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Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 34, No. 5, October 2005, pp. 487–504 ( C
2005)
DOI: 10.1007/s10508-005-6275-8
Invited Essay
Exploring the Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club
Customers in Relation to Legal Regulations1
Katherine Frank, Ph.D.2,3
Strip clubs are a popular form of adult entertainment in the contemporary United States. Strip clubs
are also highly embattled entertainment venues, based on assumptions about their associations with
prostitution, drug use, and “negative secondary effects” in surrounding areas, such as increased crime
rates and decreased property values. Based on participant observation in five strip clubs in one city and
on qualitative interviews with 30 regular male customers of those clubs, this essay seeks to challenge
assumptions about the kinds of encounters sought in and purchased in such venues. Instead of visiting
strip clubs out of a desire to purchase sexual release with the dancers, I found that the regular male
customers were seeking an atmosphere different from both work and home, personal and sexual
acceptance from women and the pleasure of a sexualized encounter without the pressures of physical
performance, and a form of leisure that offered a relative degree of “safety” as well as “excitement.”
Further, the men’s own fantasies of identity, their understandings of marriage, and their commitment
to a particular kind of monogamy influenced their choice of entertainment and the pleasure that they
took in their encounters with the dancers. The essay discusses these motivations and their relational
aspects and assesses strip club regulation in light of these observations and findings.
KEY WORDS: sex; masculinity; sex industry; strip clubs; consumption.
INTRODUCTION
Strip clubs catering specifically to heterosexual men
are currently a very popular form of entertainment in the
United States. The number of major strip clubs nearly
doubled between 1987 and 1992, and by 1997 there were
around 3000 clubs nationally. The industry is estimated to
be a 15 billion dollar business, with the annual revenues
of strip clubs ranging from $500,000 to over 5 million
(Hanna, 2005; Schlosser, 1997). Strip clubs range in
type from neighborhood bars to high-end entertainment
complexes known as gentleman’s clubs, and may offer
an array of services inside—stage dancing, table dancing,
lap dancing, extended conversational opportunities with
dancers, food and beverages, liquor, and televised sports
1This article is a revision of an Invited Lecture delivered at the meeting
of the International Academy of Sex Research, Helsinki, Finland, June
2004.
2Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
3To whom correspondence should be addressed at 3808 N. Richmond
St., Arlington, Virginia 22207; e-mail: katefrank@comcast.net.
events. Upper-tier gentleman’s clubs may also provide
conference rooms or VIP rooms to draw a professional
or business crowd; many of these clubs also are marketed
to middle class customers as “classy” venues featuring
refined “entertainers.”
Despite their popularity and ubiquitousness, strip
clubs are also a highly embattled form of entertainment,
currently the subject of intense public scrutiny, debate, and
regulation. The opposition to strip clubs (and other forms
of sex work or adult businesses) is often fairly organized
and groups such as the National Family Legal Foundation
draw on discourses of public and private morality to
bolster their attacks against such establishments (Hanna,
1998a). Though exotic dance has minimal protections
as a form of expressive conduct, there has been a
tendency in both the upper and lower courts to allow
local municipalities to enact restrictive zoning regulations
based on often unsupportable claims that strip clubs pose
public health risks, encourage prostitution, are associated
with drug use, and lead to adverse secondary effects in
areas where they are located, such as increased crime and
decreased property values in surrounding areas (Land,
487
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2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
488 Frank
Williams, Ezell, Paul, & Linz, 2004; Paul, Linz, &
Shafer, 2001). Some extreme conservatives have also
suggested that strip clubs lead to increases in rape and
domestic violence in the communities where they are
located, again despite a lack of evidence (Snider, 2003);
others pose concerns about the dissolution of “the family”
or harm caused to minors as a result of sexualized
commodification.
As zoning regulations are often designed and im-
plemented to eradicate nude or topless dancing in com-
munities (Baldas, 1998) and tend to be based on fears
of economic or moral blight rather than on research into
whether or not the clubs actually cause social problems
and what those problems are, regulatory attempts may
produce unintended or even humorous results. Zoning
laws instated in New York City in 1995, for example,
forced many sexually oriented establishments to either
relocate or adapt their operations such that they complied
with relatively extreme ordinances. Hanna (1998b) notes
that one of the new requirements under these ordinances,
that sexual entertainment and materials make up only
40 percent of the businesses, meant that as adult estab-
lishments tried to avoid being regulated out of existence
they ended up with “G-rated videos on one side of the
store, XXX-rated ones on the other; pool tables and dart
boards replacing table-dancing tables” (Hanna, 1998b,
p. 9). One strip club also began to allow minors to enter
with parental supervision in order to avoid the designation
of “adult” entertainment—one can easily imagine the
kind of response that received. An ordinance passed in
2001 in Boise, Idaho, banned public nudity except in
instances where it had “serious artistic merit”; clearly
an attempt to crack down on bodily display in strip clubs
without also censoring art classes, plays, or other kinds of
performances. With a spark of creativity that must have
been maddening to the City Council who supported the
ordinance, a local strip club allowed dancers to forgo
their g-strings and pasties on “Art Club nights,” where
customers could purchase art materials and practice nude
figure sketching.4Strippers attempted to use a loophole
in a public decency ordinance in Seminole County,
Florida, that banned nudity except in “theatrical perfor-
mances” by performing scenes from MacBeth without
their g-strings and pasties. Commissioners later closed the
loophole by banning all nudity in establishments that sold
alcohol.
Such regulations are more disturbing than amusing,
often having devastating consequences for the women
(and men) who support themselves and their families by
4MSNBC, February 17, 2005.
working in the clubs, and posing serious First Amendment
questions as well. Over the past several years Hanna has
testified as an expert witness in First Amendment cases
related to strip clubs in over eighty court cases in states like
Nevada, Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, California,
Michigan, and Washington. She writes that she has
watched the courts and legislatures “impose restrictions
on all aspects of exotic dance, including distance from
the audience, degree of nudity, self-touching or touching
of a spectator, lighting, types of gesture and movement,
whether alcohol may be served, and the proximity of clubs
to schools and residences” (1998b, p. 8), as well as on
hours of operation for the clubs and on requisite licensing
of the dancers. A 2000 Supreme Court case addressing
the issue, Erie, PA, et al. v. Pap’s A.M., et al., upheld the
constitutional validity of such regulation despite the often
ambiguous and contradictory evidence for these kinds
of negative primary and secondary effects, and Justices
Scalia and Thomas argued that municipalities had the
right to regulate the conduct of their residents through
restrictive legislation regardless of whether or not this
impinged on free expression.
Now, most of the ordinances drafted by local com-
munities, as well as the Justices’ decisions in the above
case and others, seem to be based on conjectures about
just what the men (and women) are up to when they enter
a strip club. There is endless speculation about drugs,
prostitution, and crime—by customers, lawmakers, and
people who have never even entered a strip club. Yet my
experiences as an ethnographer of American strip clubs
did not confirm the worst of these fears. While these
activities surface at times, in often-scandalous ways—
as they do in many industries—I came away from my
research with a belief that most of the customers were in
search of something completely different through their
interactions, especially the regular customers of these
kinds of clubs.
In my recent ethnography of no-contact strip clubs
in the United States (Frank, 2002a), I discussed customer
motivations for visiting strip clubs and the experiences
they purchased inside these venues. In this particular
research, I was specifically interested in exploring the
personal and cultural fantasies underlying visits to strip
clubs for certain groups of heterosexual men. My primary
argument in this ethnography and in related publications
has been that the customers’ understandings of their
visits to the clubs are intertwined with cultural discourses
about masculinity, sexuality, and consumption, but also
that their visits become meaningful and desirable in
relation to their everyday lives and relationships and their
own personal and emotional experiences of gender and
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 489
sexuality. In this essay, I explore some of the customers’
motivations in relation to the assumptions underlying strip
club regulation, and suggest that perhaps some of these
efforts at social control are misdirected.
A few clarifications are necessary. In the clubs I
studied, strippers are generally not selling sex to their
customers although they are indeed selling sexualized and
gendered services (about which I will go into more detail
below). Second, I also need to point out that the focus in
my research was on regulars—those male customers who
visit strip clubs often enough to consider this a significant
personal practice. For these customers, visits to strip
clubs were part of a meaningful and desirable repertoire
of sexual and/or leisure practices, and were a form of
consumption that was integrated with their other activities,
pursuits, and relationships. These were not men who just
happened to wander in off the street wondering what a
strip club looked like inside or men who accompanied
friends or business acquaintances for a bachelor party
or other event; nor were they men who were dissatisfied
with the services offered inside—they paid repeatedly, and
usually quite highly, for those services. This is a significant
distinction that I return to quite frequently. Many dancers
make the majority of their income from regulars, not from
incidental customers.
My decision to focus on the male customers of the
clubs rather than the women who dance in them was
motivated by both political and theoretical concerns. Upon
hearing I have conducted research in strip clubs, people
often ask me: “Why do the women do it?” In fact, this
was my initial question as well. After all, nearly all
the literature I could find on strip clubs, both academic
and popular, dealt with the mythologies that surrounded
the dancers: What kind of “personality” does a woman
need to have in order to become an exotic dancer? How
many dancers have been sexually abused or use drugs or
alcohol to “make the work bearable”? How many dancers
have dysfunctional relationships because of breaching the
taboos on appearing naked in public and on mixing money
and sexualized encounters? These questions are still being
asked.
Yet, assumptions about the nature of sex work and
sex workers (such as the belief that a woman would have
to be damaged in some way to choose to work in the
industry), along with the power differentials that often
exist between researchers and their subjects in terms
of gender, educational levels, economic resources, and
cultural capital, influence not only the questions that are
asked, but also who is studied, in what manner, and how
the findings are represented. This is not to deny that some
dancers have been sexually abused, may use drugs or
alcohol or have difficulty forming intimate relationships—
just as individuals working in other occupations do.
Rather, it is to point out that the kinds of information
that are sought by researchers and the questions we ask
are in and of themselves political and based on cultural
assumptions. In this case, the behavior of the dancers has
been repeatedly interrogated by social scientists (often as
a form of pathology or deviance) while the actions of
the customers who support the industry have often been
normalized or ignored until more recently. At the same
time, lawmakers and activists often make assumptions
about the reasons behind men’s use of the sex industry and
about the effects of adult entertainment on relationships
and communities. In this research, I wanted to interrogate
the behavior of the male customers of strip clubs as a
modern form of voyeuristic, gendered leisure practice,
rather than unproblematically taking it to be an expression
of some pre-existing, natural male sexuality, and to
question assumptions about the kinds of interactions the
men were seeking from the dancers.
THE ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTEXT
The data for this particular study were gathered
through participant observation and through a series of
multiple, in-depth interviews with 30 male customers of
strip clubs in a large Southern city, which I refer to as “Lau-
relton.” As a participant observer in Laurelton, I selected
and worked at five different strip clubs intermittently over
a period of fourteen months as an entertainer. I selected a
range of sites, from the most prestigious clubs in the city
to lower tier bars. At each of the selected clubs, I went
through the application, audition, and training process as
would any new entertainer and worked a variety of shifts
to gain access to a range of customers, employees, and
experiences. After being hired I was forthcoming with
my managers and co-workers about my research when
asked. While some managers and other dancers showed
an interest in my project, offering insights and suggesting
interviewees, others seemed to barely take note of my
existence, either as a dancer or a researcher. In addition to
my research in Laurelton, I worked off and on for about six
years as an entertainer in an upscale club in the Midwest.
This was not an official field site, but my experiences
there both before and after my employment in Laurelton
inform my interpretations and analysis. Over the years,
I have also observed in strip clubs around the country
and continued to interview dancers, customers, and other
individuals involved with the industry.
As an ethnographic research method, participant
observation has a long history in anthropology and other
490 Frank
fields, and there is an expansive literature reflecting on the
benefits and limitations of the method, interpreting find-
ings, and understanding the complex interactions between
researchers and the communities they study. Prus (1996)
argued that participant-observation affords researchers
“with invaluable vantage points” for appreciating the
life-worlds of others, and in this situation, engaging in
participant observation meant that I had the opportunity
to interact continually with a variety of male customers in
the actual setting that I was studying. Interactions between
dancers and their customers are semi-private; the noise of
the club and the physical proximity of the participants
are such that their conversations would not be accessible
to a mere observer. In this respect, working as a dancer
and recording my own interactions was essential. As an
employee, I had access to the conference rooms, VIP
rooms, and the private, backstage areas of the clubs. I was
also subject to the same rules, procedures, and tip-outs
as other dancers, which meant that I needed to quickly
figure out how to be successful at the job. Being involved
in multiple interactions in the clubs with customers,
dancers, and other employees gave me insight into the
context and meaning of customer behaviors and fantasies.
Though recognizing me as a researcher might have led
some individuals to change their behavior or monitor
their responses to my questions, I was also involved in
transactions in Laurelton where I was seen as only a
dancer (situations where the customer did not want any
conversation or did not believe I was a researcher, or
where I did not have time to reveal this information for
one reason or another).
While striptease audiences in the past may have
been engaged primarily by the dancers on the main stage
(Salutin, 1971), contemporary strip clubs often offer a
more individualized experience for their customers, with
dancers circulating amongst the crowd between their
sets. Each selected venue in Laurelton offered stage
performances by the dancers, along with the opportunity
for customers to purchase “private” table dances. Table
dances were offered to the customers at their seats, on
a raised platform or table, or while standing on the
ground between the man’s knees. These private dances
involved a more individualized interaction between the
dancers and their customers, but although a dancer could
disrobe completely and place her hands on the customers’
shoulders, other forms of bodily contact were prohibited
and these rules were enforced by club employees. Dancers
were also required to keep at least one foot of space
between themselves and the customers during dances.
Customers were not allowed to touch the dancers, or
to touch or expose their own genitals. These rules were
rarely openly transgressed, and when they were, the
customer was usually asked to leave the club.5As the
dancers circulated amongst the customers to sell table
dances, the individualized interactions and conversations
that took place became an important part of the overall
experience. There are clubs in the US and elsewhere
that offer lap dancing—which involves varying amounts
of contact between the dancer and the patron and can
lead to sexual release for the customer, who may even
wear a condom underneath his clothes. For the purposes
of this research, however, lap dancing is considered a
different form of entertainment because of the contact
involved and the meaning of such an encounter for the
customers. The regulars themselves claimed to consider
lap-dancing a different form of entertainment—there were
a few topless clubs in Laurelton, for example, that did
not serve alcohol or allow full nudity but permitted lap
dancing; however, these served a different customer base.
Rules and regulations may vary by geographical region,
community, and even from club to club.
In addition to conducting extensive participant obser-
vation, I collected qualitative interview data from 30 regu-
lars. Except for two men who were also employees, all the
interviewees were customers of the strip clubs I worked
in. While working in Laurelton, I spoke with hundreds
of male customers about my research and almost always
approached those customers as potential interviewees. I
was forthcoming about my research purposes whenever
possible and provided the customers with my real name
(in addition to my stage name) and information about how
to contact me for an interview. Many men declined to do
formal interviews but commented on my research, telling
me their reasons for visiting the clubs and discussing their
opinions about adult entertainment, commodification,
masculinity, and sexuality. The taped interview sessions
with the official interviewees were conducted at their
workplaces or at restaurants or coffee shops. Interviews
usually lasted from two to four hours, with 2 or 3 follow-
up interviews several weeks later. The interviews were
open-ended and many of my questions aimed at eliciting
extended narratives about their experiences in the clubs.
5There were some ways that dancers and customers made contact that
bordered on breaking the law or the club rules but that they were
not reprimanded for if the contact was consensual and quick. A dancer
might lean in towards the customer during her table dance, for example,
momentarily leaving less than 12 inches between them. She might
touch his legs or shoulders during a dance, or let her hair graze his
lap. Customers might sometimes be given a hug while the dancers
were clothed, a thank-you peck on the cheek after a tip or a dance, or
be allowed to lay a hand on a dancer’s leg while she sat next to him
(again, clothed). Dancers might also quickly run their hands over their
own breasts during a table dance (though would be reprimanded if this
happened onstage in most clubs, as it was against the law in Laurelton).
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 491
The interviewees ranged in age from 28 to 57. All
situated themselves as heterosexual, as somewhere in
the middle class, and as having at least some college
education. Twenty-seven were White Americans, two
were African-Americans, and one was a White British
citizen who frequently traveled to the US on business. Men
who interviewed, of course, differed from other customers
(e.g., by placing more value on higher education or having
the free time, privacy, and interest to participate). Given
that there were too many customers in the clubs for me to
approach every one every night, my sample is somewhat
biased in favor of men who chose to interact with me.
However, my employment brought me into contact with
hundreds of men on each shift and the interviewees did
not strike me as substantively different from these other
customers. Also, as customers and their desires were
one of the main topics of conversation among dancers
in the dressing rooms, I can be reasonably certain that
my customers and these interviewees were not unique. A
distinction should be made between regulars of particular
strip clubs and regulars of particular dancers. Although
such a distinction is not absolute, there are some customers
who tend to return to the same club or clubs repeatedly,
regardless of which dancers are available to interact with,
while others consider themselves loyal to a particular
dancer (or dancers) and may even begin frequenting a
different venue if she decides to change workplaces.
Both of these kinds of regulars are represented in my
research.
My methodology presented several unique oppor-
tunities as well as certain limitations. First, because the
men I interviewed were regular customers of the clubs,
I often had the chance to interact with them in multiple
ways and on a variety of occasions—as both a dancer
and a researcher, before and after the interviews. Second,
whether men visit strip clubs in groups or alone influences
both the conversation and the physical dynamics of the
interaction. Because I could never interview an entire
group of men at once (and I could never recreate the
club setting and interpersonal dynamic), I had to observe
the interactions of men in groups and interview them
singly. Because their personal narrative accounts often
differed from the group interactions that I observed while
working, both of these methodologies were valuable.
(For example, men in groups were much more likely to
speak in demeaning ways about a dancer’s body but were
respectful in individual interaction. Also, as many group
occasions were bachelor parties, men in groups often
spoke detrimentally about marriage and relationships with
women. Singly, however, these same men often professed
love for their wives and a great deal of satisfaction
with their outside intimate lives. Though neither of these
interactions should be taken as more authentic than the
other, the contrast is significant.)
Because I was studying educated, middle-class men,
I was often interviewing from an inferior position in
terms of gender, age, and resources as well as from a
socially stigmatized position, and this was something that
many of the interviewees were aware of and commented
upon. The fact that I was a woman may have influenced
interactions with the male interviewees, and the men
might have interacted differently with a male interviewer.
However, it is important to remember that I was involved
in interactions with each of the interviewees before our
formal interviews and that I was perceived by them as a
dancer as well as a researcher. Many of the men made
comments like, “I can tell you this because you’re a
dancer,” and claimed they could be more honest with
someone who understood the interactions in the clubs and
for whom they did not need to “censor” their beliefs or
desires. Given that the interviewees also often expressed
a difficulty in discussing personal issues with other men,
their conversations with a male interviewer may not
have been more truthful or authentic. Further, although
it can certainly be argued that the interviewees and other
customers were reluctant to tell me the whole truth about
their motivations and desires in our conversations—in
fact, it would have been impossible for them to do so if
one accepts the possibility of unconscious motivation—I
can say with confidence that I do know what men were
willing to pay for night after night.
CUSTOMER MOTIVATION
So what were the customers interested in purchasing?
And how might an understanding of customer motivation
help us think about regulating strip clubs?
Although it is often assumed that men visit all
of the different venues of the sex industry seeking
physical contact and actual sexual release with women,
this assumption is faulty. In this particular case, not one
man I interviewed said he went to the clubs specifically
for sexual release, even in the form of masturbation at a
later time. Most men, and especially the regulars, realized
that sexual activity was available in other venues of the
industry and were explicit about their knowledge of this
fact. The Laurelton sex industry, like that found in many
metropolitan areas, offered a full menu of sexual goods
and services from which to choose, including full service
prostitution, erotic massage, and venues for interaction
with masturbation. One-time or infrequent visitors were
more likely to assume or hope that sexual release would
be available in strip clubs.
492 Frank
Instead, regulars claimed that they went to the clubs
to “relax.” By this, the men actually meant several
different things: strip clubs provided an atmosphere
different from both work and home, allowed them the
opportunity for both personal and sexual acceptance from
women and the pleasure of a sexualized encounter without
the pressures of physical performance, and offered a
relative degree of “safety” as well as “excitement.” In
the following section, I discuss each of these motivations
briefly.6Then, I explore the relational aspects of the
men’s visits, as the men’s own fantasies of identity, and
their understandings of marriage and monogamy, also
influenced their choice of entertainment and the pleasure
that they took in their encounters with the dancers.
Finally, I return to the idea of regulation in light of these
observations and findings.
Masculine Space
Strip clubs provide an atmosphere different from
work and home in part because they provide an environ-
ment where men can engage in traditionally masculine
activities and forms of consumption often frowned upon
in these other spheres—cigar smoking, drinking, and even
being “rowdy,” vulgar or aggressive. But part of the
reason this distinctiveness was experienced as relaxing
was related to the kinds of relationships that could be
developed with women in the clubs. Despite the fact
that the nudity becomes commonplace to regulars, it is
still significant that the clubs are a place where many
everyday expectations are inverted; for example, women
are undressed in a public space and tend to initiate
sexualized interactions rather than the men, sometimes
quite aggressively, and sexualized relationships are openly
facilitated through economic exchange (rather than, as the
customers pointed out, the many covert ways that this
happens in everyday life). For these customers, everyday
relationships with women were often seen as a source
of pressure and expectations. Many men I spoke with
described relations between the sexes in the U.S. as
being “strained,” “confused,” or “tense.” Over half the
interviewees specifically appreciated having an escape
from the rules of conduct and the social games involved
when interacting with other women in an unregulated
setting.
Interactions with women in the workplace were also
often felt to be constraining. One man pointed out that he
felt nervous about complimenting women at work for fear
that they would accuse him of sexual harassment. Another
6These aspects of the men’s visits are explored in more depth in relation
to gender and power in Frank (2003).
said that club visits “let frustration out”: “With all of this
sexual harassment stuff going around these days, men
need somewhere to go where they can act like they want.”
In the clubs, another interviewee claimed, “everybody
knows what the rules are.” There are other spaces, then,
where the men do not understand exactly what is going
to “get them into trouble.” Some men explicitly stated a
desire to interact with women who were not “feminist,”
and who still wanted to relate to men in more “traditional”
ways. Others said that men had to continually “be on
guard” against offending women. Though I was some-
times disturbed by what I interpreted as anti-feminism in
some of the men’s talk, I found it significant that these
men experienced their visits (and also, in part, justified
them) within a framework of confusion and frustration
about the meaning of masculinity and the nature of male-
female relationships rather than simply one of privilege
or domination. The rapid increase in the number of strip
clubs across the US in the mid-1980s, after all, coincided
with an increase of women into the workforce and more
attention paid to issues of sexual harassment, date rape,
and the condemnation of the sex industry. While this is
not a case of simple cause and effect, such developments
certainly affect the ways that the men’s visits to the clubs
are spoken about and understood.
Personal and Sexual Acceptance
Another motivation that brought the regulars to the
clubs was a search for personal and sexual acceptance.
One of the things that surprised me when I first began
working in strip clubs was the emphasis the customers
placed on conversation with the dancers and the pleasure
they derived from it. Certainly, such a claim could be seen
as a way to defray guilt about sexualized consumption.
However, as I was a participant in thousands of these
transactions, I cannot dismiss this aspect of the experience.
The interviewees claimed that it did not even matter what
was discussed; for some men, just talking to a beautiful
woman about anything was considered a luxury. Dancers
offered an opportunity to talk to women with whom these
men would not generally be able to interact, for a number
of reasons—a lack of attractiveness, age differences,
class differences (in either direction), availability, and
the women’s willingness to interact outside of the clubs,
for example. It was not just the presence of nudity,
nor just the presence of talk, that made these venues
appealing, but the presence of both of these that allowed
for the mutual creation of fantasies that were both relaxing
and stimulating to the customers. The upscale clubs in
Laurelton provided opportunities for the men to have
dinner with the dancers for a fee, or to pay to take them
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 493
“off the list” (the disk jockey’s [DJ] stage rotation) to sit
and talk in the VIP rooms. These spaces were semi-private
and less noisy and crowded, offering a chance for greater
verbal intimacy.7
Sometimes, the conversation was valued because it
was of a type the men had difficulty finding elsewhere,
especially in male-dominated workplaces. For a variety
of reasons, these customers felt that women provided
conversation in ways that were significantly different from
men. One customer, for example, said that his male friends
were good to talk to about “sports, women, or work,” but
that he felt more engaged with women in conversation
about other things. Another said that though “men can
open up to women,” they have difficulty communicating
with each other because their egos are “too big” and “too
fragile.”
Some men explicitly noted that the interactions they
purchased in strip clubs were “an ego boost” because
they provided safe opportunities for interactions with
women without the risk of rejection. Sexuality and sexual
conquest, after all, can be experienced as humiliating
and stressful for men as well as thrilling. Many sex
workers joke about really being “therapists” and explicitly
understand their jobs to be about boosting a man’s ego
by convincing him that he is desirable, masculine, and
successful.
In addition to the customers who enjoyed the
everyday conversation, some men were also searching
for acceptance of their sexual desires. Male customers
7Though the regulars usually respected the rules of the club and the
boundaries of the dancers even in these semi-private spaces, more
infrequent customers assumed that the VIP rooms meant an opportunity
for greater sexual intimacy as well. Elsewhere I discuss the fantasies
about sexual opportunity that circulated among customers about the
Laurelton VIP rooms (Frank, 2002a). These stories were treated as
fantasies, similar to urban legends, however, because they were told
to me by customers who admitted that they had never personally
engaged in sexual activity in a VIP room and had never been offered
an opportunity to do so by a dancer. Because the VIP rooms were
more profitable for dancers than working the main floor (bringing
in an hourly rate in addition to money for table dances and tips), it
was a well-known sales ploy for dancers to tell customers they could
get “closer” or “wilder” in the VIP rooms. However, I never met a
dancer in Laurelton who admitted to selling sexual release in the VIP
rooms and I spent a great deal of time in the rooms with other dancers
(in addition to sitting alone with customers) without observing any
such transactions. My interviews with dancers and customers in other
locales have led me to believe that variability in whether or not sexual
contact occurs in such “private” areas of the club is in part a function
of the interaction of corporate policies, competition between dancers,
and customer expectations, as there are indeed cities where sexual
transactions are more commonplace. Even though the Laurelton market
was somewhat depressed during the years I conducted my fieldwork,
stripping was still lucrative enough that dancers did not feel the need
to also sell sexual favors.
told dancers things they claimed they had never told their
wives or lovers—usually specific fantasies or experiences
they thought the other women in their lives would
not understand or that had caused extreme negative
reactions in the past, such as a desire to give or receive
anal sex. A no-contact strip club thus offers a certain
protection from vulnerability that other arenas—including
the bedroom at home—may not. In a strip club, a
customer can fantasize about a sexual encounter with
a woman, yet is not responsible for actually physically
performing or providing pleasure to her. He is also
prohibited from revealing his naked body to the dancers,
which in itself can provide another form of refuge from
judgment.
Youthfulness was another issue that emerged quite
frequently in conversations and interactions I had in the
clubs, as the majority of the regular customers were
men middle-aged or older. The clubs, in some ways,
provide an interesting and complicated return to a site
of adolescent fantasy. A DJ that I worked with stated that
if the music was right, “you become that girl he wanted
in high school and didn’t get, or that one he let get away.”
For some customers, effortless sexual response (though
not necessarily desire) was something that was associated
with youth. Some of the older men, for example, expressed
difficulties becoming aroused by their wives or long term
partners at the same time as they claimed that they wanted
to be able to be excited by them.
When discussing their partners’ almost universal
disapproval of their visits to strip clubs, customers also
discussed the difficulties their wives and partners had
with “losing beauty and youth and with not wanting to
be reminded that it was still out there” by the men’s
interactions with strippers. They also cautiously discussed
the importance of their partners’ losses of youth and
beauty to themselves—sometimes explicitly comparing
the bodies of the dancers to those of the other women in
their lives. While these men’s visits could quite possibly
have contributed to their partners’ insecurities about aging
or sexual attractiveness (and several interviewees explic-
itly stated that they believed there were connections), and
while its certainly the case that the ability to purchase the
attentions of others in order to make oneself feel younger
and more desirable is a privileged position (and one their
partners might not be able to occupy, for a variety of
reasons), the visits were thus also intertwined with the
men’s own insecurities about losing a youthful body, an
attractive body, a body that would and could perform
sexually when the opportunity or need arose, especially in
the context of an on-going intimate relationship. There is
a Viagra commercial which portrays men jumping for joy
in the streets while the rock song “We are the Champions”
494 Frank
plays in the background—presumably, these expressions
of joy and vitality are a result of being able to perform
sexually once again. The importance of sexual response
and desire to men’s conceptions of self should not be
underestimated (Tiefer, 1995). At the same time, however,
it is noteworthy that the expression of this response and
desire in the space of the strip club did not require
sexual release. Indeed, for these regulars, it was important
that sexual contact did not occur with the dancers, often
because of their commitment to sexual exclusivity in their
marriages or outside relationships.
Safety and Excitement
As has already been suggested, strip clubs derive
some of their appeal from their ability to be both safe in
a number of ways (when compared with the illegality of
prostitution, for example, or the disruptiveness, risk, and
vulnerability of a “real” affair) and dangerous enough to
be exciting spaces, and when the tension between these
boundaries disappears for a man, he may cease to be a
regular customer.
A quick story illustrates this well: I met Saul at a
lower tier club. Our interaction was pleasant, and after
asking a number of questions about my research, Saul
agreed to an interview. The morning of the interview,
he called at the last minute to change our location—
from a bagel shop to a Starbucks coffee house. When
he finally arrived, a bit late, and we settled into our
coffee, he admitted that he had been nervous about our
meeting. “Who knows?” he said. “I’ve heard of men
being robbed and killed this way.” (At Starbucks? Iwas
tempted to ask.) He continued: “You never know by
looking at somebody ...I mean, I would never know if you
were ...like, a crack dealer, you know? Or like living day
to day?” As I had provided him with a business card, my
home telephone number, my real name and my university
affiliation, I was surprised that I could be perceived as so
intimidating.
Saul was not unique, though, and other interviewees
expressed similar misgivings. Could I be a prostitute using
the researcher line as a ruse to drum up business? Did I
work for the mafia? Was I going to try to rob them?
And it was not just about me—the tales I heard about
the supposed proclivities of my co-workers and the other
customers in the club over time were fascinating, and
rarely, in my experience, based in reality. However, such
fantasized brushes with danger (with unsavory characters,
with the dangers of possible sexual contact, with the
boundaries of the law) were an important and exciting
part of many men’s excursions.
Many of the interviewees also discussed their ex-
periences in the language of “adventure” in addition to
“variety,” “travel,” “fun,” and “escape.” Some described
themselves as “hunters” or “explorers.” For many cus-
tomers, especially those who preferred the lower tier
clubs, the fact that visits to strip clubs often implied a
journey into “bad areas” of town was exciting, a form
of erotic slumming. The men’s talk about danger and
adventure was connected up with historical discourses
about masculinity, travel, and encounters with various
categories of “Others.” Customers also discussed “ad-
venture” in relation to sexual discovery—even without
physical contact, they were getting to know someone in
a sexualized situation, and engaging in a transgressive,
mutual construction of fantasy. The interviewees tended
to identify with discourses that associated sexual conquest
and desire with masculinity, freedom, and adventure and
that made such practices meaningful as an expression of
self, identity, and individuality.
Yet despite descriptions of strip clubs as places
with “no rules” and as “outside the law,” and although
customers experience and express feelings of freedom,
adventure, or excitement during their visits, the clubs have
been tightly regulated. The city has usually delineated
where such clubs can be located and what types of
interactions can be had inside. Clubs also set additional
rules for employees and customers, and most clubs have
security guards in the parking lot and at least two or
three floor managers to enforce those rules. Other kinds
of behaviors are policed by both the dancers and the
other customers, such as proper etiquette in regard to
watching table dances, tipping procedures, and customer-
to-customer interactions. The men also police their own
behavior—few bachelors really need their hands to be
tied during a table dance, and even men who claim
to be wild with testosterone are usually found sitting
calmly in their chairs. Further, even men who claimed
to be interested in purchasing some kind of actual sexual
contact from the dancers were satisfied, over and over
again, with talking about doing so and paying for table
dances.
Many men also explicitly claimed that strip clubs
provided safety in relation to marriages or long-term
partnerships, providing a safe space in which to be both
married (or committed) and sexually aroused (or at least,
interacting with other women in a sexualized setting). This
is related to cultural ideas about marriage, monogamy, and
consumption, as the boundaries between different venues
and services are less rigid in many other countries, with
stripping becoming much more blurred with prostitution
or with customers alternatively visiting venues that offer
sexualized conversation, manual or oral release, or actual
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 495
sex.8For many of my interviewees, “looking” was the
final limit with which they felt comfortable. For example,
although some admitted to periodically reading Playboy
or renting pornographic videos, this was not as significant
or enjoyable to them as their experiences in strip clubs.
None of the interviewees admitted to regularly using
escort services, prostitutes, or massage parlors; nor did
many of the men that I interacted with on a daily basis
in the clubs. Several of the interviewees discussed past
experiences with prostitutes, yet they did so with much
more ambivalence, distaste, or guilt than when discussing
their visits to strips clubs and none considered this a
practice they were likely to take up again.
Fantasy Play
Relationships in the strip club between dancers and
their regulars take place within a larger gendered and het-
erosexualized network of power relations. Further, these
relationships are based on an exchange of sexual self-
identities, and as such, involve a complex entanglement
of fantasy and reality. Intimate relationships in a strip
club evolve as a result of a mutual manufacturing of
fantasy and identity—a co-creation of fantasy that may
be incorrectly interpreted by lawmakers, enforcers, and
some customers. In a strip club, a man will most likely
be denied sexual access to the women. A fantasy of
sexual possibility and interpersonal intimacy is cultivated,
however, and the combination of these elements makes it
an alluring atmosphere for some customers. The regulars
gave me many reasons behind their presence in the clubs
which implied that the illusion of intimacy provided
by the interaction was more desirable than an outside
relationship, sexual or otherwise. As mentioned in the
previous section, in the clubs, customers were granted
safety from the struggle to attract “real” women, from
the necessity to form “real” commitments and from the
demands of those real women on their time and emotions.
Further, behaviors that were unacceptable in the “real”
world, such as an obvious appraisal of women’s bodies,
were allowed in the club, even encouraged by the women
themselves (Want to buy a table dance?).
However, this notion of the “real” should be prob-
lematized. One of the verbalized goals of a customer
who frequents a strip club is escape from the “real”
world. This may mean several different things, however.
8This blurring of the boundaries may also be the case in certain locales
around the U.S. However, even in cities which offer full nudity and lap-
dancing, as in San Francisco, one can often also find profitable venues
offering table dancing or sexualized encounters without sexual contact
and the possibility of release.
There are, of course, regulars in the club who do have
commitments with women outside the club, women who
are making demands on their time and emotions and for
whom the club provides an “escape from.” There were
many other men, however, who were actively seeking an
“escape to,” searching for an intimacy that was clearly
not available to them in that outside world—men who
had recently divorced, had troubled marriages, had few
social skills, or had physical disabilities. Repeatedly, I
listened to men who claimed that they “didn’t know how
to talk to women,” “had difficulty meeting people,” or just
“didn’t have the time to develop a relationship.” These
men, then, paid the dancers to listen to their work stories,
laugh at their jokes, and eat dinner with them. In my
experience in the strip club, “realness” was thus more
highly valued, or at least more realistically expected, than
what was actually “real.” There is thus a fetishization that
underlies the provision of sexual services. Allison (1994)
writes that in paying money for a sexual service:
Men are not only buying a commodity but putting
themselves into the commodity too. That is, there is
a fetishization of subject (man) as much as of object
(woman), and the customer is not only purchasing one
thing or an other but is also paying to become one other as
well. He seeks to be relieved of his everyday persona—
the one to which various expectations are attached—and
given a new script in which he plays a different role.
(p. 22)
Thus, while the man might know that it is a fantasy
persona, its “realness” makes it all the more desirable.
Here we can see a multiple commodification of bodies,
identities, and intimacy at work, and there are several
“imaginary” relationships involved in the transaction.
The dancer, as an employee of the club in which she
works, is produced as a particular commodity, a body
that can be viewed upon demand. The special lighting,
the costumes, and the make-up all combine to make
her very body imaginary, something that would not be
exactly reproducible outside of the club or in a different
venue. Through the physical presence of the dancer, the
customer is visible as a heterosexual man who desires
women. This is a specular image; the other dancers
and customers are witnesses to the transaction (this
witnessing is a crucial element—if a man was not looking
for a public encounter, he most likely would not have
chosen a strip club). Further, while the dancer herself is
also manufacturing or presenting a particular identity, a
public image, in her interaction with the customer, she
is simultaneously involved in the production of particular
male subjectivities, one of which may be that of “being
a male who can pay a female to service him” (Allison,
496 Frank
1994).9The man’s private image, his self-representation,
is thus also involved.
There is a mix, then, of lies, truths, and partial
truths which underlie relationships between dancers and
their regulars, and thus these interactions become more
complicated as time passes. One of the complications lies
in the fact that despite appearing as a “real” woman (who
might really desire a man like him) a dancer must also
remain a fantasy to her customers. Customers expressed
disinterest in dancers who complained too much about
financial problems, kids, or difficulties at work. While
most of the dancers were involved in relationships with
men or women outside of the club, these relationships
were not always disclosed to the regulars. Dancers
admitted that if relationships with regulars ever did lead
to sexual contact outside the club they were almost
guaranteed to lose the man as a regular customer. When I
first began dancing in the Midwest, I found it beneficial to
speak very carefully of my life outside the club if I wanted
to develop a base of regulars (when I began officially
studying the male customers in Laurelton, however, I was
necessarily forthcoming about my actual identification,
pursuits and interests). While men would often ask many
questions about me, I found that even telling them too
much about my friends or activities would tend to upset
the balance of our interaction. If I had such a good social
life, was I maybe lying about being single? Could I be
lying about everything? If I simply said that my social
life was severely curtailed because I worked all of the
time, however, it left intact the possibility of the mutual
construction of an on-going fantasy relationship. Maybe
we could go to dinner together, go dancing or horseback
riding someday. The creation of possibility, then, was
essential at the outset. Cell phone calls or lunch dates
were used by some dancers to generate this feeling of
possibility and maintain interest, and the most successful
and profitable dancers developed ways of convincing each
regular that he was special through personalized contact
of some sort, yet still clearly delineating the boundaries
of the relationship so that it unfolded within the walls of
the strip club.
Some men seemed to recognize, consciously or
unconsciously, that it was really the possibility that was
important. These men would not ask me to see them
outside of the club often, and when they did ask it
9Conversely, he may also have fantasies of himself as a man who is
worth talking to regardless of the money, as a “big spender” who can
impress the dancers, as a savior to the dancers (helping them pay for
college, deal with difficult relationships, or even to leave a degrading
job), or any other number of possibilities. Successful dancers learn to
recognize these fantasies and build on them through particular kinds of
attentions and stories.
was often already impossible for me to say yes—a pilot
continually asked me to go on fantastic but infeasible last-
minute vacations, for example, while another man would
take me off the stage rotation for hours to discuss the
possibility of living together. He did not want to hear
my practical excuses or honest reasons for not wanting
a relationship; rather, I found that he was thrilled by
my fictitious excuse that I did not believe in living
together before marriage. When it became obvious that
the possibility of an outside relationship would never
be realized, or when the fantasy ceased to be believable
enough, as it did in some cases, the man might terminate
the relationship by simply not returning. Or, if he was a
loyal customer of the club, he might instead select another
dancer with whom to spend his time and money. Whether
or not this meant that the men desired a “real” outside
relationship with a dancer, sexual or not, however, is not
ascertainable; in fact, these regulars often behaved as if
what they wanted was not a real physical relationship
with a sex worker (which they could have easily paid
for in another venue) but a realistic fantasy of such a
relationship (which is what they paid for in the clubs).10
Dancers used different strategies in generating and
maintaining regular relationships. After all, not every
customer was interested in fantasizing about developing
an outside relationship with a dancer. Some of these
men wanted to develop ongoing “friendships” with the
dancers, for example, and in such a situation a dancer
might find that sharing intimate details about her life
(real or fictionalized) was necessary to create a desirable
interaction. My point here is to emphasize that interactions
in strip clubs transpire in an environment where the
10Elsewhere, I have discussed the issue of sincerity and authenticity in
dancer/customer relationships in more detail (see Frank, 1998, 2002a).
Discussions of authenticity were important to the customers and their
relationships with the dancers were continually interrogated for signs of
genuine interaction and involvement. At the same time, it is important
to keep in mind that the commodified nature of the relationships was a
desirable part of those relationships, at some level, for the customers.
Regulars used a number of strategies to “prove” the authenticity of their
interactions, such as claiming friendships with the dancers, claiming to
recognize performed emotion, disavowing the importance of the money
to themselves, and arguing that all relationships between men and
women had the potential to be inauthentic and financially motivated. I
found it more useful in this situation to explore the ways that a discourse
of authenticity becomes meaningful and exciting for the customers
than to try to posit a steadfast distinction between real and performed
emotion or interaction. As Hochschild (1983) and others have argued,
emotions may be harnessed and organized in the service of profitability.
Further, given that inequalities impact many of our relationships, we
cannot simply set up a distinction between relationships that enfold
in a sex “market” and those that do not, or those relationships based
on economic or class-based concerns and those based on desires for
“creativity” or “similarity” in partners (see also Illouz, 1997).
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 497
intermingling of fantasy and reality is expected and,
indeed, is part of the very attraction of the space. It is not
surprising that some customers (or police officers posing
as customers), especially those who do not regularly visit
strip clubs, leave feeling as if sex (or a date, or a “real
connection”) might have been available to them had they
stayed longer, spent more money, or interacted with the
right dancers—they are not necessarily playing the same
game. This is not to say that some men do not attempt to
purchase or succeed in purchasing sex in strip clubs, of
course, or that some dancers do not attempt to sell it for a
variety of reasons. Rather, it is simply to point out that the
regular customers of strip clubs are quite willing, night
after night, to open their wallets in the name of fantasy.
Instead of seeing these men as somehow duped by the
dancers, exploited by corporate interests, or being led by
out-of-control levels of testosterone, I prefer to believe
that they are purchasing exactly what they want.
MARRIAGE AND MONOGAMY
Another important area to look at when attempting
to understand the customers’ motivations and experiences
is to their beliefs about monogamy and the ways that
they practice marriage (or heterosexual relationships
more generally). It is important not to analyze strip
club visits (or any other use of the sex industry) as
unrelated to other aspects of the everyday—work, home,
relationships, identities, and aspirations. But despite the
fact that literature focused on the sex industry has noted
its entanglement with the institution of marriage (Allison,
1994; Califia, 1994; Nagle, 1997), there is little attention
paid to the sex industry in the copious academic literature
on marital relationships. As commodified sexual services
and images (both legal and illegal) make up a multi-billion
dollar a year industry, and as many of the customers in
each sector are married men, this absence is striking.
When the use of the sex industry is discussed, it is often
to say something about the male partner’s inability to
develop a “healthy” intimacy with his wife. As Stock
(1997) writes: “The predominant effect of the sex industry
on men is through the alienation from self, an impaired
ability to relate intimately to romantic/sexual partners,
and an increased likelihood of inflicting emotional and
physical harm on female romantic/sexual partners and
on children” (p. 111). Stock draws on the idea of
nonrelational sexuality, or “the tendency to experience sex
as lust without any requirements for relational intimacy,
or for more than a minimal connection with the object
of one’s desires” (Levant & Brooks, 1997, p. 10). Stock
admits that “nonrelational sex is not inherently bad” but
that male socialization has elevated nonrelational sex to
“the most desirable form of sex” and sometimes “the only
option in men’s sexual repertoires.” The use of any sector
of the sex industry by men, according to Stock, is an
example of a problematic nonrelational sexual practice.
Yet the assumption that customers of the sex industry
have unhappy, unsatisfying, or troubled marriages is one
that should be problematized (and a great deal of research
could be done in this area). Men go to strip clubs for a
variety of different reasons and with varying frequency
throughout their lives and their use of the sex industry,
in any of its forms, may not necessarily be a result of
an inability to be intimate.11 Rather, for some men, such
visits may be a means of dealing with one of the psychic
side effects of love and intimacy—aggression—in long-
term and traditional relationships.
Sixty-three percent of the thirty men I interviewed
(and approximately the same number of those I interacted
with on a daily basis) fit a specific pattern of beliefs and
practices. These men visited strip clubs regularly, varying
from several times a week to several times a month,
usually alone. They were either married to, divorced
from, or planning on being married to women whom
they described as “conservative” with regard to issues of
morality and sexuality—for example, the men described
themselves as “weaker” or “lazier” than their partners
in terms of moral resolve and also portrayed themselves
as more “sexually adventurous” and “interested in sex.”
But they saw their relationships as stable and caring and
believed their marriages would be considered “successful”
to an outsider, describing themselves as “reasonably
satisfied” with their relationships to “very much in love”
with their wives. The men claimed to be committed to
monogamy and that they chose strip clubs because they
believed they would not be expected or tempted to have
sexual contact with the dancers.
Further, these men did not consider themselves to
be consumers of other forms of adult entertainment,
describing pornography as “too impersonal,” “boring,”
and “unrealistic,” for example, and prostitution as either
“cheating,” “too dangerous,” or “too direct of a financial
exchange.” All of these men also preferred strip clubs in
which lap-dancing (a form of personal dance which can
lead to sexual release through bodily contact) was not
allowed. While this preference is in some part because
this type of contact was forbidden in Laurelton if a club
offered alcohol and allowed full nudity, most of the men
had traveled widely and experienced other types of clubs
and services.
Finally, and significantly, for these particular men,
visits to strip clubs were kept as secret as possible, as
11See Frank (1998) for a more in depth discussion of this issue.
498 Frank
they had different ideas about what constituted monogamy
than their partners did. They were aware that their visits to
strip clubs affected their wives and partners, and expressed
concern about this, offering stories and examples of how
their behavior was perceived by their spouses. Their
wives’ responses ranged from “going ballistic” to mild
displays of anger when they found out about the visits.
However, despite admissions of empathy and guilt on the
part of these men, knowledge of their wives’ disapproval
or dismay did not result in a change of practice.
The encounters purchased by these interviewees
were exciting and desirable to them for two primary
reasons—they were secret and they were interactive, sex-
ualized (but not sexual) encounters seen as outside of their
primary committed relationships. Both of these things—
secrecy and outside sexualized relationships—are often
believed to be destructive of marital intimacy by one or
the other partner. This behavior was thus transgressive
through its sexualization (though without sexual contact
or release) and its proscription, and sexualized through
its transgressiveness. The excitement of the visits was
experienced in the context of relationships in which a
conservative woman would find this behavior upsetting
and would feel betrayed or hurt if she knew about it.
Some of the women objected to their visits, the men
said, because it made them feel insecure in the relationship
or about their attractiveness. Nick said that if his wife
found out about the regularity of his visits to strip clubs,
“it would break her heart.” Likewise, Jim said: “I think
she is upset about it because she feels like maybe that
means she isn’t satisfying me enough and, you know, that
means she’s less of a woman...and that’s why it upsets
her. And I guess it bothers me too, that she feels that way.”
Some wives expressed concerns about sexual fidelity;
others were worried about betrayal through emotional
involvement with another woman.
In addition to being secretive about their visits to
the strip clubs, these particular interviewees also often
hid the fact that they were interviewing with me from
their wives. Jim had been married for twenty-three years
and said that he went to clubs “on the sneak.” The visits
started after he got married. “Stolen watermelons taste
better than the ones you buy,” he said, describing his
reasons for enjoying the secrecy. Towards the end of our
first interview he asked: “Does it feel like you’re sneaking
around right now, Kate?” “No,” I answered, “why?” He
laughed, and answered: “By helping me sneak around!”
Soon after telling me that part of his motivation for coming
to the interview was the thought of a potential sexual
relationship with me, he noted that he considered himself
a faithful and attentive husband. Despite his spoken desire
for a possible “real” sexual encounter, he admitted that
this was not something that he actively pursued. Like
many of the other men who fit this pattern, Jim painted
a picture of himself as a man who was interested in the
“thrill” of sexual adventure, but not in actual sexual release
outside of his marriage. Further, he admitted that he knew
about other available sexual services in the city yet did not
actively seek these out. Once again, the balance between
safety and danger was carefully managed.
Despite dreams of lasting romantic love, many
people have difficulties sustaining the early passion and
excitement of their intimate relationships and find that
the passion felt in the early stages of their relationship
is gradually replaced by a less intense, affectionate
relationship (sometimes called mature love by psycho-
analysts). These interviewees discussed such a transition
in their emotional involvements and also complained
of an accompanying boredom, not just with the sexual
aspects of their relationships, but with the entire pattern
of interaction. Further, the “variety” they longed for was
rarely simply the desire to view other naked female bodies
but was often meaningful in terms of the interactive nature
of the encounters—“building rapport” and experiencing
both oneself and one’s partner of the moment as “new”
and “exciting.” Yet although they missed the early passion
of their relationships, they did not wish to end their
marriages and understood their visits to the clubs within
this framework. What men hoped for in strip clubs, Steven
argued, was to “reignite that spark” that had gone out of
their marriages (though without involving their wives in
the interactions).
Kernberg (1995) argued that it is aggressive forces
that eventually undermine intimate relationships, not
cultural and social structures (such as an erosion of
the sanctity of marriage) or the eventual replacement of
passion with friendship. According to Kernberg (1995), a
mature sexual love relationship integrates both tenderness
and eroticism, but will also involve “all aspects of the
ordinary ambivalence of intimate object relations” (p. 29).
That is, just as “affectionate and generally pleasurable
experiences with mother” come to be integrated into
libidinal strivings, an aggressive drive is the result of
the integration “of a multitude of negative or aversive
affective experiences—rage, disgust, and hatred” (p. 21).
Aggression against a love object, for him, is thus an
intrinsic part of erotic desire, and fantasies of penetrating,
engulfing, hurting, or destroying the other are always part
of intimate relations, yet can be experienced as pleasurable
because they are “contained by a loving relationship.”
(While Kernberg’s retention of the drive concept is
problematic to many modern users of psychoanalytic
theory, his idea that aggression is a part of both healthy
and pathological object relations is important. We do
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 499
not necessarily need to view aggression as the result of
a precultural drive or instinct, but rather, can theorize
it as emergent in the context of intimate, dependent
relationships.)
As emotional intimacy develops between two peo-
ple, unconscious reenactments of earlier relationships,
parental or otherwise, occur, and partners induce in each
other past impulses and fears. In order to discuss this
process, Kernberg (1995) elaborates the ideas of direct
and reverse triangulations, which may either destroy
or strengthen the couple. Direct triangulation is “both
partners’ unconscious fantasy of an excluded third party,
an idealized member of the subject’s gender—the dreaded
rival replicating the oedipal rival.” This results in the
common conscious or unconscious worry for both genders
of being replaced by their sexual partner, leading to
emotional insecurity and jealousy. Reverse triangulation,
on the other hand, is the “compensating, revengeful
fantasy of involvement with a person other than one’s
partner, an idealized member of the other gender who
stands for the desired oedipal object.” This establishes a
triangular relationship in which the subject is courted by
two members of the other gender instead of having to
compete with the oedipal rival of the same gender for the
“idealized oedipal object of the other gender.” Kernberg
(1995) thus argues that there are “potentially, in fantasy,
always six persons in bed together: the couple, their
respective unconscious oedipal rivals, and their respective
unconscious oedipal ideals.” Fantasies about “excluded
third parties,” he writes, are “typical components of nor-
mal sexual relations. The counterpart of sexual intimacy
that permits the enjoyment of polymorphous perverse
sexuality is the enjoyment of secret sexual fantasies that
express, in a sublimated fashion, aggression toward the
loved object” (p. 88).
When a married man visits a strip club, he may
in effect be consciously creating a situation of reverse
triangulation—displacing aggression and enacting a se-
cret, vengeful fantasy as his wife becomes the excluded
third party. For many of the men who fit this pattern,
visiting the clubs was consciously related to how their
relationships with their wives or partners were going.
Joe, for example, said that going to strip clubs was like
“rebelling” even if his wife never found out about it. His
wife’s distress (fantasized or real) was important to him
because it added to his feelings of rebelliousness and
independence. In other situations, a man might not be
consciously angry at his wife or partner; yet, he visits a
club “on the sneak,” expecting and perhaps even hoping to
get caught. Regardless of the outcome, his knowledge (or
belief) that the visit would cause his wife emotional pain
is significant and a reverse triangulation is also set up.
The unknown aspects of the interaction and the
potential intersubjective encounters lend excitement to
the scene at the same time as there is also a comfortable
balancing out of the risk, that is, the man knows that
sexual activity will almost certainly not occur and that he
can terminate the interaction at any time. Though the men
discussed here may not have actually been unfaithful by
their own definitions, their behavior was in part motivated
simultaneously by wishes to betray, and wishes not to
betray, their wives or partners. It is not just men who visit
strip clubs, or other sex industry venues, or just men in
long-term relationships who may need to find ways to
deal with unacknowledged aggression towards intimate
partners. Even in the early stages of a relationship, secret
fantasy scenarios, power differentials, and aggression may
intrude.
The satisfaction gained for these men from their
visits to the clubs was of course also related to the fact
that they held particular cultural beliefs about gender
identity, sexuality, and marriage that made such practices
meaningful as expressions of freedom and individuality.
Thus, though there may be a similar build-up of aggression
and a need for deflection in most long-term relationships,
not every man becomes a customer of the sex industry,
much less strip clubs. The interviewees, as noted earlier,
tended to identify with discourses that associated sexual
conquest or sexual desire with masculinity, freedom, and
adventure. At the same time, they held particular beliefs
about what constituted monogamy for themselves—
looking and interacting outside of the marriage was
acceptable while sexual release through contact was not,
for example. Strip clubs, then, provided a safe space in
which to be both married (or committed) and interacting
with other women (often simultaneously or alternatively
idealized and degraded)—setting up a triangular situation.
This in turn was important in the way that it activated
particular self-representations that a man identified with
and found pleasurable–as a desirable and desiring man,
for example.
The difference in class status between the customers
and the dancers is also psychologically noteworthy.
Strippers are still stigmatized and these customers who
found the clubs most erotic, exciting or transgressive (thus
becoming regulars for whom visits were a significant
sexual practice) were also those who had married, or
imagined themselves being married to, very “conser-
vative” women. As traditional, middle-class femininity
is associated with relative sexual modesty, women who
dance nude in front of strangers have transgressed a
significant class boundary regardless of their background
and what kind of club that they work in. These particular
customers often identified with the dancers and against
500 Frank
their wives, again in a rebellious fashion: we are both
morally weaker than she is; we are both more sexually
free; we are both more adventurous, independent, and
experimental.
Whether or not these visits actually caused the men’s
wives any emotional pain is to some extent irrelevant in
explaining the men’s satisfaction (although this issue is not
irrelevant when thinking about the impact, importance,
and existence of the sex industry more generally—this
is another area where research is especially needed).
The essential thing here is that these men’s belief that
their partners would feel upset was an intrinsic and
important element of their experience, causing them to
feel an ambivalent mix of pleasure and guilt, regardless
of whether they were actually caught or their wives
actually felt betrayed. In some ways, the experience may
be all the more powerful if it remains secretive; after
all, not only does socialization require that most sexual
activity be hidden, but for some men sexual behavior
and sexual excitement has been associated with secrecy
(and secret or fantasized identities) since they hid their
first pornographic magazine under the bed as teenagers.
Further, in some situations, the pain or discomfort that the
men believed they were causing may even have been more
intense in their own fantasies about “getting caught” than
as actually experienced by their wives or partners.
Whether these encounters are positive or negative
for the trajectory of the men’s marriages is inherently
difficult to determine—even the men themselves could
rarely voice an opinion on this issue. Yet the customers
who use the sex industry cannot be simply opposed to
those who develop some ideal intimate monogamous
heterosexual relationship. After all, despite the emphasis
on communication and honesty in intimate relationships,
many people are unable to express particular emotions or
desires within the context of their primary relationships.
Even individuals who have not cheated on their spouse
may fantasize about doing so and wish to express
those fantasies (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983), but find
themselves unable to do so. As a sex worker I often heard
this complaint from men who believed that they could not
disclose either the truths of their past or particular desires
and fantasies to their wives.
In fact, many traditional marriages may be successful
because of an inhibition of certain kinds of intimacy,
especially when intimacy is conceptualized as involving
high levels of disclosure. Much popular psychology
literature tends toward the idea that if we all just expressed
our feelings to each other, we would suddenly be able to be
truly intimate with our partners and be able to maneuver
through the vacillations of sexual passion. While for some
couples this may be true, in other cases an inhibition of
intimacy may even be necessary in order for a particular
relationship to continue. As Blum (1996) writes:
The persistence of human self-interest is of course closely
related to intimacy and infidelity. For example, some of
the chief matters that spouses tend, by and large out of
courtesy, not to discuss with each other are their everyday
selfish wishes: not to have to sweep the floor, take care of
the kids, or take each other’s needs into account; wishes
to be taken care of without reciprocation; and certainly
their wishes to sample different sexual partners. Does this
withholding limit intimacy or permit it? (p. 142)
Some marriages would cease to exist if they were
constantly interrogated by the participants, yet divorce
is not necessarily an attractive option. For a variety of
reasons, then, people find themselves in relationships that
do not fulfill all their needs. Should those relationships
be abandoned? Or should their participants arrange more
creative ways of fulfilling those needs?
At times, then, an analysis of such encounters
comes down to ideas about authenticity. What is a real
relationship? What is real intimacy? Some of these men
suggested that appearances (and the realness of those
appearances) were more important than the real. Given
the importance of being able to “play the couple game”
in many social circles (Duncombe & Marsden, 1996),
and the willingness of so many couples to co-create this
particular public fantasy, this is not necessarily surprising.
Further, some of the interviewees valued “lastingness” in
their relationships more than absolute honesty. As Steven
said: “What does faithful even mean, Kate? Does it mean
I’m faithful in my mind? Does a one-night stand in a hotel
room somewhere, years back, mean that I am not faithful
to my wife? A year from now? I would say that I am
faithful to my wife because I love her and there is no one
else I want to be married to and share a life with. I’ve been
married to her for 14 years and I’ll be married to her for
fourteen more.”
Certainly, help should be available for men who seek
it and who feel that pornography or the sex industry
is affecting their ability to have intimate relationships
with their wives. Some men experience their sexual
desires and practices (especially those connected with
the sex industry) as compulsive, addictive, and disruptive
to their long-term relationships (Brooks, 1995; Stock,
1997). Even given this psychoanalytic perspective of the
interviewees’ visits to strip clubs that I have put forth,
perhaps there are also more effective ways for men to
discharge the excess aggression in their relationships—
ways that would cause their partners less pain and which
would not reinforce the double standard for women, for
example. On the other hand, there are indeed individuals
who combine satisfying relationships with commodified
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 501
sexualized services. Rather, the answer to whether using
the sex industry, or strip clubs in particular, is a “good”
thing for some relationships, in part, depends on how one
feels about “lastingness,” commitment, self-fulfillment,
honesty and authenticity in long-term relationships, and
different people prioritize these values in distinct ways as
they practice marriage on a day-to-day basis.
Several questions about culture, power, and history
need to be addressed when analyzing such encounters
using psychoanalysis. First, strip clubs have not always
existed in their current form, and have proliferated in
recent decades. Given this fact, what might account for
the changes in the composition of the industry over time,
and why might more men be seeking such encounters now
in strip clubs? There are a number of social elements that
are important to understanding just where these kinds
of secret and sexualized relationships take place and
between which kinds of participants. A commitment to
monogamy in the age of AIDS may be a contributing
factor, as may be the growth of serial monogamy instead
of maintaining one long-term, but not necessarily faithful,
marriage for men. Changing patterns of mobility, and
thus commitment, may make relationships and affairs
for some men difficult to negotiate and maintain. Strip
clubs could be seen to offer a McDonaldized, virtual
affair, for some customers: predictable (to an extent),
efficient (no “games” necessary), calculable (the prices
are set up front; sex will not occur), and controlled (there
is an easy exit; the effects on the primary relationship
are pretty well known.12 There is also a continuing
connection of sexuality and sexual experiences with a kind
of last frontier, to transcendence and adventure, for many
Americans. As discussed earlier, strip clubs articulate
with certain ideas about masculinity and consumption that
appeal to particular men as well, in addition to providing
spaces where certain kinds of masculinized leisure can be
engaged in without remorse.
Second, without positing some essential difference
between men and women in terms of their psychological
processes, how can we explain why it is men who visit
strip clubs and that similar services do not exist for
women on the same scale? Cultural expectations of gender
as well as social inequalities and positionings affect
people’s opportunities, choices, and resulting satisfactions
as well as the meanings of their practices. The historical
difference in disposable income between men and women
is an issue here, as are the different meanings that
12Ritzer (1993), a sociologist, has discussed the process of
“McDonaldization” in the contemporary United States as an extension
of Weber’s principles of rationality to cover ever more aspects of
consumer life.
individuals place on money (as power, as security, etc.).
As more women earn higher salaries, travel alone more
frequently on business, and move away from traditional
ideologies about passivity or the need for emotional
connection in sexual relationships, they may indeed come
to desire commodified sexualized services in greater
numbers.13
Further, women may have developed other ways
of fulfilling their needs. For now, the still greater need
for many women to become and remain married for
financial security, for example, along with cultural ideas
about the importance of female virtue, may lead to the
necessity for women of releasing aggression or creating
triangulations in different ways depending on their social
position. Oliker (1989) found, for example, that married
women in traditional relationships developed friendships
with other women that fostered both intimacy and a mutual
validation of individual activity and inner self–an “ego
boost.” The women she studied also did marital “emotion
work” with their friends, that is, these close friendships
allowed the women to express anger and frustration about
their relationships and to return to their partnerships with
more peaceable attitudes.
Again, this is not to say that the sexualization of
the encounters that the male customers sought in strip
clubs was not important. After all, even a regular who is
seeking conversation and fantasy is seeking it in a setting
where women’s bodies are being routinely displayed
in ritualistic ways. Though these particular customers
were not actively pursuing adulterous sexual affairs, the
experiences were sometimes discussed as analogous. At
one point during our interview, for example, Jim referred
to his experiences in strip clubs as “quickies.” Steven
used the phrase “falling in love again” to describe such
experiences. Thus, these men were often enjoying the
fantasy of such a transgression and, in effect, creating
situations of triangulation. That this would not happen
with male friends in everyday interactions was directly
suggested by many of the respondents.
Another issue is that there is little doubt that even
as the husbands described themselves as satisfied in their
marriages, in certain cases their wives may have felt that
their own needs for intimacy were not being met (seem-
ingly a common complaint among women in heterosexual
relationships more generally). Marriage, after all, may
13The sex industry is already arguably growing for certain sectors of
women (see Ross, 1989) and women may also have developed unique
ways of obtaining the erotic materials they desire (Juffer, 1998). For
explorations of the spatial and theatrical elements of strip shows for
women, see Liepe-Levinson (2002) and Smith (2002). At this time, it
still appears as if women use strip clubs in ways that are significantly
different from men.
502 Frank
yield different sorts of pleasures and dissatisfactions for
men and women. Some of the men that I spoke with
also expressed sexist sentiments or a distaste for their
partner’s bodies based on cultural ideals—saying “I wish
my wife had nicer breasts”; “tried to dress sexier”; “had
a better hip to waist ratio,” etc. Many men indeed have
unrealistic expectations of what women’s bodies look like
because of the way women are represented in popular
culture, and have difficulties accepting their wives’ bodies
as they age. There are also men for whom certain kinds
of intimacy may feel unachievable or threatening. I would
agree, then, with those who argue that there are certain
cultural and social configurations of gender and power that
work against the possibility of marital relationships that
are egalitarian and satisfying (physically and emotionally)
for some individuals, and that men’s use of the sex industry
may reflect some of those inequalities (although I do not
believe that this is inherent to the commodification of
sexual services). All the same, we should not assume
a particular kind of ideal intimacy in long-term marital
relationships that can be simply opposed to that found
in commodified relationships. Indeed, many long-term
marriages or partnerships involve forms of deception;
some of which are based in the psychodynamics of
interpersonal relationships and some that are perhaps
crucial to lasting marriages.
CONCLUSION
The proliferation and upscaling of strip clubs needs
to be situated in late capitalist consumer culture as well
as within a variety of social changes and developments.
A commonly noted feature of late capitalism is that more
and more forms of entertainment become preoccupied
with the commodification of spectacle and experience—
certainly, the proliferation of strip clubs can be offered as
an example of the profitability of this strategy. In many
ways it makes sense that strip clubs should multiply in
the U.S. during the last several decades. The process
of upscaling in strip clubs, with a promise of “clean”
and respectable interactions, could alleviate certain fears
about contamination and disease that escalated around
prostitution or promiscuity. There are numerous other
social changes which may be influencing this rapid
increase in strip clubs in the United States as well:
the increased presence of women in the workforce, a
continued backlash against feminism and the idea of
“political correctness,” on-going and concerted marketing
efforts to sexualize and masculinize particular forms of
consumption (“sports, beer, and women,” for example),
changing patterns of mobility which have influenced dat-
ing practices and the formation of intimate partnerships,
renewed commitments to monogamy for certain groups
of married men, and changes in the nature of work that
involve more out-of-town travel for businessmen and thus
more anonymous opportunities to purchase commodified
sexualized services, to briefly name just a few.
Opposition to strip clubs, and the regulations
spawned by this opposition, is often fueled by accusations
that the customers are seeking (and the dancers are
providing) illegal sexual services. My research, which
has now spanned almost a decade, has indicated that
there is indeed a large population of men who are instead
interested in purchasing a voyeuristic, interactive fantasy
of sexual access. Again, this is not to argue that men
never seek, or are not ever successful in receiving, sexual
services in strip clubs—there are, after all, clubs that
offer varying levels of contact around the United States,
legally or illegally. There are also men who seek sexual
services from strippers, even if escorts or erotic masseuses
are available elsewhere. Competition between dancers
and exploitative corporate policies in some locales may
combine so that dancers feel as if providing sexual release
for their customers is the only way to remain profitable,
though these conditions vary greatly around the country.
Yet, I believe that it is safe to say that striptease remains a
unique form of entertainment from prostitution, and that
there are men who are willing and able to pay highly for
it to remain a unique service.
Moralistic regulation is often aimed at fixing prob-
lems that do not even really exist, and ignores problems
that should be addressed. As Hanna (2005) and others
have pointed out, laws already exist against the crimes that
are allegedly associated with strip clubs and specifically
targeting adult businesses is discriminatory. There are
indeed issues worth exploring in relation to strip clubs;
in other work, for example, I have explored gendered
and labor inequalities between dancers and customers,
exploitative workplace policies and safety concerns, a
lack of benefits provided to women in the industry, the
negative effects of social stigma, and negative attitudes
towards sexual expression and activity that impact both
dancers and customers (see Frank, 2002a, 2002b, 2003;
Egan & Frank, 2005; Egan, Frank, & Johnson, 2005).
Other researchers have explored similar issues with regard
to sex work more generally as well (Chapkis, 1997; Nagle,
1997). Certain kinds of club rules can make strip clubs
better workplaces for the employees.14 Some dancers
14As many of my interviewees noted, certain regulations about touching
were also desirable to many of the customers, and those who wanted
more body contact knew that this could be purchased in other venues.
Motivations and Fantasies of Strip Club Customers 503
enjoy lap-dancing and other forms of contact; others
prefer to maintain a distance between themselves and the
customers. Restrictions against intimate touching in strip
clubs, for example, can protect dancers against unwanted
advances from customers and mean that if contact does
occur, it is on the dancer’s terms. In Laurelton, as in
other cities that I worked, such rules, when realistically
enforced, gave the dancers a great deal of control over
their transactions. In six years of dancing, I was touched
inappropriately once, and the customer was promptly
removed from the club when I alerted the management (if
only I had been so lucky while waitressing!). In an ideal
situation, women could choose which kinds of services
they offered and to whom and could be assured that they
would be supported by the management in their decisions.
Unfortunately, few (if any) of the zoning regulations
being imposed on clubs around the country are pitched
towards improving working conditions for the dancers or
allowing women more control over how their bodies are
commodified in the sex industry.
Moralistic regulation also seems based on an idea that
there is one authentic sexuality that can be legislated and
policed—heterosexual, reproductive, serial monogamous
(and preferably married) coupling. In fact, I argue that
strip clubs remain desirable, in part, because of these
kinds of sexual policing, not in spite of it; visits to the
clubs become meaningful for the regulars because of the
fact that they can be figured as expressions of freedom
or rebelliousness from social controls at the same time
as the clubs are regulated, sanitized, and controlled in
the interest of profitability and legality. This is not to
say that strip clubs, along with other forms of adult
entertainment, would disappear overnight if they ceased
to be stigmatized and embattled venues; rather it is to
argue that the meanings of the interactions and services
would change, possibly along with the clientele.
Regulation of the different venues of the sex industry,
when appropriate, should be created through knowledge
rather than by fear and moral panic. Only through concrete
explorations of particular sites of sexual commodification
and of the motivations of their consumers can this type of
knowledge be generated and used for productive kinds of
interventions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was assisted by a fellowship from the
Sexuality Research Fellowship Program of the Social
Science Research Council with funds provided by the
Ford Foundation.
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