Altar Magazine
Issue #4 -- Winter 2005

The Naked Truth About Stripping

Mandy Van Deven Interviews Elisabeth Eaves

Stripping is one of the most hotly contested feminist issues. Is it objectification? Is it empowerment? In Bare, Elisabeth Eaves does a fantastic job sifting through the complexities to give us a more three-dimensional look at the sex industry. She shows us that there are many sides to every story and gives us a peep-show into her life and the lives of the women she met while stripping.

AM: You begin your book calling stripping a "profoundly egalitarian trade" and end by saying that all sexuality for profit is "insidious." What changed for you?
EE: I think when I said it was egalitarian I meant it in the sense that nobody cares who you are, and it’s really actually not about being prettier or having the biggest breasts, but more about having the stamina to sell yourself. So, in that sense it’s egalitarian. It’s egalitarian in the sense that it accepts anyone. Just about any young woman can walk in off the street and do this job, no questions asked.As for it being insidious, whenever you do something you wouldn’t do otherwise in order to get something, you’re selling yourself. This may come as a surprise to some, but that doesn’t necessarily happen when you first start stripping. I think a lot of young women think it’s going to be kind of fun and exciting, and they’re very curious to see what it’s like. But stripping definitely pulls you toward doing things you never planned to. You may end up making a split-second decision to do something for money, and then think, "Well, I didn’t really want to do that." And that’s really when it starts to become insidious. It can work in ways that you don’t even
notice, making you more artificial all the time. Other reasons my view went downhill include the fact that I met other women who I feel became kind of trapped in the profession. I knew a lot of women who started out doing it to get through school, or they just wanted to try it out or have a part-time job. For a number of them it seemed to close out other options because the amount you earn in a short period of time is relatively high. There’s a point when you become dependent on that, and to have to leave that and start at the bottom in another profession gets harder and harder. The longer you’re a stripper, and you’re making all of your income from that, the more daunting it becomes to actually leave.

AM: Control is a big theme throughout the book and you write a lot about boundaries. Can you talk a little about why boundaries are important, in general and for you personally, in stripping?
EE: The more I think about it, the more I think that boundaries are what make society function. We don’t talk about them much. We might talk about boundaries if someone ignores them – say, if someone invades your sense of personal space on the bus – but for the most part boundaries are something we don’t normally talk about. We only notice them when something feels really uncomfortable, like if you walked out your front door and some guy had no pants on or if someone touches you when you don’t want them touching you. We notice our own boundaries when they’re breached, but we’re all getting along on a day to day basis because we basically have a shared understanding of boundaries. This may not be true all the time, but basically we share them or can agree on something. When I went into
stripping I thought, I should be able to do what I want and nobody should be offended if I’m going to be naked. I felt that if someone else had a problem
with what I was doing, it was her problem, not mine. I felt more militant about it. But as it went on I realized, and I write about it throughout the book, I was really bothered by things that Zoe did. She wasn’t even doing anything that was really right or wrong, but it made me uncomfortable because she was going further than I thought was appropriate. At some point I just realized that my boundaries may not be where anyone else’s are, but if someone has fewer boundaries that I do then that really bothers me. That really gave me more respect for the mainstream of collective boundaries put in place so we can all get along with each other and allow society to function. On a personal level, I’m not very physically modest, and it really doesn’t bug me to be naked. When I was working at the peep show, stripping just didn’t faze me that much, but when I started working in lap dancing shows and had to have physical contact with a customer I thought, "Oh my god, I feel really uncomfortable. I really don’t like this." Some women, on the other hand, don’t want to work at a peep show because then you see all these guys masturbating. It’s just a totally personal thing. I knew what bugged me and what didn’t bug me, and it made it a little easier to define my own boundaries. But again, when the money comes into play, it inevitably makes you breach what you thought your boundaries were. As a stripper someone will always be offering you more money to do something more. The push of the customer and the money is very enticing and can push you into doing something you aren’t comfortable with.

AM: And then there were times when your boundaries were breached by other people, for example, Zoe giving your phone number to a customer.

EE: Yeah! That made me really uncomfortable.
AM: You also write that you think a stripper can be feminist either if she wants revenge on men or wants them completely excluded from her life.
EE: I mean that if you work in a peep show or a strip club and you don’t have men in your personal life (i.e. you’re a lesbian or you mostly have relationships with women), then basically it doesn’t matter because the contact you have with men at a peep show is not really full fledged. You don’t see these guys for their character. You see them for the money. So if you don’t have to go home and deal with a boyfriend or a husband, then stripping doesn’t interfere in your life. I feel like it’s a lot harder for straight women to date men because even if you come in with a positive feeling toward men, in general, stripping is going to make your feeling toward them more negative. It’s going to make you more cynical about men. It definitely made me more cynical about men. It’s hard to not let that happen.
I think it’s kind of hostile going both ways. You just don’t see the customer; I didn’t see the customer as much more than a source of cash. And I think there’s something inherently hostile in that. You dance thinking, "Don’t talk to me. Don’t stick around here. You got what you came for. Just give me your money." There’s something really negative and hostile in not acknowledging the actual person. It’s a power trip in the sense that you think, "How stupid are you? You come in here to see someone naked and give up money to me every day." It’s just a really negative relationship because it causes you to compartmentalize people. In daily life you’re used to dealing with a whole person. Like a family member, or a coworker, for
instance. You have to deal with a larger spectrum of their personality. When sex is for sale, you’re putting yourself in a position in which you don’t have to deal with a whole person. I mean, when men use prostitutes they aren’t just paying for sex. They’re paying the prostitute to not be around afterward. I’ve met plenty of men who have used prostitutes, and they could have free sex if they wanted to, but they were paying for the cleanness of not feeling accountable to their sex partner. There’s something very hostile in that.

To read the full interview including answers to the questions
Who did you choose to tell about your stripping and why?
What were the most common reactions?
What does stripping have to do with street harassment?
How do strippers "play" with gender stereotypes?
Is stripping objectification?
How does the environment of a strip club influence power dynamics?
pick up a copy of Altar Magazine #4!

BACK To News & Reviews