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The article entitled? Working in the Fantasy Factory? by Elizabeth Anne Wood describes the two year study of the relationship between strippers and their customers. The study tries to answer the question of whether or not customers in strip clubs objectify the strippers or are their motives based on the reinforcement of their sexual natures. The article begins by introducing the generally accepted view that women in strip clubs are seen as objects. The author contests that the dynamic between the customers and the strippers involves actions that are based on interactivity and reinforce traditional masculine behaviors.
In order to do this, the author had to patronize several New England strip clubs and gather information through observation and through interview. She observed that despite the environment, most customers did not see their time spent in the strip club as entertainment. Many believed that they were honestly contributing to the well fare of the strippers that they tipped. The author believes that this behavior enforces the traditionally male behavior of being a provider.
Many customers fantasize about the background of the strippers and about their lives off stage. Likewise, the strippers learn not to believe the boasting stories of their customers. For many of the customers, the attention given them by the strippers is an affirmation of their desirability and even their youthfulness and vitality. Some customers interviewed stated that they led dreary lives or they were in some way physically inferior and that when a stripper shifted her attention from someone else to them, for one moment they were popular and good looking.
In one interview, the author was told by a patron The article itself was well written and fairly easy to understand. The article is not overly technical nor is it so simple it is boring. It does lack in that rather simple ideas were stretched and the paper could have been more brief. The research is mostly valid and the theory is sound if not practical in its application. A problem arises however with the mode of data collection practiced by the writer.
Men interviewed in a strip club by a woman may not be as forthcoming and honest as is necessary to call it data for a scientific paper. Also, the author says herself that her mere presence in an environment that is almost entirely male customers is in and of itself a distraction and an interference to the natural dynamic of the club. In addition to the doubtful integrity of the male interviewees, the interviews with the strippers are just as dubious. The author states in the introduction that before each interview, she announced that she was a feminist, doing a feminist research project on the objectification of women in strip clubs. Foremost in relevancy is the fact that these women, the strippers, are in an occupation which is frowned upon by many people including many religions and feminists. By announcing her occupation and intention, the author immediately alters the state of mind of the interviewee and possibly her answers.
Therefore, the only part of the research that is relatively valid is the observation, of which there is not an extreme surplus. As I have never visited such an establishment as was reported on in the paper, I cannot say that the findings of the study were consistent with my own experiences. However, that is not to say that the findings and observations related through the paper are not consistent with the behavior of most any men and women. Obviously, the author has not stumbled onto the rosetta stone of male behavior. The conclusions that she reaches are actually widely held beliefs in mainstream America if not in her narrow feminist views.
Still, the findings, however simple and obvious do make sense. Opponents of stripping and exotic dancing venues often point out that due to the objectification of the women working there, incidences of rape, murder, and assault are much more common. These arguments have helped to shut down or prevent construction of an untold number of strip clubs throughout the United States. The findings of this study would disarm the opponents of stripping by stating that not only are the women not objectified, but they are wanted purely for their humanness in order to affirm the humanity of others. The information could also be used as some sort of therapeutic insight into just what it is that would drive a man to give his money away to a naked woman for what by all appearances is the sheer fact that she is naked. Likewise it could shed some light on just what kind of woman would remove her clothing in front of a roomful of emotionally needy men so that they can put dirty money in her underpants.
Although it seems obvious that this study has mad some keen observations into the behavior of men in a strip club as well as their motivation for being in such a place, it involves only two small strip clubs. By no means does this study canvas the entire male population. It is my opinion that most men would and do see a stripper as a sexual object. They may indeed fantasize as to how she spends her time away for the club but probably only in a sexual way. They would not want to know that she may have kids or a boyfriend or husband.
The fact is that men, heterosexual men, enjoy seeing women? s naked bodies because that is what they are naturally programmed to do. At its most basic level a strip club is a place where a man can see what his very nature drives him to see, a woman who is responsive in a sexual way. The study is correct in that the customers of the clubs involved in the study seemed to migrate there for a human interaction. The fault with the reasoning is in the fact that the customers were not interacting with real people.
They were interacting with their own imaginations in conjunction with an object on which they could project their fantasy. This idea not only incorporates that ideas presented in the study by also the more commonly accepted theory involving total objectification.
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