• discussions >
• Front Room

Academic studies of strip clubs

chitownlawyer

Florida

I once said that "some one" should do a serious study of strip clubs...perhaps from the viewpoint of psychology or sociology. A little time on the Intenet shows that MANY people have done such studies...there are numerous papers by doctoral candidates and junior faculty members in social sciences studying our favorite hobby. A review of these paper shows that women authors have the advantage, as going "undercover" as a dancer is so common as almost to be required, and is perhaps even a little trite.

The interesting thing about these papers is how many of them are written from the viewpoint of "isn't it interesting that men will spend so much time and money on an encounter with a woman that doesn't involve sexual satisfaction?" The studies could have been written by any number of regulars on the Pink Site. I suppose that this is, in part, of function of the number of female academics writing these papers as an "undercover investigator." If you are a 20/30 something graduate student or assistant professor, you certainly aren't going to submit a paper saying that you spent your sabbatical giving hand jobs in a strip club, and here is what you learned from it. But the overall tone of these studies is quite naive, from my point of view.