Growing Up Sexualized: Issues of Power and Violence in the lives of Female Exotic Dancers
Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: In a modern patriarchal society, women often receive the message that their appearance and sexuality dictate their value as human beings. Some populations, like exotic dancers, capitalize on this construction by receiving monetary rewards for the visual and physical consumption of their sexual bodies. Through interviews with female exotic dancers, the author investigates the ways that these women were sexualized at a young age, often through abuse. The author probes how they negotiated both their child and adult sexual selves and how this intersected with feelings of power and powerlessness and their eventual choices to become dancers. This study demonstrates the complexity of the lives of these women as they try to reclaim power by selling their sexualized bodies for money while still enduring abuse within this context.
Source: Violence Against Women
Author: J.K. Wesley
Institution: University of Central Florida
Language: English
Topic: Sex work and related issues
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2151876244