ABSTRACT
What is potentially different, or transformative, about a lesbian erotic dance space? This chapter highlights how women dancers perform within a lesbian strip venue that is quite different from more ‘mainstream’ erotic dance clubs, drawing out both the heteronormative tensions, and also the possibilities for what I argue can be read as ‘queer moments’ of rupture, in these erotic dance encounters. Combining historical insights about this leisure space with a discussion of women’s experiences within other lesbian leisure venues in the UK, I draw upon discussions of lesbian sexual politics with women who participated in lesbian leisure venues in the 1980s before the strip venue was founded. Comparisons are also drawn between the visions for sexual performances in the venue held by current and ex-management and I point to what this means for both dancers’ work roles and customers’ experiences, and the scope that both these parties have for subverting heteronormativity in their erotic interactions. What is particularly distinctive about this erotic dance space, in terms of the gender roles and sexualities that are constructed and performed within it will be highlighted, as well as illuminating some of the interactions within this space that parallel other erotic dance spaces. Utilising feminist theorising of the social construction of sexualities, together with insights from queer theory, provides theoretical grounding for these comparisons to be made. I question to what extent heteronormative prescriptions for femininity can be challenged in this venue through the construction of and interactions between gendered and sexualised bodies in the venue; the way in which the venue is defined as a ‘women’s space’; the ‘policing’ of women’s bodies that occurs within this space; and through considering the potential for a female ‘gaze’ and the pleasurable elements of watching erotic dance. In doing so, I draw out the political and pleasurable implications of women’s experiences of performing within and spectating at a lesbian strip show. Overall, this chapter suggests the need for a more complex consideration of women’s engagement with erotic dance spaces, which includes an examination of the links between exercising sexual agency and negotiating gendered power relations.
