Drawing upon insights from ethnographic research with women erotic dancers, customers and management, this talk seeks to ascertain how far a UK lesbian leisure venue, ‘Lippy’ , which provides erotic dance for women customers, can transcend heteronormative sexual and gender roles for women. Utilising feminist theory, together with insights from queer theory, provides theoretical grounding for this analysis to be made. The paper begins with a discussion of the sexual-social political background behind the leisure venue’s origin, before turning to consider the venue in its contemporary manifestation. In doing so, the political and pleasurable implications of women’s experiences of performing within and spectating at a lesbian strip show are explored. In particular, three issues are taken for closer analysis. First, Katy questions to what extent heteronormative prescriptions for femininity can be challenged through the construction of and interactions between gendered and sexualised bodies in the venue; second, she critically interrogates customers’ conceptions of Lippy as a ‘women’s space’, and consider which/whose bodies are seen as ‘out of place’ within this notion; and, lastly, she analyses the potential for both women customers and dancers to exercise a sexual ‘gaze’ within this leisure venue. These issues all provide scope for thinking through how heteronormativity is negotiated and potentially challenged in certain erotic dance moments and interactions. Overall, this paper suggests the need for a more complex consideration of women’s engagement with erotic dance spaces, which includes an examination of the links between exercising sexual agency and negotiating gendered power relations.

Speaker Biography

Dr Katy Pilcher is a Lecturer in Sociology at Aston University. Katy has completed research projects relating to erotic dance, sex work, and ageing and everyday life. She is an editorial board member of Sociological Research Online and served as an executive committee member of the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association UK and Ireland for six years. Katy has published within International Journal of Social Research Methodology; Sexualities; Sociological Research Online; Leisure Studies; Journal of International Women’s Studies; and she recently co-edited Queer Sex Work (2015, Routledge, with Mary Laing and Nicola Smith), which brings together insights from sex workers, academics, practitioners and activists. Her research monograph Erotic Performance and Spectatorship: New Frontiers in Erotic Dance is forthcoming with Routledge.