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Article

Abstract The stripper–customer interaction is a complicated

manipulation of emotional labour and symbolic communication.
Using a series of carefully constructed interactions resembling
a confidence game, strippers create and maintain control over
their customers. This article uses findings from a participant-
observation study performed in Hawaii and explores the
motivation, social roles, and consequences involved in the
striptease act. In an attempt to acquire a monetary reward,
strippers: (1) forge feelings of intimacy and emotional
connectedness; and/or (2) fulfill customer fantasies by
assuming the sex- object role. This article concludes: (1)
strippers have power in their individual interactions with
customers; (2) this power does not translate into gender
relations in mainstream society; and (3) the emotionally
and sexually manipulative act of stripping has outcomes of
psychological and social estrangement, stigmatization and
potential victimization for the dancers.

Keywords confidence game, gender, sex work, sexuality, symbolic

interaction

Lisa Pasko
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Naked Power: The Practice of

Stripping as a Confidence Game
We are reading the meaning of the conduct of other people when, perhaps, they
are unaware of it. There is something that reveals to us what the purpose is –
the glance of an eye, the attitude of the body which leads to the response.
(Mead, 1934, p. 14)
On the unassuming streets of most of urban America is the inviting, neon
glimmer of an old and established sight – the strip club. The strip club has
survived the decades as an accessible and acceptable place for men to
realize and visually experience their sexual fantasies. From the flirtatious
pull of her garter to the counterfeiting of emotional intimacy, the stripper,
or exotic dancer, entices and entertains customers through a complex
Sexualities Copyright © 2002 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 5(1): 49–66[1363-4607(200202)5:1; 49–66; 021871]
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negotiation of power. Using a structure that resembles a ‘confidence

game’ (Goffman, 1952) strippers manipulate symbolic communication
and create emotional control over their patrons. All the while, however,
their customers still possess a pervasive power: the sex-object role dancers
must assume and perform is defined and managed by men and their
desires.
Several previous studies have examined the interactions, identity and
feigned intimacy of strippers and other sex workers (Boles and Garbin,
1972, 1974; D’Andre, 1965; Delacoste and Alexander, 1987; Jones,
1967; Prus and Irini, 1980; Ronai and Ellis, 1989; Sijuwade, 1995;
Skipper and McCaghy, 1970, 1976; Spivey, 2000; see also Foote, 1954;
Gecas and Libby, 1967). Ronai and Ellis discovered that ‘interaction in
strip bars reflects negotiation in “respectable” society’ (p. 294). Strippers
sell their product through an exchange which (1) transpires in a
structured, bureaucratic setting; (2) reflects power relations in mainstream
society; and (3) promotes the sale of alcohol for the club and the -
acquisition of tips for the stripper (Boles and Garbin, 1972, 1974; Ronai
and Ellis, 1989; Sijuwade, 1995). While strippers demonstrate
interpersonal resistance to women’s oppression through their art form,
this resistance does not convert to conscious group resistance or large-scale
organization (Spivey, 2000). Strippers’ willful behaviour mostly revolves
around individual economic rewards.
The ‘tip’ is the primary symbolic gesture of satisfaction with a
performance as well as a sign to continue or terminate a dance. Strippers’
strategies for acquiring substantial tips include flirting, feigning emotional
closeness and vulnerability, and becoming ideal sexual provocateurs as well
as mental stimulators (Boles and Garbin, 1972, 1974; Liepe-Levinson,
1998; Ronai and Ellis, 1989; Sijuwade, 1995). In order for their strategies
to work, they must be able to manipulate, understand and coordinate
them with the games of men (Ronai and Ellis, 1989: 273). Overall, the
stripper–customer interaction is based on the stripper’s economic need and
the customer’s desire to enact feelings of masculinity and sexual fulfillment
(D’Andre, 1965; Jones, 1967; Liepe-Levinson, 1998; Salutin, 1971;
Skipper and McCaghy, 1970, 1976).
Confirming these findings of previous research, this study further
explores the false intimacy and sexual objectification created by strippers
and their customers. It explains how, in Meadian (1934) terms, strippers
employ significant symbols in order to assess their situation, take the role
of the other and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Unlike previous sex
work studies, this study analyses exotic dance from the theoretical
framework of a confidence game. Borrowing from Hochschild’s work
(1983) on emotional labour, it pays particular attention to strippers’ ‘feel-
ings’ management and describes how strippers keep customers controlled

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as well as content to give sizeable, continuous tips. Strippers are powerful

actors in the club. Yet their power comes from a sole advantage –
becoming a sexual ideal – and this role does not elicit such power in
mainstream social interactions and relations. While strippers uphold power
in their individual exchanges with patrons, their labour is perpetuated by
inequality and performed with negative social and psychological con-
sequences.

Methodology
Because the stripper–customer interaction is an intricate exchange of sex,
power and inequality that influences experiences both inside and outside
the club, I employed several techniques in order to collect data. I gathered
the information for this study through three main methods: (1) the six-
month participant observation of one of Hawaii’s strip clubs; (2)
unstructured interviews of exotic dancers; and (3) observation of dancers’
behaviour and interactions outside the strip club setting. I attended the
club varying nights of the week and recorded my observations
qualitatively. Because the club is a public bar occasionally attended by
women, my presence as a customer was inconspicuous. As with much field
research, information was collected through informal conversations with
customers and other employees of the club.
Altogether, 13 interviews were completed with three respondents; each
informant varied in age, race and marital status. Two of the dancers were
white, single and in their late 20s and one was a Japanese-Hawaiian
divorced mother of two in her early 30s. Each of the informants in the
study reported that a desperate financial situation preceded their first
exotic dance experience; they needed to earn a lot of money quickly.
Afterwards, they could not find other opportunities that pay as well as
exotic dance or that allow them as much freedom with their time. The
informants reported that they could not afford to quit.
To acquire different levels of reflection and retrospection of their
stripping experiences, I interviewed each informant in three different
settings: immediately following their dancing experiences, before they
were about to dance and during their days off. I also accompanied each
informant on at least two separate social occasions in order to examine
interaction and understand identity outside of the exotic dance environ-
ment. My primary informant assisted in the development of relationships
with other staff and customers. In addition to accompanying her on social
excursions, I interviewed this informant in the form of weekly casual con-
versations for two months, where exhaustive notes were taken. Her
insights provided a rich understanding of the social experiences, roles and
problems that occur both inside and outside the strip club. In addition to

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multiple interviewing, this informant also maintained a journal of her

dancing experiences, where she recorded the ‘confidence game’ performed
by herself and other players in the club.

The confidence game

While Western culture has often venerated the image of the confidence
man in theatre and literature, only a limited selection of academic research
has recognized the con game as a mode of organizing and manipulating
social interactions (Blum, 1972; Goffman, 1952; Leff, 1976; Leo, 1996;
Prus and Sharper, 1977; Schur, 1958). The confidence game is an act of
trust development, fake pretenses and duplicity in order to acquire some
kind of gain, usually monetary (Goffman, 1952; Leo, 1996; Schur, 1958).
The confidence game, like many acts of deception, is an assumption of
power; power over the victim is necessary in obtaining the desired item
(Schur, 1958: 299). The confidence person, or swindler, often enjoys the
development and exercise of power over their victims, repetitively proving
his or her cleverness and superiority (Blum, 1972: 13).
The confidence person manufactures a false social relationship and
develops rapport with the prospective victims, or ‘marks’, for the purpose
of exploiting them. Swindlers need to be likeable individuals. They are
skillful actors, who are unafraid of risks and well-versed in human nature.
Finally, they can and must change masks easily and frequently (Leo, 1996;
Schur, 1958). Using their ‘grift sense’ they are able to vary their
personalities, in order to entice the mark and keep him or her interested
(Leo, 1996: 264). They understand their victims well, appearing to be
similar and empathetic to them in many ways. Preying on the psycho-
logical vulnerabilities of their victims, con people ‘may rehearse and make
up different roles, draw on a repertoire of tricks, and adapt their
techniques to fit a particular event’ (Leo, 1996: 264). They continually
assess the situation and the behaviour of others and readjust their actions
accordingly. The fundamental message that all con people must effectively
deliver to their victims is this: do the transaction (Leff, 1976: 9). Swindlers
must convince their victims that the deal is not only believable and
desirable, but also a guaranteed bargain. The cost to the mark must seem
particularly low for the commodity or service they will receive.
Since the marks often believe they are shrewd individuals who could not
be taken by a con game (Goffman, 1952: 451), the confidence person
must be able to pacify and ‘cool out’ their victims. They keep their victims
from feeling conned or abused. As a cooler, the con person uses safeguards
and strategies to console marks and allow them careful and smooth adjust-
ment to the con. Swindlers are careful that their deceit is not discovered,
at least until after the con is completed. They ensure they are never caught

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lying. The cooler provides status for the mark – a redefinition of the self
along defensible lines that allow the mark to feel s/he is still a smart person
(Goffman, 1952). Once the con is over (and especially if it is realized), the
mark employs several techniques to deal with the exit from the false
relationship. The mark may joke or maintain an unserious nature to the
involvement. They may use the process of ‘hedging’, an assertion that s/he
was not completely taken by the con. Victims may also choose to keep the
involvement secret (Goffman, 1952: 460).
Goffman maintains that the risk-taking nature, structure and facades
performed by players in a confidence game also characterize ordinary
relations in everyday social life. In situations like courting, working and
dining out, social life becomes a series of manipulations, disguises and
interchangeable masks. In his look at detective work, Leo (1996) found
that the act of police interrogation closely resembles the sequence and
structure of a confidence game. Like swindlers, investigators are self-
confident, have predatory instincts, and can easily understand the infor-
mal social underpinnings of a given situation (Leo, 1996: 265). They are
able to appeal to the marks’s desires and to use their psychological and
interpersonal skills in order to obtain a confession. In the interrogation
‘con’ game, Leo witnessed the several stages that detectives use in order
to obtain a confession from a suspect. First, they ‘qualify’ the suspect by
sizing up both the facts known about the case and the suspect’s personal
qualities. They then ‘cultivate’ suspects by manipulating and persuading
them to go along with the interrogation. Investigators then ‘con’ the
suspects into a confession and ‘cool’ them out by getting them to believe
that confessing and taking responsibility for the crime was the best course
of action (Leo, 1996: 283).
As I will demonstrate, strippers also use this series of carefully
constructed interactions and manipulations. Strippers use different masks
and guises, falsify social relationships and vary social roles for monetary
gain. They are experienced emotional managers and excellent scholars of
human nature. It is through the strippers’ ability to qualify, cultivate, con
and cool out their marks that they are able to emulate many customers’
desires and keep them tipping.

The Hawaii study

The moment the customer nears the entrance of the strip club, the
confidence game begins. Outside the entrance, strippers walk around in
their lingerie or gowns, in order to entice potential marks to go into the
club. Closer to the entrance, customers are immediately greeted by a
bouncer who asks for their cover charge. The dancers frequently approach
the bouncer and offer affectionate exchanges. The customers see he is

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well-liked by the dancers and that he is equipped to maintain order in the

club. While these contacts seem to signal to patrons that he is someone
designated to enforce club rules, these actions are, for the most part, only
symbolic. The dancers and other wait staff must socialize the patrons to
the conventions of the club and ultimately they who are responsible for
maintaining control.
Once customers enter the club, they are immediately greeted by a male
waiter who asks their drink preference (one drink minimum); the waiter
then finds seating for the customer. Customers have the option of sitting
at the bar, in any of the booths that line the perimeter of the club or in
the tables and seats that line the stages. The club has three stages that, at
any given time, have eight to ten dancers on each of them. Legally,
customers are not allowed to touch the dancers, and, likewise, it is illegal
for strippers to touch customers. Lap dancing is illegal as well. As with
most strip clubs in Hawaii, this club has full nudity, and it makes its profits
through the sale of alcohol. The club’s clientele are mostly male tourists
and military, although female customers and local residents sometimes
come to the club.
Ostensibly, this exotic dance club provides a legal and available
environment where customers can have sexual fantasies generated and
intensified. Because customers’ fantasies differ, strippers carefully de-code
male behaviour to determine which sexual fantasy they are seeking.
Strippers perform emotional labour and induce and suppress feelings in
order to uphold the desired and appropriate outward countenance – sexual
enticement and fantasy simulation. Similar to the strippers discussed by
Ronai and Ellis (1989), the strippers in this exotic dance club must convey
feelings and perform activities that others feel and do privately – seduction
and sexual acts. Their sexual performance and turn-ons are not performed
in the personal context of ‘love’ or courtship.
Strippers possess freedom in managing their emotions and intimacy with
customers. The initial interview and hiring process is quite informal as
well. A potential dancer comes to the club, sits at the bar and demonstrates
to the bartender and manager how well she can flirt and banter. Manage-
ment then asks if she is interested in dancing, asks her to disrobe for an
examination of any unsightly scars or body weight, and then tells her to
‘sink or swim’ (get up on stage and dance). The club has few ‘feeling’ rules
– rules as to which emotions will be offered or restrained in the club. The
main (and vague) feeling rule which management expresses is to direct as
much attention as possible to tipping and drink-buying customers:
employees must limit breaks or free time, mask fatigue and eliminate any
fighting amongst themselves. Precisely how strippers manage their social
encounters with customers, though, is up to them.

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Qualifying the mark

After the customer encounters the bouncer and enters the club, the
customer becomes a mark for the stripper. While she is the primary
confidence person in the game, male waiters also participate in the con for
a share of the tips. They will encourage and pressure customers to exper-
ience a dance from the stripper. A customer may decline close interaction
with a stripper; they then will remain seated at the bar that is in the back
of the club and away from the stages. Often customers who sit at the bar
are returning customers who understand the game and choose not to play
it. If a customer sits at the booths that line the club or in a chair along the
stage, he becomes a mark.
The customers do not need to fight for the attention of the stripper.
There are as many as 20 strippers on stage at a given time. Conversely, the
dancer must entice the customer and try to obligate him to sit in front of
her on the stage. To qualify the mark, strippers ‘work up’ the emotional
process of titillation and sexual desire – warmth, attention, lust, interest,
attraction, availability, wanting. They do not merely ‘surface’ act, where
facial expressions and body postures always seem fake, contrived and
disingenuous. They do not continuously and consciously remind
themselves ‘this is just an act’. Rather, strippers seek to act authentically,
not by pretending to be a sexual object but rather by becoming one.
Strippers use this ‘deep acting’ when they create emotions that seem
sincere and spontaneous, even though they are covertly managed.
Through their dress, language and movements, they produce ‘real’ acts of
seduction and intimacy; they become sexual provocateurs. Through
careful communication and display work, strippers construct and maintain
seemingly genuine relations with their customers.1
Strippers in this exotic dance club utilize different styles of stripping and
different ways of dancing. Each of the dancers have various ways of
presenting themselves and are of different ages, sizes and ethnicities; over
half of the dancers claim to be under the age of 21. Each stripper draws
on her sense of self to create a sexually desirable object for the customer.
Strippers shave themselves differently, bear different tattoos and call them-
selves by different pseudonyms. Some are dominatrixes; some are in
bikinis; others wear long, sheer lingerie gowns. The stripper’s display – her
dress (sheer evening gown, lingerie, bikini or leather underwear), her
make-up, her dance and her hair – all create the effect of different ‘sex
objects’ for the customer. All also represent an image that corresponds to
mainstream masculine versions of sexual fantasies.
In sizing up their marks, strippers decide which customers are likely to
be good tippers and try to charm them into a dance. Strippers try to entice
those customers they believe will be desirable victims and respond to their

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advances. Looking uncertain of the obligations of the club or, conversely,

wandering the club with bills in hand, are signs of easy marks. The stripper
knows that these customer types can be good marks. They are likely
ignorant of the club’s structure and can be easily conned into tipping.
Conversely, they may know the game and be willing to play it. Some
customers may be more difficult to qualify and, subsequently, con. To
avoid difficult swindles, strippers will frequently ask for a tip before
showing any nudity for customers who do not present cash in front of
them. The stripper does this in order to teach the customer that he must
tip continuously during the performance. One dancer explains both how
this works and how it can go wrong:
I had a tourist one time who sat down in front of me and didn’t have a stack of
money in front of him so I knew this was going to be tough. He motioned for
me to spread my legs. I pulled my garter and he tipped. So I continued my act
and removed my bikini bottoms. He continually tried to kiss my inner thigh. I
kept pushing his head away but he kept trying. Finally he . . . grabbed me and
kissed my crotch. I punched him right in his . . . nose and knocked him off his
chair. [Security] came and took him away. He was back the next night but, man,
he came nowhere near me.
Using her presentation of self, her dance, eye contact and snapshots of
nudity, the stripper will entice the customer to sit in front of her. For those
customers who appear hesitant, a male waiter will approach them and
promote a dance, asking ‘isn’t she pretty . . . wouldn’t you like a closer
look?’ Once the customer sits in front of a dancer, the con begins.

Cultivating the mark

The stripper plays two primary roles in order to cultivate the mark: (1) as
sex object for the customer; and (2) an impersonator of ‘counterfeit
intimacy’.2 When a customer takes a seat in front of a stripper on stage
and makes eye contact with her, the stripper begins her dance and signals
her expectations. She uses flattery and other emotional appeals in order to
negate any refusals or unwillingness the customer may express. She also
does this in order to develop ‘trust’ between her and the mark. The dancer
fosters a trust that she will provide him intimacy and sexual gratification
at an insignificant cost. A stripper may remove a small piece of clothing
and offer a quick peak at her breast. If a preview of her nudity is given,
the stripper insists on a tip.
The tip is the primary significant gesture in the strip club. Whereas the
average tip from a customer is usually only a dollar, it is the frequency of
tipping the dancers aim to increase. The stripper lets the customer know
that for the sexual pleasure to continue, he must be willing to give a

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monetary reward. The dancer, having a sixth sense or ‘grift sense’ about
men’s sex fantasies, tries different sexual poses, pulling the garter as she
finishes each movement. She analyzes the customer’s movements,
responses and demeanor in order to detect his preferences and weaknesses.
Finding a position and type of dance the customer likes, the stripper will
disguise fatigue and/or irritation and repeat those movements which
reaped her the biggest tip. Likewise, if the customer discontinues tipping,
the stripper will discontinue her act.
For the stripper and the customer, the principal significant symbol which
aids in this social interaction is the garter. When a stripper pulls her garter,
the customer must be trained that this is a signal that he is to tip her. For
the dance to continue, the customer must understand the significance of
the gesture. If the customer ignores the garter pull, the stripper may offer
an affectionate touch and pull her garter again. Or, she may stand up, put
her clothes back on, and lure another customer. One informant illustrates
the importance of the garter pull:
Knowing when to pull the garter is truly a talent. If you pull it too much or too
soon, you could turn a customer off. If you don’t pull it enough, you look easy,
and then you have to work that much harder to get your money. The key is to
show a little, you know, entice, and then pull it every time you touch yourself,
or push something in their face, or reveal something. The best customers are
those who have the stack of bills ready to go. You know they are ready and eager
to tip. Those are the good ones.
The garter also represents the symbol of success for the stripper. A
garter full of money is a symbol to other customers that the stripper per-
forms a good act and is worth watching. Having the most tip money in a
garter is the gesture strippers use to show they are the ‘best’ ones in the
club. In addition, the money-packed garter also serves as a source of
tension between strippers. One dancer explains:
We all know that showing off your tip money is the way to get customers to
think you’re good. But if you never have an off night and are always showing
off your garter of money, the girls [other strippers] will start watching, and if
you’re doing sex acts – you know, penetrating yourself or something that most
of us won’t do cause it’s gross – well, forget getting a friend in here.

Conning the mark

After the stripper attracts the customer to her and cultivates him to the
expectations of tipping, the con continues. She cons the mark into
surrendering significant amounts of tip money. She assures the customer
that, in order to receive sexual satisfaction, it is in his best interest to tip
her; the satisfaction is indeed worth its price. Language is of key

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importance at this stage of the strip act. The stripper will flirt, tease and
joke with the customer to see what level of emotional intimacy is required
to con this particular customer: does she merely need to display her nude
body or does this customer want a more intimate and personal experience,
one that includes emotion and conversation?
Strippers quickly decide which role will furnish them the greatest tips –
to be a sex object, devoid of facial expression or emotion, or to be the
intimate partner. The stripper reads the behaviour of the customer and acts
accordingly. Because of past emotion memories (memories that recall
feelings), strippers are able to respond appropriately to customers’ stimuli
and are able to understand a customer’s desires. Knowing when to act
seductive, when to remain still and simply be nude, when to shock a shy
customer with a sudden revelation of nudity and when to be talkative,
come from a dancer’s ability to decode men’s sexual wishes. If a customer
presents a stack of dollar bills, sits back in his seat and gives no verbal
response to the stripper’s flirtations, the stripper knows this attitude and
decides he would like a less intimate strip act to begin. In this situation,
the stripper would react to the customer’s response by performing the act
with less conversation and more concentration on the provocative removal
of her clothes. One informant illustrates:
Men come here for many reasons – some want a sexy girlfriend for the night;
some want to see a fantasy, a sex object; some want a therapist; and others just
want to stare [at your body] – they couldn’t care less what my face or anything
else looks like. They couldn’t care less if you dance . . . nothing exotic about it.
They just want to see my [nudity]. So . . . I’ll be the girlfriend, the counselor,
the playmate, the object – whatever. I don’t care. Just keep it [the money]
coming.

Although strippers are supposed to remain behind the stage’s black line
that separates the seated customer from the stripper, strippers frequently
ignore the law and increase their proximity to the customer. Illegal physical
touching is acceptable in the club as long as the strippers employ it (i.e.
are being tipped) and as long as the liquor commission is absent. The main
source of social control within the club lies with the liquor commission.
The commission, which has the power to investigate clubs and shut them
down if the club operates illegally, often sends agents to the club to investi-
gate illegal activity. If an agent is identified as he walks through the door,
the bartender sounds a bell and all strippers stop their acts and stand in
the middle of the stage behind the black line. Because of the fear that a
customer may touch them and that the agent will see it and fine the club
and the stripper, all strip dancers remain behind the black line until another
bell is sounded, so as to signal that it is acceptable for them to continue
their acts. One dancer explains:

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It is such a joke. Guys touch us all the time. That’s how we get the tips. A little
touch here. A shove in your face there. But when the liquor commission comes
in everything stops and we have to stand in the middle of the stage just so there
is no . . . chance any guy will touch us. One night I was in the middle of the
stage for two . . . hours.
In the absence of the liquor commission, strippers may touch the
customer, press their breasts or other body parts against his face, or place
their feet on his shoulders, as they lie on the stage and simulate sexual
intercourse. They may allow the customer to touch them or kiss their
personal body parts. They may perform pelvic thrusts within inches of the
customer’s face and touch themselves while doing so. Strippers carefully
use physical space, their appearance, cigarettes and sex acts – sexual
touching and masturbation – to deceive the customer into accepting the
pseudo closeness and staged attention of the strip act.
The confidence game varies, according to customer’s preferences and
vulnerabilities. Unsure of the cost, some come to see the nude bodies of
women and to be sexually aroused by the dancers’ performance of the strip
act. Some men come to acquire the attention of a beautiful woman and
to have that woman listen to his problems and his life stories. For those
customers who desire a more intimate interaction with the stripper, the
stripper creates an atmosphere of physical as well as emotional connect-
edness to the customer. The increased amount of interaction, the range of
interaction and the intensity of emotion ensure that the interaction reflects
counterfeit intimacy, an inauthentic relation (see Foote, 1954). In order
to create this environment, the stripper compliments the customer and
whispers comments in his ear which make the customer feel special and
important. All the while she physically touches the customer and main-
tains close proximity. The stripper will perform sexual poses as she com-
plements her sexual movements with hugs and light kisses. Once again,
for the act to continue, the customer has to tip.
For men who are looking for conversation, the stripper creates intimacy
in a different way. Instead of a strip act, the stripper will sit with the
customer and have a drink with him. Often the customer will furnish the
stripper with free cigarettes or an occasional token of affection, such as a
cheap bracelet. The stripper will listen to his stories and become his com-
panion and sometimes his confessor for the night. She will often create a
fictitious background for herself, which she tells all the customers. One
respondent demonstrates:
I often tell people I am a student, which I am. I will tell them I am a med student
or a law student, though. The guys who want a ‘girlfriend’ – they want you to
be more than just a stripper. They want you to be a sex object but to have an
interesting personal life, too. So I tell them something and this makes them feel
special and they keep buying me drinks.

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Drawing on emotional memories, the stripper will create a persona

which will fulfill for the customer the desired feeling he has come to the
club to acquire. The stripper will pretend that she could potentially
become his girlfriend and carry out the customer’s desired image, such as
college student, professional dancer, dominatrix or an innocent. The
stripper continues to create this level of intimacy as long as the customer
continuously and repeatedly buys her drinks. Each drink a customer has
with a stripper costs 20 dollars. Often the male waiters serve as ‘pseudo-
pimps’ and arrange the drinks between strippers and customers. For their
part, the waiters receive half the cost of the drink as a tip. They are also
the ones responsible for collecting the cost and cooling the customer out.

Cooling out
Cooling out the mark becomes necessary when tipping becomes less
frequent. Strippers want the customer to believe she had genuine interest
in him, that he is worthy of her sexual display and advances. Strippers must
shy away from their dance and yet make the mark unmindful of the con:
he must stay to buy alcohol and other dances. Positive reinforcement is
often used by strippers in their exit from the con. The dancer may take a
well-paying mark to a booth for a drink and require the waiter to collect
the fee. She may also end her performance by replacing her clothing while
offering a hug and smile. She may also cool the mark out by referring him
to another dancer who will then begin attracting him to her sexual mys-
tique. Occasionally, well-paying customers are offered a back-room table
dance for an established fee. Some dancers are reluctant to exit the con
this way. The back-room is a private place and a source of vulnerability for
the dancer. She could lose the power negotiation and be victimized.
If a customer wishes to see the dancer socially outside the club, the
dancer most often refuses and the trust is violated. The confidence game
becomes obvious to the customer: the dancer is not sexually or socially
interested in him, despite the high cost paid. To cool these customers out,
the stripper pacifies the mark by stating that she does not date customers
or that it is against the law for her to go home with him. Appealing to a
legal authority or universal rule keeps the customers from feeling abused.
Other exits from the dance require a quick ending. Strippers have
freedom to cool out their marks with force. The primary ‘feeling’ offense
to a dancer is a customer’s initiation of hostility. If customers who violate
the emotional rules through a display of unfriendliness towards the
stripper, the dancer has the latitude to respond to the customer; she may
respond with anger and aggressive actions. Any indication of hostility or
rejection by the customer, either through degrading language or through
inappropriate touching (such as repeated touches which the dancer has

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warned the customer to stop), will result in the stripper terminating her
act. In some cases, the stripper may react violently or ask security to
remove the patron. Because the club is continuously busy, these actions
are performed without consequence for the stripper. Some customers may
actually be enticed by a display of ‘toughness’.

Consequences of the con game

Money and personal satisfaction are features of exotic dance that keep the
dancers returning to their work. Strippers typically earn more than 300
dollars in tips and wages for a ‘good’ night of dancing – many customers
who tip frequently. Regardless of tips received, the club pays each dancer
80 dollars for her labour. Dancing enables strippers to earn quick amounts
of unreported cash, while freeing up their days to pursue other interests
and obligations, such as school, parenting or other employment. In
addition, the emotional power, attention and feelings of desirability gener-
ated by the dancers in the club environment are occasional positive aspects
of their work. One dancer illustrates:
When some rich tourist or celebrity comes into the club and they want you to
dance for them, well, you can’t help but feel beautiful . . . sexy, exotic. That ain’t
too bad.
While the confidence game in exotic dance produces some personal and
financial gain, strippers experience considerable social and psychological
costs that diminish their feelings of power when they leave the stage.
The emotional sex work exotic dancers perform creates difficulties in
their daily lives. Because many dancers must disassociate themselves from
their sexual acts, few strippers show genuine intimacy for a customer or
form any relationships with marks outside of the club. While strippers must
draw on their sense of self in order to be an exotic dancer, many conceal
their real selves in order to create the emotional tone of the strip club. In
order to conceal their real feelings and to disguise any exhaustion, many
dancers admit to using alcohol, methamphetamines and/or marijuana
before getting up on stage. In addition, few strippers interact with
boyfriends or husbands at the club and most discourage any mixture of
false and genuine intimacy. The stripper–customer interaction is, for the
most part, based on a false intimacy, a depersonalization of the sexual
experience. Because of this, many strippers admit feelings of estrangement
and emotional dissonance, a disturbance and strain between what they feel
in private sexual acts and in their sexual displays for profit. Strippers
acknowledge feelings of ‘burnout’ and cynicism. One dancer comments:
If you work in this business long enough, you can get pretty hard and
weathered, and your own sex life can get less and less fun. Boyfriends always

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hate it and whine about why ‘you can’t give them a show’. Dancing naked is
hard work. It makes your body sore, tired and you just get burned out. . . .

Exhausted from calculated pseudo-sexual activity, stripping actually

inhibits women’s own exploration of their sexuality and sexual pleasure.
Due to their constant manipulation and management of the sex-object
role, many strippers discover that non-sexual interaction outside the club
can be problematic and confusing. They continue to relate to others on
manipulative sexual terms, as objects of sexual desire. Aware that a stigma
is attached to their deviant profession, strippers try to hide their occu-
pation once outside the club, while simultaneously tapping sex as their
source of power. Overtly wielding sex for power in daily life has two
important consequences for the dancers. First, they discover their power
is confined to the club’s environment and does not readily translate into
daily life. Second, they tend to be embarrassed by their occupation and,
as a consequence, become socially isolated, particularly from other
women.
Strippers often claimed to feel vulnerable as sex objects in daily life.
Much more than other women, they fear they are potential victims, and
this fear is frequent, heightened and intense. While dancers may have the
power to pick and cultivate customers in the club, their power ends with
their departure from the dance stage. Dancers feel particularly susceptible
as they leave the club or when they offer back-room dances. They fear that
customers who never realized the exotic dance was a confidence game may
be waiting to request or force a date or sexual experience from them. One
informant explains:
I always have to be careful when I leave the club. I always take different ways
home. Customers who really believe you like them or want them, you know as
boyfriends or something, could wait for you to leave. They may follow you
home or something. Or they could put rufies [rhohypnol] in your drinks.
There’s always that fear. One time we had a dancer assaulted at a 7–11 by a
customer. . . . It freaked us all out. . . .
Identification and relationships with other women can become prob-
lematic for the dancers. Unconsciously using language that separates them
from other women, strippers refer to themselves as ‘girls’ and female out-
siders as ‘women’ or a derogatory term. Strippers understand that many
women do not utilize sex and power in the same fashion as they do.
Additionally, many women do not embody images of the female ideal –
the beautiful erotic – as strippers do. This experience – to work a deviant
occupation that requires a highly sexualized presentation of self – isolates
exotic dancers from the activities, sexuality and social relations of other
women.
Female customers present a special challenge to the stripper. Strippers

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have limited experiences to draw upon in dealing with the female

customer. Uncertain of the desires of female customers, strippers cannot
initiate the same confidence game. Often the stripper must modify and
readjust her behaviour, according to the actions of the female customer.
Women come to the club for three main reasons. Women may escort men
and sit by their side at the stage or in the booths during dance perform-
ances. If a female customer appears shy and timid and is accompanying a
male date, the stripper may choose to shock her or try to ease her dis-
comfort through soothing or good-humoured language. Some women
come to the club to experience the same sexual stimulation as men,
although these women are uncommon. If the female customer sits at the
stage with other female customers and appears tip-ready, the stripper will
assume she desires a show as any male patron would. She enacts a similar
confidence game. Women also come to the club for potential job
opportunities. If female patrons appear in similar dress as the dancers do
and sit at the bar, the waiters and strippers infer she is looking for
mployment at the club.
Occasionally strippers will trade marks. If a stripper dances for a high
tipper, she may try to bring another dancer into the game who can also
benefit from the mark. Consequently, if a stripper notices a customer did
not tip another dancer frequently, she may refuse to dance for him as well.
While there is this exchange among them, some dancers, especially those
who will not incorporate sex acts into their con game, detach themselves
from the ‘nasty’ girls who dance. One dancer illustrates:
If I’m having an easy night with a good tipper, I’ll try to bring another girl into
it. Let her get some of the action, too. Or if I get a guy who’s buying me drink
after drink, I’ll ask another girl to sit with us and get him to buy her a drink,
too. But I won’t bring a nasty one in. I don’t want them [customers] to think
I’ll do that [sex act] for a tip. . . . We always say that to each other. Ooooh look
at her. . . . she’s nasty. Gross.

Conclusion
The stripper–customer interaction is a complicated mixture of manip-
ulation and control of emotions and communication. Strippers must ‘con
and cool out’ their customers in order to keep both pleasure and tips high.
They must realize their customers’ needs and imagine how the customer
will react to their movements. It is through the stripper’s ability to be both
subject and object that she is able to counterfeit intimacy and create herself
as a sex object. Crucial to the success of the stripper is her ability to
understand male sexual desires and to anticipate male behaviour. In order
for her to respond in numerous ways to a customer’s varying sexual

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preferences, strippers must possess a plurality of selves. They must be able

to monitor their own actions and change their strip act accordingly. In
addition, customers are able to communicate with the stripper through a
mutual understanding of the significant symbols: the tip and the garter.
For a stripper to acquire as many tips as she can, she must be continuously
aware of all potential marks.
Dancers are experienced suppliers of sexuality and utmost feminine
attention; they direct the social, sexual act for economic gain. They have
freedom and power in their individual performances and presentations.
Consistent with previous research (Ronai and Ellis, 1989; Sijuwade,
1995), this research has found that the two primary roles enacted by the
exotic dancer are the pseudo-girlfriend and the sex object. Strippers must
nurture pseudo-relationships and false personas in order to satisfy
customers’ needs for attention. Through their precise control over
emotions and symbolic communication, strippers continually read the
meaning of customers’ conduct – ‘the glances of an eye and the attitude
of the body’ – in order to complete the confidence game.
While the confidence game gives them power in their individual
interactions with customers, this power does not extend into the outside
world. Strippers are cognizant of the consequences of their choice of
profession: the victimization, stigmatization and isolation. Because they
continually enact the role of sex object, strippers often lose facility with
other alternative, non-sexual identities, and they begin to access their sex
object personas in non-work related relationships. They become estranged
from genuine emotions and real feelings of pleasure and sexuality. As a
consequence, the stripping experience is not a liberating experience. The
sexual persona the dancers must construct is of someone who can be easily
dominated – a young, available, naked ‘girl’. This role reflects and
reinforces the inequality in gender power relations that exist beyond the
club. It responds to patriarchal understandings of female sexuality and
femininity and does not challenge mainstream conceptions of masculinity
(see Segal, 1997; Nead, 1997).
For the male customers, the stripping experience initially seems to
provide opportunities to enact masculinity by using economic power to
achieve emotional and sexual intimacy. The setting of the club reinforces
the general social construction of women as ubiquitously available sex
objects, despite the fact that dancers actually maintain a certain form of
power in their particularized interaction. It is power, though, that does
not really challenge male authority, and ultimately embeds even the con
woman in stigmatizing, exhausting and dangerous work. The money may
be good, but the social consequences for the women are profound.
The impact of participating in stripping cons would also be worth
exploring. As men are immersed with carefully scripted contexts and

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images of seemingly available but realistically unattainable beautiful

women, their performance in other personal relationships, especially with
their female partners, may become affected. The mixture and confusion of
the genuine and the counterfeit could influence men’s understandings of,
not only their own sexuality and of femininity, but also those attributes of
their partners. The sexual objectification and commodification of women
reinforces notions of possession, authority and aggression in masculinity.
How these masculine elements are negotiated, contested and internalized
by men as they visit sites of constructed sexuality requires further ex-
ploration.

Notes
1. See Hochschild (1983) for original discussion of ‘deep acting’ in the
emotional labour performed by flight attendants.
2. These are similar findings to Ronai and Ellis (1989) and Boles and Garbin
(1974). See these works for further explanation of counterfeit intimacy in the
strip act.

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Biographical Note
Lisa Pasko received her MA in sociology from the University of Nevada, Reno,
and is currently a sociology PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa. In addition to studies on gender and sex work, her research interests
include understanding the role of masculinities and honour in gang membership
and consequent violent activity, particularly among male youth. Address:
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Sociology Department, 2424 Maile Way #247,
Honolulu HI 96822. [email: pasko@hawaii.edu]

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