sigelphoenix

So. Last night at zinjadu's birthday party, she had a male stripper (courtesy of the lovely lunapome). It was ... an experience. I don't know if it's an experience I necessarily needed in my life, but, uh, it's an experience and I had it. XD "Have a stranger in a thong sit on my lap and make me smack his ass" is now off of my list of things to do before I die (in case for some reason it was ever on there).

Anyway. More interesting to my nerdy brain than the embarrassingly up-close-and-personal aspect of the show was the fact that it was the closest encounter I've had with a sex worker. (I'm not sure if a man parading around in a thong should be classified as sex work any more than female models lounging around in lingerie, but in any case I don't know any sex workers personally - at least, none who have shared as much with me - so this is the closest I've come to someone who fits the category.)

At first, I was only concerned with how the audience would feel - myself, the birthday girl, the other women in attendance. Up till the party itself, I actually wasn't sure if I'd stay for the show (I ended up promising to stay as moral support). For nearly all of us, this was our first time seeing a stripper, and we didn't really know what to expect.

I was pretty shocked at how hands-on the show was. I had expected dancing at a distance and some approaching of the birthday girl, but the performer got the audience physically involved immediately. He initiated physical contact, and allowed the audience to touch him - notably, he never explicitly stated, "Touching is okay," or even, "Touching here is okay, but this is off limits." He didn't kiss or grope anybody, but there was a good bit of closeness and some simulated sex acts - all with a sense of fun and humor, but it made me wonder. Do female strippers who perform at private parties do this? And if so, how do they feel about it? I thought about how strippers are often mislabeled as prostitutes, particularly because being sexual is seen as inviting/expecting sex. Or what about the admonishment that many of us grew up hearing, that being the lone woman in a group of men behind closed doors can be risky - because either they'll expect sex from you, or people on the outside will think of you as slutty for doing it.

Of course strippers are not stupid, and they must take into account all of these preconceptions when they take on their jobs (ideally, willingly, but of course that's not something to rely on). But men are not raised with the warning that, say, being alone among a group of women will put them at risk for being raped. Even if they do feel this concern, it is to a lesser degree and on a smaller scale than women. And so I wonder how they deal with it.

Not that men in similar positions have it totally easy. I felt some sympathy for the performer at the party last night, like I tend to do whenever I see a live performance - a performer of any kind is trying to get the audience to do something, whether it's laugh or, I don't know, cheer at the sight of your thong. Your success hinges on their reaction at the moment. The guy last night seemed quite at ease, and was friendly and outgoing, so I don't think he was very worried about it. But I did wonder, how would he handle a less amiable group? We were all well-meaning and mostly too shy to risk being rude; what about people who are unpleasant, or take excessive physical liberties? How do you deflect that, accommodate that, and still do the job you're being paid for? Like any performance, you really have to gauge your audience and adjust your performance to their preferences. But the aspects of a stripping performance are necessarily more intimate and risky than, say, live theatre or stand-up comedy.

The performer last night was pretty good at reading the audience, and he really seemed well-meaning. There was one instance of flagrant misinterpretation of boundaries (luckily verbal, but still a real failing on his part). Besides that, I think everyone in the audience felt okay. But I wonder - I was definitely embarrassed and awkward the whole time, even if I was having fun overall. The guy was gentle in his demeanor, and didn't push me to do anything I didn't want to do (only things I felt embarrassed doing, which is different). But if I had felt uncomfortable to the point of absolutely not wanting something, I wonder how he would have handled that. What about really borderline stuff, if I wasn't obviously about to run away screaming but still not comfortable enough? I was lucky in that, even though I was surprised at the style of the show, it didn't go into the realm of violating my boundaries. If it had - maybe this guy would have been observant enough to handle that. But are all strippers? What kind of training do they receive to accommodate it?

This situation can certainly arise with a female stripper and male audiences, but because of the cultural weight of male-to-female sexual advances (I'm thinking particularly of the pressure on women not to say no), I think it's more likely to happen - and more likely to reach a problematic level - with male strippers and female audiences.

Sorry, no real conclusions. Just the beginnings of thoughts that were triggered last night. (Maybe this was an experience I needed to have, just for unconventional reasons.)