Who Has the Power: A Stripper or Her Customer?

Although a stripper may be seen as powerless to the whims of the men she is visually stimulating, many people argue that strippers are powerful because they are highly in control of their own sexualities and are able to captivate viewers. In her article The Dialectical Gaze from the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, author Alexandra G. Murphy recognizes both of these possibilities by discussing how strippers are simultaneously subjects and objects of the male gaze. She begins her article by describing various viewpoints regarding females’ degree of agency within the sex trade: radical feminists believe that female sex workers are hurting not only themselves but also all females by encouraging the objectification of women, whereas liberal feminists consider strippers to be “subjects with power” rather than “objects of power” (Murphy 308) and view sex workers as simply people looking to capitalize economically by selling their bodies. According to Murphy, however, strippers are constantly negotiating their power relationships in the workplace and therefore are neither completely powerful nor devoid of control.

Although females, when they allow themselves to become “sex objects,” theoretically cease to exist because they become the fictitious embodiment of male desires and fantasies, Murphy explains that strippers who men and outsiders view as sex objects are actually quite active in constructing themselves as being such. Women actively perform the role that they think men want them to play and are not intrinsically the “objects” men desire; therefore, women are not submissively allowing themselves to be objectified but are employing discursive strategies to maximize profits. Thus, men may seemingly exert control over strippers by making them the subjects of their gaze, but they are controlled by their own spectatorship because they are passive witnesses to the actions of their subjects.

Strippers develop complex methods of deception in order to maintain control over their customers—they build a false sense of intimacy with the men they interact with so that the male customers will tip more generously. In one stripper’s words, “I am making so much money off these guys that are stupid enough to spend it. That is power. What is more power than that?” (317) Furthermore, strippers, like their customers, employ gazing strategies; they are constantly watching customers to figure out which men have the most money to spend.

On the other hand, according to the author, “strippers are molded, controlled, and ordered to maintain a ‘proper’ performance in front of their customers, their managers, and their families” (313); in this way, strippers have little personal control and are forced to behave in specified ways in various situations both in and outside of the workplace. Also, in bowing to the whims of male customers, female strippers must put up with various inappropriate behaviors: “[men do] not have to be witty, nice or smart for these female bodies to serve and entertain him. To make money in this occupation, dancers must stand almost naked in front of fully clothed men and tolerate their insulting and degrading comments, daily sexual propositions, roving hands, and even some physical threats” (314). As Murphy proves, while exotic dancers may have some discursive control over their customers, they must pretend not to have any power and are forced to be extremely accommodating to the wishes of even the most brutish males they serve.