Birds do it, bees do it. People write about it — a lot.

The Washington Post
By Lily Burana

In her early twenties, Elisabeth Eaves became intrigued by strippers — she wondered if stereotypes about them were valid, if their lives were as free from social restriction as they appeared, and if she herself could stand in their sparkly platform shoes. She figured there was but one way to find out, so in between earning her bachelor’s degree in Washington and shipping off to New York for grad school and a journalism career, Eaves danced for a year at Seattle’s all-nude peep show, the Lusty Lady. In her memoir, Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power (Knopf, $ 24), Eaves recounts her initial stint as a “girl-in-the-box,” profiles a sampling of fellow co-workers, explores other local ecdysiast venues, and emerges with a clear-headed, thoughtful portrait of a controversial business much like photojournalist Erika Langley’s underappreciated 1997 book, The Lusty Lady.

Bare favors sociopolitical inquiry over prurience, using non-sensationalist language and stripper vernacular to explore whether the benefits of stripping outweigh the considerable costs. Unlike other postcard-from-the-edge memoirs such as Jerry Stahl’s Permanent Midnight or Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, Bare exhibits little angsty hipster flash or confessional urgency. Rather, Eaves’s writing evinces her journalistic training. No matter how intimate the matter described, the reportorial remove lends an almost mentholated coolness to the book — a useful means of keeping readers engaged in such an incendiary subject without triggering repugnance or pathos flame-out.

Bare has much in common with Ted Conover’s Newjack and Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed as a first-rate, first-person work of social anthropology, in which the writer is immersed in a certain line of work for reasons more exploratory than financial. Impressively assured and astute, Bare reveals the working conditions and personal challenges inherent in taking it off to get ahead.

Lily Burana is the author of “Strip City: A Stripper’s Farewell Journey Across America.”