Strip Show: Performances of Gender and Desire. (Books).

Katherine Liepe-Levinson. Strip Show: Performances of Gender and Desire. New York: Routledge, 2002.

This book offers an account of an unprecedented North American study of contemporary female and male strip shows. It particularly focuses on the contradictory sex roles, cultural positions, and performance practices of "straight" strip shows during their second heyday in the early 1990s. (In the interests of full "disclosure," be advised that I am proudly reviewing my wife's book. -- MHL)

Liepe-Levinson's research took her to over seventy different strip bars, clubs, theaters, and sex emporia ranging from elaborate lap-dancing and couch dancing "gentlemen's" clubs in New York, Houston, and San Francisco; to Peoria's onetime duplex cabaret where women strip for men downstairs, and men for women upstairs; to the nightclubs of Montreal where female and male performers display the "Full Monty." The result of this investigation is a well-documented, comprehensive, and highly readable book.

The author concentrates on the cultural and theatrical elements of the strip shows themselves, including the geographic locations and interior designs of the clubs, the choreography and costumes of the dancers, and the all-important participation of the audience. She draws upon a variety of methodologies as well as interviews with performers to explore how the strip show's cultural and theatrical aspects simultaneously uphold and break traditional sex roles. Her findings readily complicate several of the most prominent and prevalent theories about sexual representation, gender, and desire.

Strip Show also contains a compelling analysis of Mayor Giuliani's multiple attempts to shut down New York City's strip clubs. The book features numerous end notes, a detailed bibliography, and a myriad of informative, and occasionally humorous, illustrations. Through logically reasoned arguments and a mountain of evidence, Liepe-Levinson makes a solid case that there is a lot more to strip shows than mere titillation and the removal of clothing.