Just Looking ...

What follows refers to a topic discussed a while back, but sort of brings together everything (or bits of) covered since then.

In class, it was noted that exotic dancers' "personae" and their props served to put a symbolic distance between the viewer and the dancer. And if we were to look back to, say, a decade or so ago, I'm sure our impression of stripper bars would very well be one of sleazy, trashy joints, laced in gold (for some reason the Trump tower comes to mind...), dimly lit in pink neon, stagnant with smoky, sweaty air, on whose stages the viewer is graced with beauties "from" all races and cultures--indeed, a carnival of fleshy sorts.
But if we look at the strip clubs of today, I think there has been something of an evolution--to avoid using the term change--at least in terms of the personae of the dancers; the palm trees, the neon and cheezy gold trim, remain nonetheless . The Brass Rail on Yonge street, for example, (yes, yes, I have been there) features among other things, the "high school girl" who is outfitted in tartan miniskirt, long stockings, and a white blouse two sizes too small (cf. Britney Spears' "Oops, I did it again"). The resulting look is one that doesn’t strike us immediately as being “exotic,” but rather, as being close to home, quite literally. Then there is the "businesswoman", for lack of a better term, who starts off in a sleek black suit and skirt, and ends her show with nothing but her stilettos and, importantly, her glasses.
At first sight, there is nothing particularly exotic about the above two personae--I keep using this term because the stripshow really is a performance, on a stage. We have in our daily encounters met people dressed like the above on the subway, at work, at home, etc. However, closer analysis of the term "exotic" as used in this class reveals quite a disturbing fact about modern Western society.

I think that the envelope of the socially acceptable has been pushed so far into new territory (hence "evolution" and not change) that what we are left with in the domain of reprehensible actions are the oldest and most fundamental taboos known to society in their most painfully bare form: the taboo against incest. (Here, I would recommend to all a reading of Freud’s “Totem and Taboo”.)

Taking the schoolgirl stripper as an example, if we focus not so much on her attire per se but rather the persona she embodies on stage—which I would think is the most important element of the fantasy—then her resemblance as a generic schoolgirl figure to any potential female youth (i.e. of an age with whom sexual relations would be deemed not only illegal but also immoral) is uncanny. To those who take offense easily--and a discussion of Freud’s theories is bound to upset—I remind you that the daughter-father incest implied here is only fantasized. If it were real, it would probably not have the same appeal, in the same way a wrestling match that deteriorated into a real brawl, with lethal weapons, blood, and impending death, would cease to attract an audience—that is, excluding the truly psychopathic few. Here then, there is a fine line drawn between fantasy (the seductive nubile who resembles someone close to home) and reality (the consummation of that desire, and the ensuing debilitation of guilt and shame), but there is a line nonetheless, reinforced by the “no touch” rule in the world of striptease, and by the superego and its relentless weapon against the id—guilt—in the world of everyday life.

But how did I go from a seductive stripper to an incestuous desire on the part of the male viewer? Again, I turn to Freud: unconscious incestuous impulses which our egos find to be unbearably threatening to be let into conscious awareness are projected onto the other. Thus, the male viewer’s desire for the girl, which is threatening to the ego because of its incestuous implications—we have been socialized to understand that incest is the biggest faux-pas—is projected onto the object of desire; she becomes the desiring, seductive, and therefore guilty one. On the other hand, the viewer is left desire-free and with a clear conscience, and with an unconscious fantasy gratified on some level. But we (being the “savvy” observers that we are) know that she most probably doesn’t desire any of her audience out there. Hence, the need to sell the fantasy: She looks you in your eyes. Gaze, as we all have heard, is associated with the male, his sexuality, his power, his desire. The subtle reversal of roles here probably does wonders to the male viewer’s pulse rate (and the rate at which those bills are dug out of his wallet).

A similar, but reversed, analysis of the “businesswoman” persona is possible. But this post is getting mighty long… Suffice it to say: The suited, stockinged, and glassed female in an authoritative position is an image that bears uncanny resemblance to the mother figure (cf. Dr. Melfi in The Sopranos). Again, it is not her attire per se (as not all mothers dress like this), but rather the image of a generic powerful female realized through the attire, that sells the fantasy to the crowd.

Returning to my original point, then, I find it interesting that the geographically and culturally exotic no longer stir the loins of the average male audience in today’s world. Instead, our liberal Western democratic tradition has grossly broadened what is considered morally acceptable that only the penultimate simulacrum of the incestuous fantasy (e.g. the schoolgirl figure that could well be one’s (fantasized) daughter), just short of consummating the real image itself, can be sexually provocative.

But when we have consumed enough of the pornographic displays of “schoolgirls” such that even they can be considered the sexual “norm” and therefore lacking in their “exotic” appeal, what then will be next?

# posted by Anonymous @ 12:10 AM