers negotiate the maledominated business with ''courage and savvy, balancing moral condemnation of their overtly sexual behavior with their love of dance, music, applause, and (varying degrees of) notoriety'' (p. 141). The dancers play the role of conscientious objector by bravely testing and defying society's sexual limits.…”

‘It’s a Puzzle You Have to Do Every Night’: Performing Creative Problem Solving at Work in the Indoor Canadian Sex Industry

“…There is disagreement about whether the gendered, classed and racial performances through which strippers manage their interactions with clients, management and staff are simultaneously resistant and conformist (e.g. Bruckert, 2002; Frank, 2003; Ross, 2000; Ross and Greenwell, 2005), or merely reinforce class, gender and racial privilege (e.g. Pilcher, 2009; Price-Glynn, 2010).…”

“…Female presenting sex workers are expected to perform a particular kind of femininity (Brooks, 2010; Ross and Greenwell, 2005) – one that is suitably sexy but also reflects the time-consuming upkeep and attitude of class privilege. Similar to other erotic dancers in the study, Kristin, a working class white woman, characterized desirable femininity as simultaneously aesthetically middle class, and exuding an entitled attitude of privilege and aggressive business acumen: ‘The expectation is you go there [to the club] and you are a shark, but you are a high-maintenance shark – you’re like a pageant girl and a shark at the same time’.…”

Away from prying eyes? The urban geographies of `adult entertainment'

“…Likewise, in the early years of the twentieth century, female burlesque dancing in the US was depicted by civic, religious and moral reformers as inflaming working class passions, propelling working men to seek adulterous liaisons, abandon their families, and jeopardize their workplace productivity (Ross and Greenwell 2005). Friedman (2000), for example, reviews the decade-long campaign against burlesque entertainment waged in New York by religious, anti-vice, and municipal activists in the 1930s, lead by mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.…”