Male Strippers: Men Objectifying Men

Male Strippers: Men Objectifying Men

Definitions of masculinity have traditionally positioned men as sexual aggressors and objectifiers, not the pursued or the sexually objectified. Whereas women have frequently been judged by their attractiveness and seductiveness (Ronai & Ellis, 1989), this has been less common for men. Men who work as strippers represent a potential challenge to this social norm. This chapter examines the processes and consequences of sexual objectification of men in homosocial settings. In particular, I examine how the role of stripping is transformed when men are the ones who are sexually objectified by other men.

This study is based on 2 years' participant observation with five male strip groups. Four of the five troupes travel extensively through the Midwest and occasionally to Southern and East Coast cities. Performances are typically for male audiences, although all have performed for female audiences. Throughout the study period I periodically traveled with one troupe, conducting informal interviews and both structured and unstructured observations during dozens of shows. I also completed both structured and informal interviews with strippers (N = approximately 30), group managers and owners, nightclub managers, and men attending performances.

My research indicates that although male strippers occupy roles previously relegated to females, these roles are restructured to emphasize the traditionally masculine ideals of success, admiration, and respect. Male stripping integrates traditional elements of masculinity [Page 169]with the female-dominated occupational role, which enables men to maintain patriarchal privileges not available to female strippers. In effect, men exercise powers of “eminent domain,” annexing and “improving” what was once the exclusive domain of women.

The dramaturgical perspective is a useful approach for analyzing the process and consequences of men supplanting women and subsequently masculinizing roles. This perspective is most closely associated with Erving Goffman, and has been insightfully employed to study exclusively male, closed interactional contexts by Delph (1978), Donnelly (1981), Humphreys (1970), Kamel (1983), McDermott and King (1988), Smith (1988), and Tewksbury (1990). The dramaturgical perspective takes as central the proposition that interaction is socially constructed and that actions (not individuals) are the foundation of meaning. Interactions are therefore the proper units of analysis for the study of social structure (Allen & Scheibe, 1982). Through interaction individuals construct and reconstruct meanings, creating their social contexts. When social action is seen as actively managed and constructed, the process whereby men appropriate and assimilate “female” roles while perpetuating definitions of masculinity is made clear.

Dramaturgical analysis makes theoretically central the fulfillment of roles analogous to those in theatrical performances. The production and management of social encounters—and maintenance of social institutions—rely on reciprocally dependent contributions from structurally defined roles. The roles most central in the organization of male stripping are those of stripper, playwright, director, producer, and audience. My discussion elaborates on these dramaturgical roles, focusing on how they both accommodate traditional role elements and incorporate male-centered perspectives in reshaping and reconstituting the performance of stripping.