(This essay ran in my Sense and the City column in today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune TICKET, but for some reason they didn’t post it online — so I’m posting the piece below. All rights reserved by the Sarasota Herald Tribune.)
I just can’t get into the whole pole-dancing and burlesque scene that, by all accounts, is sizzling up the sexy quotient in Sarasota.
Go ahead, call me a prude. But before you get your knickers in a twist, let me assure you – I could care less who likes taking their clothes off and who likes paying for the pleasure of watching them do it. I have no personal objection or moral disagreement with it. But I do have a question or two.
We all know that sex sells. But what’s it selling?
Overtly, sex is selling tickets — to strip clubs, movies, even to charitable events like last year’s Planned Parenthood “Safe Sex Halloween Bash” where scantily clad female dancers slithered up and down stripper poles. Sex also sells business lunches at Hooters, Suncoast boat races, and subscriptions to Sports Illustrated. Heck, sex even sells newspaper websites, as Tom Lyons recently explained in his Sarasota Herald-Tribune column, “Sex and naked: bet you’ll click,” where he humorously decried readers’ preference for sexualized content.
And, if you read last week’s TICKET article, “You Sexy Things: Black Diamond Burlesque is steaming up SRQ,” you learned that sex, as presented by “old-school” burlesque, is now even selling self-esteem and confidence. “Empowered” and “empowering” is how two Black Diamond dancers described the burlesque experience.
“Empower” means to give or derive power or ability. I have a vague idea of how burlesque’s bump and grind might empower men, but what does strip-teasing empower women to do, or be, or feel?
Some women say there are powerful psychological rewards in knowing that the tassel-tossing and G-stringed gyrations of their own sometimes imperfect bodies can tickle the erotic fancies of a room full of men and women. And drawing money, envy, lust, claps and kudos by performing a shrewdly seductive strip and tease for the so-called sophisticated set, could arguably leave a woman with a very satisfying feeling of financial, sexual, emotional, or social “empowerment.” And, indeed, if the success of the Pussycat Dolls burlesque troupe of Los Angeles is any measure, there’s money, fame, and success, to be mined in them thar hills.
My problem is that when we’re selling sex – whether in newspapers, song lyrics, films, politics, burlesque, or even on the street – what we’re selling are women. Women as a commodity. Women as things whose highest and best use is as bodies that seduce and excite the senses at their “classy” best, and churn out “shake your moneymaker” dollars at their crass worst.
Maybe I’m over-thinking all this; I’ve certainly been accused of that enough, and in a way, I actually hope I’m wrong. I almost wish it’s true that moving burlesque from the boys-only back rooms to a community’s center stage as entertainment for couples just wanting a sexy night out on the town, is simply an indication of America loosening up a bit and not just another sign that women’s worth is in their wiggle. And, truly, I have no desire to disparage or discourage any woman’s means of employment, creativity, or self-realization. I want women to feel profoundly empowered and whether they get that from performing burlesque or brain surgery, hey, more power to them.
In the short run, I’m pretty sure that things like running girls up a pole at a fundraiser and setting a few libidos – and egos — on fire with an R-rated onstage romp, aren’t going to lead to the downfall of western civilization. And in the long run, I absolutely believe there’s empowerment to be had in the mainstreaming of selling sex. Somebody, for sure, is gaining real wealth and amassing true power by the ubiquitous and incessant buying and selling of women’s bodies and sexuality.
I just don’t think it’s women.