Strippers and their audience

[Ed]

Why does society always make the assumption that when a performer does a striptease, it’s demeaning just to the person undressing? It seems to me that there are just as many arguments that the people paying to watch someone removing their clothes and enjoying the naked flesh they are seeing are in a far more demeaning situation than the performer. The performer may be enjoying it or just acting that they are. They may be an exhibitionist or just doing a job that pays very well. The audience is only there for the enjoyment and they are the ones who have handed over money to see someone get naked. Isn’t that far more degrading?

 

When you stop and think about it, and as I get older I find myself thinking a lot more, it seems that many of these situations are thought of in a certain way because society programs us to think that way. It doesn’t make it logical or correct.

Just a thought.

[Susan]

Interesting thought Ed.   I agree.   Society can sure develop some illogical mores!    But in the case of strippers and their audiences, there are often associated issues that complicate the scene….. like misbehavior caused by drunkenness.   And nowadays some clubs have a hard time keeping away illegal drug activities.   And of course, prostitution.

If only it could be somehow kept to just audiences watching women (and men too) taking off their clothes while dancing….. and the audiences were only drinking lemonade,  what great fun it could be for all!

I’m sure I’d have become at least a part-time stripper when I was in college….. if only I could dance!    I’d have loved doing it and in those days, I could have surely used the cash too!

[Arthur]

I think that at least in the United States anyway it comes from the Puritan tradition which views anything sexual as fundamentally immoral and all nudity as sexual, a source of shame. It’s a backward belief but it’s deeply ingrained in the society so there is a feeling of shame every time there is any type of public display of sexuality, including just the act of being naked. It doesn’t make any logical sense if you look at it from that standpoint, but it’s also still hard to overcome the feelings that have been instilled in you by society from a young age, so I think that we will continue to view all things like stripping and nudity as immoral until we get over our hangups.

But again as I have said numerous times on this forum, a little bit inhibition and repression can sometimes lead to the whole thing being more kinky, naughty and taboo. If people walked around naked all the time and it was an ordinary everyday occurrence it probably wouldn’t be very sexually exciting for most people. But the fact that we don’t see people naked most of the time when we see a person naked, especially if they are the only one naked, is a source of titillation.

I definitely have this conflicting attitude seeing as I would feel kind of awkward and embarrassed being in a strip club at the same time fantasizing about being the one up on stage!

I’ve also brought up numerous times is that wearing clothing versus being naked is also seen as sort of a power thing. In society if you are seen as the one who is not in control or who is in the vulnerable and exposed or submissive position it is seen as a sign of weakness and disrespect. And it has been shown in studies that when people see a person naked they tend to objectify them and view them as less competent and more of a thing rather than a person.

So I think that when we see someone willingly stripping the cultural value instilled in us is to view them as weak, as a lesser person. Again it doesn’t make sense and it’s not right, but I think that unconsciously that is the view and the attitude most people still have instilled in them from a young age and it’s a feeling that most people have a hard time overcoming.

There was a quote I like by someone that I knew said that a true measure of a man is how he treats waitresses and strippers because those are women who are in a fundamentally servile and submissive position to him where they can decide whether to reward or punish them by how much they decide to give or not give to them and how they treat them in general. I think that there is a lot of to that saying.

It also reminds me of a scene in my own CFNM novella where a guy is forced to go naked in front of a bunch of strippers who are ironically fully dressed and what a huge reversal of the status quo that is and how eye-opening it is for him. The ironic thing is that in this situation all of the strippers are fully comfortable with being naked and enjoying the fact that they see him uncomfortable in a way that they would typically have to be made to feel when they are around men. They are self-confident about their nudity while he is getting a taste of what it is like to be sexually objectified and on display for a bunch of people are usually the ones in the submissive and vulnerable position of being naked for his amusement.

[Anonymous]

We’d need to hear from some strippers really but I imagine some do it for fun, some out of economic necessity, and (horribly) some because they’re forced into it by someone who is no better than a pimp. It would be fun to imagine someone doing  one-off performance as a dare but I don’t know how likely that is in practice. I could imagine someone doing it once because it was on her bucket list. That, for me, might be the best reason of all. She might be extremely shy in real life and might never really now if she was enjoying herself or not but as least she’d have forced herself into that situation.

For someone who isn’t forced into it, either by coercion or by dire economic straits, the power surely lies with the stripper. In the other cases though the power lies elsewhere. Another possibility is that the stripper is someone who enjoys relinquishing her power – someone who is turned on by temporarily giving up her normally powerful position.

So many questions, so few answers.

[Susan]

I think the stripper on stage is in a very powerful position.   Weather it’s a male stripper or a female stripper.  The audience is begging to see more and it’s within his or her power to show more or hold back and disappoint the hungry onlookers.

If I’d have been a stripper when younger, I know I’d have teased but given in and showed everything!  😉

and like this

[Anonymous]

Yes @susan, and the stripper would enjoy the power, or at least make herself enjoy it if she didn’t really want to be stripping. Maybe someone starting out as a dare, or to earn some quick cash, repay a debt or whatever would discover that she actually enjoyed the power and wanted to do it again.

[Susan]

I knew two women who had been strippers.   They had kinda the same story ….. both did it for the money but confessed they came to enjoy it because of being able to tease and hold back from guys wanting to see more.

I think that’s called ‘power’.

😉

Martin, and Ed like this

[Author]

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